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(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
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250 years is just a rough estimate. As an expert, what's the number you've arrived at?
It's straight up not a thing, there is no number of years which tends to correspond to the life expectancy of empires
We're talking about the average life expectancy of an empire. It's a fairly straightforward calculation if one has all the data ready.
Average out of which number? There has not been enough empires in human history to get any kind of valid statistical conclusion.
Also, the ancient egyptian empire lasted over 3k years, for you to get an average of 250y with such outlier you would need to include what, several 10y "empires", or divide empires by ruler. Which would then make the conversation moot since each US president would be a new "empire".
The claim comes from John Glubb, and he used this chart to make the average out of... 11 data points!?! While missing tons of other ancient empires that lasted thousands of years?!
This is the book where he makes such claim
So to answer your comment, yeah math is easy. Impossible to reach such average number with all the data though, given that it was made with a wildly incomplete and incorrect data...
No, not even close. The Egyptian Empire lasted from 1570 to 1069 BC.
No, there are others as I've already mentioned. The Changing World Order by Ray Dalio also arrives at the 250 year number. Cliodynamics and Structural-Demographic Theory suggests cycles of 200-300 years as well.
Why are you selectively choosing to consider only the "new kingdom" part of the whole thing? Overall it's from 3150 BC – 30 BC
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egypt
I can also reach to whatever conclusion if I decide to ignore what doesn't fit and modify what does to make it fit better. That's wrong...
You don't really know what you're talking about do you? Here, look at this: https://www.worldhistory.org/Egyptian_Empire/