Ancient Egypt was a place.
Ancient Egypt . It is one of six historic civilizations to arise independently . Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC ( according to conventional Egyptian chronology ) with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh , Narmer ( commonly referred to as Menes ) . The history of ancient Egypt occurred as a series of stable kingdoms , separated by periods of relative instability known as Intermediate Periods : the Old Kingdom of the Early Bronze Age , the Middle Kingdom of the Middle Bronze Age and the New Kingdom of the Late Bronze Age . This Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC , when , under Cleopatra , it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province . The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture .