It is a question with no exact answer. In a personal capacity, in my days as a writer and director of non-fiction films and live shows, I had to link up the head of Egyptology at the British Museum in London to Cairo, the capital of Egypt. This was a worldwide celebration of the new millennium. From Britain and most of the rest of the world, we were celebrating 2,000 years since the supposed birth of Jesus Christ. (I say supposed, for some theologians and historians think this might have occurred around 4 years earlier). On the other hand, Egypt said it was celebrating 7,000 years. All of this is a little tenuous, of course. However, it underlines that what Egypt was saying is that its civilisation was around 5,000 years before many of the rest of us.
This is about the time when farming began in the region of Egypt. However, if we are saying that a proper civilisation requires writing, laws, and in Egypt’s case, ruling by pharaohs, then around 3,000 BCE is closer to the mark. However, if you want to really go back to the first evidence that the Valley of the Nile was inhabited by humans, then you would need to go back around 40,000 years. Out of all this, what is certain is that you have to have a set of criteria before you can properly age a civilisation.
By around 3,100 BCE, Egypt had a pharaoh in charge, and it had a form of writing with its hieroglyphics, then, I think we could safely say that Egypt is just over 5,000 years old.
John Pullen 