Stone Age Egypt

By around 10000 BC, Egypt had gotten crowded enough so that people were forced to begin growing their own food instead of only hunting and gathering it. About the same time, agriculture was also getting started in West Asia. Probably people have always known how to grow plants from seeds, but they preferred to just go out and pick wild food. But when there got to be enough people, the wild food didn't grow enough to feed everyone, and people had to begin planting their own as well. This is known as the Agricultural Revolution.

For more about Stone Age Egypt, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:

The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, by Ian Shaw (2002).

History of Ancient Egypt: An Introduction, by Erik Hornung (1999). A college textbook. On the conservative side - not much on new developments.

Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture, by William H. Stiebing (2002). Expensive for a paperback, but brief and very up to date. And yes, it includes Egypt in the Near East.

Old Kingdom (2686-2160 BC)
First Intermediate Period (2160-2040 BC)
Middle Kingdom (2040-1633 BC)
Second Intermediate Period (1786-1558 BC)
New Kingdom (1558-1085 BC)
Third Intermediate Period (1085-525 BC)
Persian rule (525-332 BC)
Greek rule (332-30 BC) (also called the Hellenistic)
Roman rule (30 BC-700 AD)
Islamic rule (700 AD to present)