Journal: Thursday 17 November 2005

For today we had planned a trip over the river to the West Bank on the big passenger ferry which runs from the Corniche near Luxor Temple, so it was not far to walk from our hotel. I have seen many ferries come and go over the years, some of them little more than rusting hulks on their final voyages to be replaced by the time I visited again. Now there was another new ferry, shiny with bright white paint and with metal floors intact. We all went up to the top deck and watched as the Corniche and the temple receded as we neared the opposite bank. It was still quite early and we were not bothered by the hawkers and touts I was used to seeing hanging around the dock. Sticking with local transport we caught an arabeya to Dra Abu’l Naga. The six of us almost filled the back of the Peugeot pick-up, but of course there was still room for half a dozen young boys to climb onto the back step and cling on. I’m sure they only came along to look at us, as the stares gradually turned into questions, ‘What’s your name?’, ‘Which country?’, ‘Baksheesh?’, ‘Cigarette?’.

Getting off near the junction leading to the King’s Valley, a bargain journey costing only 25 piastres each, we set off walking back along the monument road. Our plan was to look at the sites of all the destroyed temples that line the road, just to see if there are any obvious remains. Just across the road from where we left the arabeya, behind the Temple of Seti I, is the site of the Temple of Nebwenenef, a ‘Prophet of Amun’ and one of the few private  individuals to have a mortuary temple in the Theban necropolis. There is now nothing to see here but past explorations have revealed a few Dynasty XVIII or XIX objects found at the site, including two broken pieces from colossal statues of Rameses II. Nearby there was a tiny Temple of Amenhotep I and his queen Ahmose-Nefertari, in which blocks were found that were carved with heb-sed scenes. Three statues of Ahmose-Nefertari were also found here. Again, the site today is just a patch of bare ground.

We walked further along the main road until we came to the site of a colonnaded temple of Rameses IV, just near the end of the Deir el-Barhri causeway. Howard Carter investigated this site and found foundation blocks and some plaques bearing the names of Rameses IV as well as a few other blocks with the names of earlier kings which must have been re-used. The end of the causeway was also the site of Hatshepsut’s Valley temple, but now is a large patch of flat open ground that locals use as a shortcut to the Deir el-Bahri road and boys use to play football. The Valley Temple is known to have been destroyed in antiquity, but Carter discovered foundation deposits from the site during his investigations, which included alabaster jars and tools. A little further along is the site of another destroyed and probably unfinished temple which appears to have been begun by Rameses IV and re-used by Rameses V and VI. Many fragments from the structure have been found. Sandstone reliefs depicting the head of Rameses VI came from the second court and many remains of re-used blocks from other monuments were found including Osirid statues of Amenhotep I and a block depicting Hatshepsut crowned by the god Amun that probably came from her Valley Temple.

To the left and right sides of the road just north of the Ramesseum, is the site of a Temple of Tuthmose III, where at least we could see some evidence of a monument. The modern road now cuts right through this temple and on the left are substantial remains of a mudbrick pylon, while on rising ground to the right the site is marked out by aligned blocks, one or two with some nice reliefs and we saw a couple of column bases and fragments of painted fluted columns. The temple’s ancient name was ‘Henket-ankh’, and it was probably begun in the earlier part of Tuthmose’s co-regency with Hatshepsut. Many of the blocks and objects from here have found their way into museums around the world. Another destroyed temple is situated to the south of the Tuthmose temple, jointly belonging to Kings Merenptah and Siptah of Dynasty XIX. This is now a low mound at the side of the road, with no suggestion of the ruins it possibly covers. It was excavated by Petrie who found foundation deposits naming King Siptah and Chancellor Bay, as well as plaques, jar-sealings and fragments of vessels.

By now we were in the area of the Ramesseum. Just to the northern side of the huge Mortuary Temple of Rameses II, is a ruined Temple of Amenhotep II. Originally excavated by Petrie, it is currently undergoing re-excavation and restoration by an Italian Archaeological Mission. The remains here appear to be quite extensive. Against the Ramesseum’s northern wall was also a chapel of the ‘White Queen’, so named because a white limestone bust of Rameses’ daughter and consort Merit-Amun, depicted in her religious role as ‘Sistrum-player of Mut’ and ‘Dancer of Horus’, was discovered here. This bust is now in the Cairo Museum.

Across the road we had a wonderful view of el-Qurn, the pyramid-shaped mountain peak in which the ancient Egyptians believed that Hathor, the ‘Lady of the West’ resided. At the foot of the Theban mountain between Deir el-Bahri and Deir el-Medina, behind the village of Sheikh ‘Abd el-Qurna, is one of the oldest of the Theban temples, belonging to Mentuhotep Sankhare or Amenemhat I. It is thought that the structure was never completed and the temple consists today of only a platform and causeway, though very difficult to find. Because Sam and I had looked for it before, we didn’t bother today and carried on walking along the main road. Just to the south of the Ramesseum was a tiny temple in the name of Prince Wadjmose, a son of Tuthmose I. The temple is now completely destroyed, but statue fragments bearing the names of Wadjmose and Tuthmose I were found here as well as various blocks of Tuthmose III and several stelae. The next sites we came to were a destroyed temple of Tuthmose IV, and close by, a temple built for Queen Tawosret, wife of Seti II. This she shared with her successor Siptah. Little is known about this monument but there has obviously been some recent restoration done here.

By now we had reached the end of the Monuments Road, with the Merenptah open-air museum to our left. It took several hours to walk along the road, stopping to investigate any possibility of a monument, even examining odd blocks of stone sticking up out of the sand. We were all hot and thirsty so the obvious next step would be the Rameses Cafeteria at Medinet Habu. But on the way there was still more to look out for. Taking the back road past the ticket office, we still had to pass the site of a temple of Rameses IV known as the ‘North Temple’ but there are virtually no remains to be seen. Likewise a ‘South Temple’ of which little is known beyond a ground plan. A mortuary temple constructed as a gift from Amenhotep III for Amenhotep son of Hapu, the king’s chief architect and scribe, contains more extant remains in the form of a large area of pavement with a few scattered blocks and column bases. Finally we all lined up on a large mound of rubbish to get an overview of the destroyed temple of Ay and Horemheb where a team have recently been doing some restoration work.

The café at Medinet Habu was crowded with lunch-time coach tours, most of the long wooden tables were taken by Japanese tourists eating packed lunches provided by their hotels. We managed to find a free table at the edge of the café and gratefully sat down for a rest and a lengthy lunch consisting of lovely Egyptian salads and yummy garlic bread, washed down with deliciously refreshing lemon juice.

Feeling a little more lively as the mid-day heat began to abate we eventually walked across the road and into the Temple of Rameses III. Now this is what I call a temple – it has long been one of my favourite monuments in the whole of Egypt and it always feels like an old dear friend. Fortunately we had come inside during a lull which often happens in the early afternoon and the temple was very quiet. We each set off in different directions, which meant that the couple of guards on duty quickly gave up trying to follow us and went off for their siesta. The small temple, the oldest building at Habu constructed by Hatshepsut was closed due to the ongoing work by Chicago House. I headed off towards the shrines of the God’s Wives. Only two of the original four chapels still remain, but on a lintel above a doorway there is an ‘appeal to the living’, in which the Divine Adoratrice Shepenwepet II asks that a prayer be said for the occupants of the chapels. The request concludes in a threat – that ‘as for those who do not utter these words, the Mistress of the West will cause them to be sick and their wives to be afflicted!‘ So I like to say a little silent prayer as I pass by, just in case.

I wandered around my favourite parts of the temple for a couple of hours and we all met up again in the hypostyle hall as the first of the coach parties could be seen coming through the huge pylon gate. It was time to leave. The afternoon was drawing to a close and we all decided it would be nice to stay and have an early dinner in the Rameses Café where we could sit and watch the sun go down behind the Theban mountain, while the face of the temple gradually comes alive with the artificial lights playing over the walls as dusk falls.

Eventually we made our way back across the river on the ferry to Luxor. It was a beautiful evening.

“Un obelisco u óbelo (del idioma griego ὀβελίσκος – obeliskos, diminutivo irónico de ὀβελός – obelos: espeto, aguja) es un monumento pétreo con forma de pilastra, de sección cuadrada, con cuatro caras trapezoidales iguales, ligeramente convergentes, rematado superiormente en una pequeña pirámide denominada piramidón. Generalmente se erigían sobre una base de piedra prismática. Los antiguos obeliscos se tallaron de un solo bloque de piedra (monolitos). El primero del que se tiene noticia se data en la época de Userkaf, faraón de la dinastía V de Egipto (c. 2500 a. C.). Se desconoce como eran erigidos estos fantásticos monumentos, pues no hay ninguna documentación egipcia describiendo el método empleado.” (Fuente del texto Wikipedia)

Foto, en primer plano, del Piramidion, obelisco caído de Hatshepsut, en el fondo dos obeliscos en pie. Templo de Karnak – Egipto.

