Manetho and the History of Egypt

Abstract

Under the royal commission by Ptolemy II, Manetho – an Egyptian priest in the temple of Re in Heliopolis – wrote in Greek a history of Egypt (Aegyptiaca). This original text has been lost but its quotations by posterior authors such as Flavius Josephus (1st century), Julius Africanus (2nd-3rd centuries), Eusebius of Caesarea (3rd-4th centuries) and George Syncellus (8th century) help us to understand the historiographical work undergone by the ancient Egyptian scholar who, in many ways, paved the way for modern Egyptologists.