The room features plaster casts of cultural and artistic monuments of Ancient Egypt dated back to the Early Dynastic Period, the Old Kingdom, and the Middle Kingdom.
According to the ancient Egyptian priest Manetho, the history of Ancient Egypt was divided into three periods, or kingdoms – the Old Kingdom (first half of the 3rd millennium BC), the Middle Kingdom (end of the 3rd – first quarter of the 2nd millennium BC), and the New Kingdom (middle and the second half of the 2nd millennium BC). The time after that was called the Late Period and lasted from the 1st millennium BC until the Roman invasion. Time gaps between the Kingdoms are usually called Intermediate Periods, and shorter periods that coincide with the reign of certain kings are named dynasties. In total, Egypt had 30 dynasties.
The room on the first floor features plaster casts from the monuments created during the Old and Middle Kingdoms. The only exclusion is the so-called Rosetta Stone (on the wall to the left from the entrance) that is dated back to the reign of Ptolemy V (3rd century BC). Rosetta Stone is a block of granite with a text of the king's decree written in three languages. It helped the French scientist Francois Champollion find a key to the deciphering of the Egyptian hieroglyphs.
The Old Kingdom was the period of wealth and grandeur of the state. However, in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC the powers of the king started to weaken, and different internal forces started to tear Egypt apart. The country soon split up into several parts (nomes), and the Valley of the Nile was united only in the end of the millennium. From this time the Middle Kingdom began.