It's all relative, mummy

Some combinations are pretty much irresistible.� Like with me, it would be movies and Egypt. So there I was watching a fairly recent release at the cinema. And something just didn't quite feel right.

I know these are supposed to be� fun, shallow movies, but one thing did stick out. I thought I saw the Scorpion King go running past a pyramid. Mmm. That's interesting. Said Mr Scorpion was doing his stuff about 600 years before those large 4-sided 3-dimensional triangles were even built.

It's a bit like watching King Henry's VIII's youngster, Elizabeth and seeing the lovely Cate B go hurtling past the Melbourne Cricket Ground and hanging a left into Punt road.

Pedantic? Almost certainly. But it did remind me of my own trip to Egypt.� I had gone there blissfully unaware (spin doctor talk for completely and utterly ignorant) of� the real history. In my mind it was, you know, Pyramids, Cleopatra and King Tut.� Never realising I had just spanned over 2000 years with one small, dismissive sentence.

As I studied more, people began to ask me why I was so fascinated by The Land of the Pharaohs.� Besides their achievements per se, it was also the span of the civilisation that intrigued me.

To put it into perspective, I created a simple table.� I started with the accepted rise of Egypt (Scorpion King) and made this Year 0.�� It would be interesting to draw parallels with our 'modern' civilisation, so I added another column with what had happened at the equivalent time from Year 0. For the modern world I chose 0 AD as Year 0.

I ended with the fall of Egypt, arguably when Nero took over, not long after Cleopatra.

Ancient Egyptian Event		Relative	"Modern" Equivalent
3150 BC	�'Scorpion King'� - Narmer?	0	0 AD: Christianity Starts
	Bureaucracy begins	269
	Old Kingdom starts	464
2643 BC	First Pyramid�� �('Step Pyramid')	507	Buddhism starts
2560 BC	Great Pyramid	590
	Middle Kingdom starts	1110	~ Battle of Hastings
	New Kingdom Starts	1580	~ Columbus
1334 BC	Tutankhamun	1816	Napoleon
	Ramesses II	1871	US Civil War
51 BC	Cleopatra	3099	over 1000 years from now
41 AD	Nero�	3191

How about that. A civilisation that lasted over 3000 years.� In the equivalent world, Cleopatra would not be around for another 1000 years from now.�� Y3K anyone?