CC martin_javier #2004

After some signs of rebellion were crushed at Nubia, Ahmosis was determined to end the threat of the aamu, so that after conquering Avaris, chased the remnants of the hikso army to Sharuhen in the Canaanite coast, where they were   strong and devastated the city to such an extent that would never rebuilt. Once extinct in danger of a new invasion, the king spread the devastation to all the cities of Canaan that he could access, in order to build a real policy of terror, both abroad and in the interior, from the beginning, inside the own Egyptian territory was applied to do piles with the hands cut from the bodies of the supporters of Seth, collaborators of the Asian Dynasties (this was an abhorrent behavior that had the practical purpose, of facilitating to the scribes the computation of enemies killed, such as still reflect the bas of Medinet Habu to the time of Ramses III). His successor Amenofis I maintained a protectorate over the cities of Syria, Nubia and the country of Kus (a part of the current Sudan), and he was well remembered in statues and monuments by the subsequent monarchs, but not too much is known of his reign, it seems that here can be applied the English proverb, “no news are good news”.

The influence of the clergy of Amon evolved during the reigns of the several Amenhotep and Thutmosis consecutive, although Amón never again pose a problem because from the beginning, the monarchy left the administration in the hands of officials, so the priests just had got certain control in the exclusive circle of the religion, although determinated political aspects of the succession were so connected to God, due to their intimate relationship with the king, which in some way conditioned its resolution to the approval of the clergy.

The priests were no longer noble, now  they are sons of officials, new people, Amun is the supporter of the clergy and monarchy.  Amun is the head of the gods of each prefecture and as the representative of the god is the king, therefore the prefectures are subordinated to the monarchy, and by a  mystical algorithm similar, clergy supports the monarchy as long as it is who represents Amon. According to some authors, at this time,regarding dynastic issues, Amon is considered the father of the king, if he would have a male descendant (with a real princess, preferably a sister), the new king would take the name of Amenophis (Amenhotep) , if not, then a son of some concubine of the king should marry a real princess and then would take the name of Thutmosis, in fact the clergy of Amon had no objection to make prevail to the wife and sister of  Thutmosis II, the famous Queen-king  Hatshepsut against Thutmosis III who despite having been chosen when he was a child for the post, though not willingly, he agreed to reign just after the death of the queen. So, they who were called Amenophis, they were directly sons of the King (Amon) and they who were called Thutmosis, they were sons of the law (Thot was the god of law), these sons were “legal” as long as they were married to royal princesses,in order to keep the blood of Amon (of the King, of course) in the dynastic line. Hatshepsut took advantage of this opportunity to assert their rights and to keep the throne to herself, invoking his lineage (of Amon) and the clergy not only did not object, but actually they encouraged the queen, in fact during his reign existed a rather than sacred bond between the monarchy and clergy, for instance, the second high priest of Amon and real great architect, Senmut, fue el amante de la reina y el constructor del impresionante mausoleo que edificó para ella, al lado del templo funerario de Mentuhotep IV en  Deir-el-Bahari.

The large size and the sumptuous look that from this time acquired the sacred enclosure of Karnak with the continuing contributions of  the several Thutmose and Amenhotep (the ends of the obelisks and a pylon even came to be coated with an alloy of gold and silver called electron), can give us an idea of the magnificence that surrounded the court of the priests of Amun, true kings in their own world.

By accessing the throne Thutmosis III, at start, initially he worked hard in to restore the Egyptian hegemony beyond its borders, thing that he got it when undid the plans of a coalition of cities that tried to face him, and then launched himself to an authentic work of conquest, leading Egypt to become a true empire. Retenu was conquered (the Lebanese-Palestinian coastal strip), and secured his position in the coastal cities of the area to take advantage of the newly confiscated fleet, to use it to transport troops and tasks of supply. Obviously it was not therefore a new preventive raid, this time, Egypt comes to stay. Thutmosis not deposes the native princes in most cases, making efforts to maintain frequent contact with their new Asian provinces without forget harvesting the taxes, of course. Then became entangled with Mitanni, that on several occasions had organized revolts against Egypt, so  first conquered Biblos in whose shipyards, he would build boats with cedar wood to cross the Eufrates in order to face the army of Mitanni, who defeated several times, show of force that led automatically to neighboring countries, Hatti, Assur y Babilonia to seek friendship with the king of Egypt,  flooding him with gifts, as was customary in such situations. Thutmose III established military bases every 65 km, along the Syrian coast, with the purpose of maintaining the Egyptian presence in the area permanently. However Thutmosis is not only an able military leader, but also showed a well-oiled diplomatic machine, which was applied to establish a policy of conciliation, of good relations with the conquered provinces, beginning a period of stability of what commerce was the direct beneficiary. Moreover, in some ways was the forerunner of a new stage in relations with the clergy, which during the sucesive reigns of the Amenhoteps and Thutmosis , they reduced the political influence of Amon, which it had culminated during the reign of Hatshepsut.

