Since there were so many kings of Egypt, scholars organized them into dynasties according to periods. If Egypt was in a stable period, with one king following the next, the times were called kingdoms. The three kingdoms were called the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, and the New Kingdom. These long stretches were times of peace and harmony (called ma'at) that came from a stable government. The times in between peaceful periods were called "intermediate periods". This is when the king's authority was challenged.
During the Old Kingdom, around 2700 BCE, the Nile River receded and there was not enough water for the people. In order to help this situation, the Egyptian people devised irrigation systems to move water through parts of the country that were farther away from the Nile River. A less important challenge was a lack of wood, which was easily solved by trading with the nearby country of Lebanon, which had a lot of wood. Also during this time, King Djoser ruled and wanted everyone to see how powerful he was, so he hired an architect named Imhotep to design and build a great stone monument: the world's first step pyramid.
The construction of the step pyramid was dangerous because the higher up the stones were placed, the less stable they became, and loose stones could fall. Imhotep set up a small hospital for those who were injured by the loose stones. He wrote directions on how to recognise an injury and how to treat it. this is the oldest known medical document, bought by Edwin Smith in 1862. It is known as the Edwin Smith papyrus.
(This summary is taken from chapter 3 of The Ancient Egyptian World by Eric H. Cline and Jill Rubalcaba.)
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