The Egyptian name for Thebes was wꜣs.t, "City of the wꜣs", the sceptre of the pharaohs, a long staff with an animal's head and a forked base.

From the end of the New Kingdom, Thebes was known in Egyptian as njw.t-jmn, the "City of Amun", the chief of the Theban Triad of deities whose other members were Mut and Khonsu.

The Greek names came into wider use after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, when the country came to be ruled by the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty.

Thebes was located along the banks of the Nile River in the middle part of Upper Egypt about 800 km south of the Delta.

Thebes had an area of 93 km2 (36 sq mi), which included parts of the Theban Hills in the west that culminates at the sacred 420-meter (1,380-foot) al-Qurn.

Nearby towns in the fourth Upper Egyptian nome were Per-Hathor, Madu, Djerty, Iuny, Sumenu and Imiotru.

[11][page needed] According to George Modelski, Thebes had about 40,000 inhabitants in 2000 BC (compared to 60,000 in Memphis, the largest city in the world at the time).

[13] Shomarka Keita reported that a 2005 study on mummified remains found that "some Theban nobles had a histology which indicated notably dark skin".

Since seven rulers of the 4th to 6th Dynasties appear on the Karnak king list, perhaps at the least there was a temple in the Theban area that dated to the Old Kingdom.

His probable grandson Intef I was the first of the family to claim in life a partial pharaonic titulary, though his power did not extend much further than the general Theban region.

Finally by c. 2050 BC, Intef III's son Mentuhotep II (meaning "Montu is satisfied"), took the Herakleopolitans by force and reunited Egypt once again under one ruler, thereby starting the period now known as the Middle Kingdom.

[21] When the Hyksos took Memphis during or shortly after Merneferre Ay's reign (c. 1700 BC), the rulers of the 13th Dynasty fled south to Thebes, which was restored as capital.

[22] Theban princes (now known as the 16th Dynasty) stood firmly over their immediate region as the Hyksos advanced from the Delta southwards to Middle Egypt.

The Hyksos were able to sail upstream past Thebes to trade with the Nubians and the Thebans brought their herds to the Delta without adversaries.

It also became the center for a newly established professional civil service, where there was a greater demand for scribes and the literate as the royal archives began to fill with accounts and reports.

On the west bank, he built the enormous mortuary temple and the equally massive Malkata palace-city, which fronted a 364-hectare artificial lake.

For a brief period in the reign of Amenhotep III's son Akhenaten (1351–1334 BC), Thebes fell on hard times; the city was abandoned by the court, and the worship of Amun was proscribed.

After his death, his son Tutankhamun returned the capital to Memphis,[28] but renewed building projects at Thebes produced even more glorious temples and shrines.

During Ramesses' long 66-year reign, Egypt and Thebes reached an overwhelming state of prosperity that equaled or even surpassed the earlier peak under Amenhotep III.

The Great Harris Papyrus states that Ramesses III (reigned 1187–56) donated 86,486 slaves and vast estates to the temples of Amun.

In the 25th year of his reign, workers in Deir el-Medina began striking for pay and there arose a general unrest of all social classes.

Intermarriage and adoption strengthened the ties between them, daughters of the Tanite kings being installed as God's Wife of Amun at Thebes, where they wielded greater power.

His reign saw a significant amount of building work undertaken throughout Egypt, especially at the city of Thebes, which he made the capital of his kingdom.

Taharqa accomplished many notable projects at Thebes (i.e. the Kiosk in Karnak) and Nubia before the Assyrians started to wage war against Egypt.

In 667 BC, attacked by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal's army, Taharqa abandoned Lower Egypt and fled to Thebes.

After his death three years later his nephew (or cousin) Tantamani seized Thebes, invaded Lower Egypt and laid siege to Memphis, but abandoned his attempts to conquer the country in 663 BC and retreated southwards.

In 525 BC, Persian Cambyses II invaded Egypt and became pharaoh, subordinating the kingdom as a satrapy to the greater Achaemenid Empire.

[35] The good relationship of the Thebans with the central power in the North ended when the native Egyptian pharaohs were finally replaced by Greeks, led by Alexander the Great.

Towards the end of the third century BC, Hugronaphor (Horwennefer), possibly of Nubian origin, led a revolt against the Ptolemies in Upper Egypt.

The films feature scenes taking place in ancient Egypt in its prime, which affect the story in the modern setting some 3000 years later.