Thutmosis III, during his reign, strived to delete all references he could find of Hatshepsut at temples and monuments,and threw to the quarries, previously mutilated images and statues of the queen. This was not only a mere tantrum child, but that resulted in a stealthy and gradual return to the meaning and religious conception of Heliopolis, more appropriate for the absolute monarchy, although this antique religious centre depended,at this period, of the clergy of Karnak.

Egypt was the principal economic and military power in the known world, but the international language of business was not the egyptian language but the Akkadian, the language of Babylon. On the islands of the Aegean and the Greek coast on the contrary, the Egyptian currency was used, the kedet, and this was well due to the marked economic relations, that from the Twelfth Dynasty Egyptian kept with traders minoans and later with mycenaeans, to the point of being the origin of the port Pharos, that eventually would become Alexandria, Built exclusively for trade with the eastern Mediterranean island. The Egyptian influence is evident in the first doric temples and largely in the  own Greek mythology:  Cecrops the mythical founder of the first Athens, came from Egypt and also Erechtheus, like Danaus, Egypt’s twin brother, who was settled in the Mycenaean city of Argos, etc.

Waterfront Babylonian commercial empire, which connected India and Anatolia to the Syrian coast, Egypt developed an intense commercial activity thanks to the islands as far as Alasia (Cyprus), even it has discussed the possibility that would exist some kind of protectorate since there is evidence that Egypt recieved taxes from the princes of the islands.

Amenofis II,  after the death of Thutmose III, had to quell a rebellion from the Asian provinces, later in order to produce more fear, he ordered to sacrifice publicly six rebel princes in Thebes and one in Napata, the capital of the viceroyalty of Nubia.

Amun, during the reign of Amenhotep II, enjoys with the bloodshed and at the temple of the god were slaughtered the enemies of the monarchy, once, before a battle, that night, while the king piously prayed to Amun “It was ordered to capture victims alive. It was ordered to do two pieces of each one of them all. And here it was all burned. His Majesty was alone, no one was with him. Apart from the palace guard, the troops were already far from the king “(big trail of Mit-Rahineh. Vl. Vikentiev” crossing the Orontes “). Fortunately religious terrorism of Amenhotep II was only a macabre parentheses and Thutmosis IV did not act the same way, he gave way to diplomacy, as had the previous Thutmose, ignoring the rights of the clergy, he bypassed the influence of Amun in dynastic issue, by marrying Mutemuia, a princess of Mitanni, instead of having married a royal princess of Egypt, Mitanni, which at that time feared more danger from the North Hittite, chosen in this way, establishing cordial relations with Egypt, its former enemy.

Amenofis III deepened the divide between royalty and the clergy, mimicking what was done by Thutmose IV, when marrying foreign princesses from all the influential monarchs of the time, indiscriminately ,in a unprecedented diplomatic effort. International relations demanded a kind of religious synthesis which equated to Amun-Ra, with the cult of Shamash, so that the  Pharaoh (it is from then when it was start to use the term) as representative of Amun, now a universal god, will appear in the Asian provinces, endowed with a certain mystique additional legitimacy. “The sun …” “my Sun …”, was called the Pharaoh in the protocols and the international diplomatic correspondence; an example of the syncretism reached in this period  is the winged Sun disk such as it appears at the top in the mythological pantheons of all the relevant monarchies of this moment.

“Book of What is in the Underworld” although it began during the Twelfth Dynasty, was completed in the time of Amenhotep II and reflects the solar theology own dynasties of Thebes. This book describes the daily journey of the two boats of Ra on the primordial waters of Mu that surround the two worlds, the upper and lower,  crossing  as Ra-Horakhti in one of them,the sky during the day, and as Iufu (Afu-Ra) through the underworld with the other boat during the night. Every night, Ra, aged, with his aspect of ram, once lost the character of subtle spirit, is assassinated by his own creatures, but if Ra dies, dies with the existence itself, so in order to create it again, Ra, have to reborn each morning, and do it emerging from the mouth of the goddess Mut, with the appearance of a child. All this is very different from the traditional mystique, both Heliopolitan, and that of Hermopolis or Memphis, with which it shares, however, the essence of the solar cult.

