The pharaoh stood at the center of ancient Egyptian religion as well as its government, understood as the living embodiment of the god Horus and, after death, identified with Osiris, lord of the underworld; some periods and rulers also emphasized direct sonship of the sun god Ra. This fusion of political and religious authority meant that maintaining maat, the Egyptian concept of cosmic and social order, truth and justice, was framed as the pharaoh's personal responsibility, discharged through correct ritual performance, temple building and military defense of Egypt's borders against chaos, understood in both cosmic and practical military terms.
The institution's origins are traditionally placed at the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt around 3100 BCE, an event later Egyptian king lists credit to a ruler named Narmer or Menes, whose historical identity and relationship to each other remain debated among Egyptologists. From this founding, Egyptian civilization organized itself around a continuous, though repeatedly interrupted, tradition of pharaonic rule lasting roughly three thousand years, through dynasties Egyptologists group into Old, Middle and New Kingdom periods separated by intermediate periods of fragmentation, foreign rule and internal division.