A rise in urbanism started in this periord too. The people maved from their small settlements in the country to larger communities and cities. There were several key factors, that varied from region to region, that influenced this process of urbanisation:
* The relocations might have been forced by the government. In earlier socities, the process of urbanisation started with a stronger hierarchical structure.
* In the case of Hierakonopolis, one of the most important cities in the Late Predynastic Egypt, changes in the natural environment might have caused it.
* The societ was evolving beyond the agriculture stage and required specialised craftsmen, traders, and other killed people.
* A growth in population might have encouraged smaller settlements to extend and merge into one community.
It is hard to determine the actual beginning to the Early Dynastic Period. It's an acumulation of an on-going sultural, political, and religious evolution.
The first human king that ruled over Egypt was a man named Menes. He unified the Upper and Lower Egypt and was considered to be the first kind of the First Dynasty. In the Turin King list and the Manetho, Menes follows a long list of gods and demi-gods that rules before him. On the Palermo Stone it shows that there were many rulers before him. Scientiests are finding different sources that intimate that powerful leaders in Middle and Upper Egypt already extended their influence to Lower Egypt.
Some scientists, or authors, believe that there was a Dynasty Zero before the First Dynasty. They aren't sure that the kings that ruled in the Dynasty Zero belonged to the same family or what areas they actually ruled over.
The Early Dynastic Periord is believed to cover the first two dynasties. This theory is established on the fact that the first pyrmids were built during the Third Dynasty. The Old Kingdom if grequently viewed as "the age of the pyramids." So this is why the Third Dynasty is placed in the Old Kingdom.
The pyramids during the Third Dynasty weren't "true" pyramids. They were actually Step Pyramids. These Step Pyramids didn't compare to the pyramids built from the start of the Fourth Dynasty and on. The Step Pyramids and the funerary complexes from the Third Dynasty are still considered as part of the formative stage of the pyramids.
Throughout the Third Dynasty, kings were mainly known by their Horus-title. In the Fourth Dynasty and on, they were known as the Prenomen, and then later on the Nomen became the more important title. This change in names may indicate a switch in the views on the divine kingship. In the first three dynasties, the king was a living embodiment of the god Horus. In the following dynasties, Horus came to be the son of the solar god Re.
The Third Dynasty should therefore rather be part of the Early Dynastic Period than the Old Kingdom.
* The people sought out protection, so they moved within the fortified walls.
Part of the earlies known building to have been completely constructed in stone, this shapel in the Heb Sed court of Netjerikhets' Step Pyramid at Saqqara, already has all those elements that make Ancienct Egyptian architecture so typical.
More than 2500 years later, the Pronaos of the temple at Denara would still follow the basic design-rules laid out during the Early Dynastic Period. Regardless of the Hathor-headed solumns, the general shape of this building is the same as Netjerikhet's shapel at Saqqara.