The Amun Hymn, was one of the weapons wielded by the monarchy against the clergy, with which distanced itself radically from the elaborated symbolism, such as liked to the priests of Amun, in order to keep in the darkness to the secular world. It was written in colloquial language with the object that could be understood by everyone. Amenhotep III imposed the return to Heliopolitan theology (by which sovereignty resides in the crown without the direct intervention of Amun, removing in this way any authority to the clergy) and prepared the advent of  Atón, the radiant solar disk, in order to assimilating it to solar deities of Asia, as already mentioned, trying to establish some religious uniformity in his empire. The sirian Adonai could be a remnant of this intent, given the etymological similarity (Adon in Hebrew means “lord”, Adonai is the royal plural, used to refer to the deity).

Amenofis IV, Akhenaten, would lead to its ultimate consequences, those religious ideas that were sketched by his father, drastically cutting any ties to the classic religious dogma, with the purpose to set up a militant monotheism, completely new, in its place.

Bibliography:    Jacques Pirenne      ”Ancient Egypt History”

Paul Garelli               “Middle East History”

I am a wannabe archaeologist. I majored in geology for my bachelor’s degree and had applied, and was accepted into a master’s program which would have me digging in Africa for Richard Leakey in the summers while I studied Egyptology, when tragically, I ran out of money and had to go to work. Like most people who stop school to make some money before going back for an advanced degree, I got trapped in life’s little tar pits. You get some  furniture and an apartment, a cat, some bills, a car, a boyfriend and you’re stuck. Pretty soon you are 30 and then 40 and then 50-something and sifting through the desert sands of Egypt is no longer on your to-do list. For one thing, they keep all the sand on the ground over there, so you’d have to bend over, sit down or squat, watch out for scorpions! From my 50-something perspective that just isn’t ever going to happen unless they come up with waist-high tombs and air conditioned deserts and scorpion/cobra screens. Oh, and a recliner.

So, instead, I enjoy reading novels about Egypt in my recliner in the air conditioning. Here are the titles from Pauline Gedge, my favourite ancient Egyptian novel author. She was born in New Zealand and now lives in Canada. I love the fact that she snubbed the Canadian Literary Luminaries preferring to relate to the reader, to hobnobbing and politicing her way to Canadian literary awards. She is a best-selling author and winner of many awards for excellent writing. She is particularly popular in France and German where they demand historic fiction be accurate.

Clicking on the book will take you to where you can order it.

The Lords of the Two Lands Trilogy 

The Hippopotamus Marsh

The Oasis

Vol. 2

The Oasis takes Kamose from the death of his father, Sequenra. Kamos takes command of the Egyptian forces attempting to overthrow the rule of the Hykos.

The Horus Road

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

King’s Man Trilogy

 

The Twice Born

Vol 1 

The promising life of Huy, a farmer’s son who is sent to school to become a scribe. He makes friends with the children of the rich and powerful but his life is altered forever when something astonishing happens to him. He longs for his old life back and is haunted by visions others cannot see.

Seer of Egypt

 Vol 2

Huy, the once farmer’s son then humble student scribe has become the Seer to the Pharaoh. Amunhotep’s patronage brings wealth and status but he longs for  freedom from the visions which are a gift of Thoth. His life is coming to an end but his fate holds more in store for the Seer.

The King's Man

Vol. 3

The saga of Huy continues. Huy  occupies the seat of favour with the Pharaoh and controls the treasury, the military, building, taxes and the task of choosing the young Pharaoh’s Queen. However power equals powerful enemies and Huy strives to foil them.

NOTE: Due out November 2009

Child of the Morning

This is the story of perhaps one of the earliest feminists. This is the story of Queen Hatshepsut who ruled Egypt in the early 15th Century B.C. She  ruled for over 20 years and brought a golden era of prosperity, peace and building. 

This is Pauline Gedge’s first novel.

The Tales of Thu

House of Dreams

Vol 1

‘Beautiful blue-eyed daughter of a retired mercenary from the remote village of Aswat, Thu is learning to be a midwife at her mother’s knee. But secretly she longs for greatness, fame, riches which she is sure await her. When the Pharaoh’s holy seer Hui stops in to Aswat, Thu slips into the Nile and appears naked in Hui’s private quarters offering herself to him if only he would teach her to heal. What she doesn’t know is that the Seer had been expecting her. He had seen her in the Pharaoh’s future! This is her account of her rise to  becomes a doctor and then a concubine in the Royal harem of Ramses III and the mother of his child.

This book is known in some countries as The Lady of the Reeds.

House of Illusion

Vol 2

This is the second part of the story of the life of Thu. It is told at first by Kamen, a young subaltern. He happened onto Aswat where he meets a madwoman with a remarkable tale. She gives him a box and asks him to deliver it to the Pharaoh. He takes her box but has no intention of getting into trouble by even mentioning it to the Pharaoh. But soon a story of deceit, corruption and injustice comes out and young Kamen is trapped between factions and linked to the mysterious madwoman of Aswat in ways he never dreamed.

