Interactive learning platform

The History of the Pharaohs

From the first petty kings on the Nile to the last female pharaoh: more than 450 rulers, around 200 images from museums all over the world, a timeline of the eras with their achievements, and a quiz at four levels, from beginner to expert.

What does ‘Horuspedia’ mean?

The name combines Horus with the ending ‘-pedia’, as in encyclopaedia: a reference work. Horus was the falcon-headed sky god of the ancient Egyptians and the divine protector of kingship. Every pharaoh was regarded as the ‘living Horus’, the god in human form. That is why the oldest royal title was the Horus name, and why, in Egyptian belief, anyone who became king ascended the ‘Horus Throne of the Living’. Horuspedia, then, is the reference work on the pharaohs.

Explore the timeline Start the quiz

3,700 years to scale

Timeline of the Periods

Each period is drawn as wide as it lasted. The diamonds mark achievements. Select a period or a diamond to see details, capitals and the most important rulers.

unified kingdom Intermediate Period: country divided, several centres of power

Portraits of the best known

Famous Pharaohs

Ten rulers and monuments you should know, each with a more detailed text. You’ll find all the others in the ‘All Pharaohs’ directory.

From the first petty kings to the Roman emperors

All Pharaohs

The complete directory, based on the German-language Wikipedia list and translated into English: more than 450 rulers. Tap a name for the image, throne name and background.

Dates follow the Egyptologists Thomas Schneider and Wolfgang Helck, with the dating according to Jürgen von Beckerath in brackets. Before about 700 BC, dates differ by years or even decades depending on the source, and in the Early Dynastic Period sometimes by considerably more. Many kings of the Intermediate Periods are known only from fragmentary king lists. Rival pharaoh means that he claimed the throne at the same time as another ruler. High Priests and God’s Wives of Amun were not pharaohs, but at times held power equal to a king’s in Thebes. The list comes from Wikipedia and is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; the source and terms are given under Image credits & licences.

with image only

Statues, reliefs, masks and coins

Portrait Gallery

All the rulers for whom a freely licensed image exists. For early kings this is often no more than their name in an inscription or a seal, because portraits in the modern sense only appear from the Old Kingdom onwards.

Faith, death & writing

Culture & Everyday Life

The pharaohs did not rule in a vacuum — religion, the cult of the dead and writing shaped the entire kingdom.

Test your knowledge

Quiz — four levels

Choose a level that matches what you already know, or take the picture quiz to see whether you can recognise the pharaohs from their portraits. Your best score is saved on this device.

Your learning so far

Progress

An overview of your best results so far at each level (saved on this device only).

Who owns what

Image credits & licences

All images on this site are in the public domain or released under a free licence that also permits commercial use. Here you can see, for every image, who created it and under what terms it is used.

Texts

All other texts (periods, achievements, portraits, culture, quiz questions) were written for this site with AI assistance and checked against specialist sources.

Images

What counts in each case is the licence of the photograph, not that of the ancient object. ‘Public domain’ here means: released by the photographer, or the term of protection has demonstrably expired. The images have only been reduced in size. ‘CC BY-SA’ means that the image itself may only be passed on under the same licence.

Fonts

Cinzel, Literata and Oswald are licensed under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 (Literata, Oswald). They are included in the site. Nothing is loaded from third-party servers when you open it.

Privacy

This site sets no cookies, uses no analytics or advertising services and loads nothing from third-party servers. Only your best quiz score is kept in your browser’s storage; it never leaves your device.

All image credits in detail

Author, licence, source

Image	Author	Licence	Source on Wikimedia Commons	Modifications

For reference

Periods and rulers on pages of their own

Every period and every ruler has a page of its own with a profile and historical context.

Predynastic Period & Dynasty 0 Early Dynastic Period Old Kingdom First Intermediate Period Middle Kingdom Second Intermediate Period New Kingdom Third Intermediate Period Late Period Greco-Roman Period All 447 rulers