The Twelfth Transforming

 This is the story of the XVIII Dynasty (2,500 years ago) Pharaoh Akhenaten whose rebellious dismissal of the pantheon of Egyptian gods and the powerful priests who control the wealth of the temples, lead to a catastrophic reign in Egyptian history.

I was friendly with Shirley MacLaine’s secretary once upon a time in the 80’s. She took me to the most astonishing place. It was a Victorian house in Capital Hill in Denver. A beautiful mansion swarming with people. Inside it was like stepping into an Egyptian tomb. Every surface was painted in real gold with hierglyphs of the Egyptian god Aten and images of Akhenaten the Pharaoh. There was a shadowy auditorium where we sat until a big bald man in a loin cloth rang a big gong and then out came a man who claimed to be the reincarnation of Akhenaten. He said he was one of the rulers of the world, the few who decided which things happened and controlled Presidents and Kings. I don’t know about any of that. But he did have a very cool house. So technically, I may have met Akhenaten. 

Scroll of Saqqara

The brother of the Pharaoh and son of the great Ramses II is called Prince Khaemwaset. He has a happy life. He is a respected physician, historian, expert in ancient Egypt. He  has a loving wife and child. His burning ambition is to find the tomb that holds the Scroll of Thoth which he believes will give him power over death. You know what they say about be careful what you wish for? Yeah. He finds it.

This book is sometimes called Mirage.

Other (Non-Egypt) novels by Pauline Gedge

Pauline Gedge has also wrote The Eagle and The Raven, about the Boudicca, a famous female warrior in ancient Britain. I remember hearing that Fergie the Dutchess of York, wife of Prince Andrew, saying how inspired she was by Boudicca. Stargate is another title of a Gedge novel but I can’t find out much about it.  The Covenant is an erotic novel of an aristocratic Vampire who awakens after a century asleep.

Though there had been female rulers of Egypt as Queens, Hatshepsut stands out for proclaiming herself Pharaoh of Egypt with a rule spanning across 21 years. Pharaohs were typically men and therefore Hatshepsut had to legitimize her thrown in numerous ways such as creating mythology of her birth between a god and her mother. She slowly came into power as regent to co-ruler to eventually pharaoh upon which she took on masculine dress, adorning herself with a fake beard, changing her name to drop the female gender identifiers, and wearing male gender clothing as seen in statues. (There’s a deity piece in here- that of Osiris/Horus. The King becomes male god Horus, when he dies, he then becomes Osiris and the new King is Horus). Hatshepsut had also been preparing his daughter to become prince, unfortunately his daughter died at a young age. (Could have dialogue for DAYS on this)

During his reign as pharaoh, a war ended and Egypt remained peaceful for many years, amazing architecture was built and he improved trading relations by ordering his army on a long expedition to the Land of Punt by the Red Sea in which they brought back incense, grand obelisks, and other goods.

Unfortunately after she passed away, many of her images were defaced and her name practically erased from history ensuing kingships. It wasn’t until a few years ago that her remains were discovered and she got a tiny bit of recognition for her leadership.

So I’m taking a moment to give respect to King Hatshepsut for making way in a male dominated world. It’s pretty dope to see that over 3,500 years ago this woman took power into her own hands and paved a path specifically her own. (I bounced back between gender pronouns, as yet another example of the non-rigidity of gender and paying respect to Hatshepsut’s strides to become who s/he was.) And to think, I never heard of Hatshepsut in any history class…

Lalin

http://www.youregypttours.com

Egypt’s population is very large in relation to the country’s natural resources. Although it is not a perfect measure of the impact of high population growth rates, the amount of land cultivated by the average farmer provides a glimpse at the extent of the problem. In slightly more than 150 years (1821-1976), the per capita cultivated area dropped from 0.8 feddan to 0.27 feddan among the rural population. If the urban population is included, the per capita cultivated area in 1976 amounted to only 0.15 feddan. The decline has meant that the same amount of cultivated land must feed a continuously increasing population. In 1974 Egypt, which had been a net exporter of cereals for centuries, became a net importer of food, especially grains.

As early as 1959, government economists expressed concern about the negative impact of high population growth rates on the country’s development efforts. In 1966 the government initiated a nationwide birth control program aimed at reducing the annual population growth rate to 2.5 percent or less. Since then staterun family planning clinics have distributed birth control information and contraceptives. These programs were somewhat successful in reducing the population growth rate, but in 1973 the rate began to increase again. Population control policies tended to be ineffective because most Egyptians, especially in rural areas, valued large families.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

http://www.youregypttours.com

Egypt’s population, estimated at 3 million when Napoleon invaded the country in 1798, has increased at varying rates. The population grew gradually and steadily throughout the nineteenth century, doubling in size over the course of eighty years. Beginning in the 1880s, the growth rate accelerated, and the population increased more than 600 percent in 100 years. The growth rate was especially high after World War II. In 1947 a census indicated that Egypt’s population was 19 million. A census in 1976 revealed that the population had ballooned to 36.6 million. After 1976 the population grew at an annual rate of 2.9 percent and in 1986 reached a total of 50.4 million, including about 2.3 million Egyptians working in other countries. Projections indicated the population would reach 60 million by 1996.

Egypt’s population in mid-1990 was estimated at 52.5 million, about an 8 percent increase over the 1986 figure. The increase meant that the annual population growth rate had slowed slightly to 2.6 percent. Although Egypt’s overall population density in 1990 was only about fifty-four people per square kilometer, close to 99 percent of all Egyptians lived along the banks of the Nile River in 3.5 percent of the country’s total area. Average population densities in the Nile Valley exceeded 1,500 per square kilometer–one of the world’s highest densities.

According to the 1986 census, 51.1 percent of Egypt’s population was male and 48.9 percent female. More than 34 percent of the population was twelve years old or younger, and 68 percent was under age thirty. Fewer than 3 percent of Egyptians were sixty-five years or older. In 1989 average life expectancy at birth was fifty-nine years for men and sixty years for women. The infant mortality rate was 94 deaths per 1,000 births. Although the urban population has been increasing at a higher rate than the rural population since the 1947 census, approximately 51 percent of people still lived in villages in 1986. By the end of 1989, however, demographers estimated the urban-rural distribution to be equal.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

EGYPTIAN SOCIETY IN 1990 reflected both ancient roots and the profound changes that have occurred since Napoleon Bonaparte invaded the country in 1798. Land tenure, crops, and cultivation patterns had all been transformed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the country had become increasingly urbanized and industrialized. Nevertheless, approximately half the population still lived in rural areas where settlement patterns remained defined, as they had been since pharaonic times, by the Nile River and irrigated agriculture. Villages were clustered along both banks of the Nile and along myriad irrigation canals in the Delta.

The rise of commercial agriculture in the nineteenth century set in motion a transformation of rural society. Land that was previously held in common by a village and granted in usufruct to individual families was transferred to private ownership. The transfers created a small class of wealthy absentee landowners, a somewhat larger class of relatively prosperous farmers who owned medium-sized parcels of land, and an enormous class of small farmers, sharecroppers, and landless casual laborers.

The land-reform measures implemented by the government in the 1950s and 1960s led to the redistribution of nearly 15 percent of the arable land to about 10 percent of the rural population. Land reform limited individual landownership to twenty-one hectares, thus forcing the wealthiest landed families to sell most of their holdings. Small peasant proprietors were the main beneficiaries of the redistribution. By the early 1980s, however, continued population growth and rising production costs had eroded many of the accomplishments of land reform. Inheritance tended to fragment already small holdings, and the number of landless people increased.

Land reform was only one of several social programs initiated by the Free Officers who led the 1952 Revolution. The majority of these officers, who came mostly from the middle class, was determined to broaden opportunities in a society that had been dominated by a narrow elite. They perceived education as a critical force for change. Beginning in the nineteenth century, secular education provided the country with the foundation for a civil bureaucracy. Access to a university education and government employment, however, was generally limited to the urban upper classes until the mid-1930s, when sons of urban and rural middle-class families were accepted into the military or civil administration. Following the 1952 Revolution, educational opportunities from primary school through university increased substantially. Through the 1980s, university enrollments swelled as increasing numbers of middle- and lowerclass youth pursued higher education in the hope of obtaining prestigious employment.

By the 1980s, overstaffing in the state bureaucracy had become a major problem. Periodic discussion by the mass media on the need to reform the government’s hiring and promotion systems, which gave preference to university graduates, caused anxiety among students, many of whom had migrated from rural areas and faced limited employment prospects in agriculture. Most of these students perceived higher education and government employment as means for achieving upward mobility. They therefore showed little support for the proposed reforms, which would reduce their opportunities.

Massive urbanization beginning after World War II has had a pervasive and accelerating impact on the nation’s cities, especially Cairo and Alexandria. These cities, which were once the enclaves of the relatively prosperous and privileged, have attracted millions of rural migrants, including landowning families’ children who wanted to pursue an education and illiterate sons and daughters of poor, landless peasants who were willing to work as unskilled laborers. The migrants have adapted to urban life by attempting to replicate the social organization found in villages. Residential patterns, employment practices, and socializing have tended to reflect and to reinforce relationships formed in the countryside.

Religion, mainly Islam, is an integral aspect of social life. Although most Egyptian Muslims respect and agree on the basic tenets of Islam, their religious perspectives differ. Trained theologians, for example, practice orthodox Islam while villagers practice a simple form of the religion. Since the 1970s, there has been a resurgence of Islamic political groups. Activists ranged from persons fervent in religious practice to individuals who favor the adoption of the Muslim legal code as the basis of Egyptian law to others who espouse the violent overthrow of the government to achieve an Islamic social order. Some leaders of the Islamic political groups are former university students or recent graduates whose families migrated from rural areas. Many Muslims have responded favorably to these leaders, who are likely to remain a potent political force in the 1990s.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

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Egypt’s population is very large in relation to the country’s natural resources. Although it is not a perfect measure of the impact of high population growth rates, the amount of land cultivated by the average farmer provides a glimpse at the extent of the problem. In slightly more than 150 years (1821-1976), the per capita cultivated area dropped from 0.8 feddan to 0.27 feddan among the rural population. If the urban population is included, the per capita cultivated area in 1976 amounted to only 0.15 feddan. The decline has meant that the same amount of cultivated land must feed a continuously increasing population. In 1974 Egypt, which had been a net exporter of cereals for centuries, became a net importer of food, especially grains.

As early as 1959, government economists expressed concern about the negative impact of high population growth rates on the country’s development efforts. In 1966 the government initiated a nationwide birth control program aimed at reducing the annual population growth rate to 2.5 percent or less. Since then staterun family planning clinics have distributed birth control information and contraceptives. These programs were somewhat successful in reducing the population growth rate, but in 1973 the rate began to increase again. Population control policies tended to be ineffective because most Egyptians, especially in rural areas, valued large families.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

http://www.sharmexcursion-tours.com

Egypt’s population, estimated at 3 million when Napoleon invaded the country in 1798, has increased at varying rates. The population grew gradually and steadily throughout the nineteenth century, doubling in size over the course of eighty years. Beginning in the 1880s, the growth rate accelerated, and the population increased more than 600 percent in 100 years. The growth rate was especially high after World War II. In 1947 a census indicated that Egypt’s population was 19 million. A census in 1976 revealed that the population had ballooned to 36.6 million. After 1976 the population grew at an annual rate of 2.9 percent and in 1986 reached a total of 50.4 million, including about 2.3 million Egyptians working in other countries. Projections indicated the population would reach 60 million by 1996.

Egypt’s population in mid-1990 was estimated at 52.5 million, about an 8 percent increase over the 1986 figure. The increase meant that the annual population growth rate had slowed slightly to 2.6 percent. Although Egypt’s overall population density in 1990 was only about fifty-four people per square kilometer, close to 99 percent of all Egyptians lived along the banks of the Nile River in 3.5 percent of the country’s total area. Average population densities in the Nile Valley exceeded 1,500 per square kilometer–one of the world’s highest densities.

According to the 1986 census, 51.1 percent of Egypt’s population was male and 48.9 percent female. More than 34 percent of the population was twelve years old or younger, and 68 percent was under age thirty. Fewer than 3 percent of Egyptians were sixty-five years or older. In 1989 average life expectancy at birth was fifty-nine years for men and sixty years for women. The infant mortality rate was 94 deaths per 1,000 births. Although the urban population has been increasing at a higher rate than the rural population since the 1947 census, approximately 51 percent of people still lived in villages in 1986. By the end of 1989, however, demographers estimated the urban-rural distribution to be equal.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

EGYPTIAN SOCIETY IN 1990 reflected both ancient roots and the profound changes that have occurred since Napoleon Bonaparte invaded the country in 1798. Land tenure, crops, and cultivation patterns had all been transformed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the country had become increasingly urbanized and industrialized. Nevertheless, approximately half the population still lived in rural areas where settlement patterns remained defined, as they had been since pharaonic times, by the Nile River and irrigated agriculture. Villages were clustered along both banks of the Nile and along myriad irrigation canals in the Delta.

The rise of commercial agriculture in the nineteenth century set in motion a transformation of rural society. Land that was previously held in common by a village and granted in usufruct to individual families was transferred to private ownership. The transfers created a small class of wealthy absentee landowners, a somewhat larger class of relatively prosperous farmers who owned medium-sized parcels of land, and an enormous class of small farmers, sharecroppers, and landless casual laborers.

The land-reform measures implemented by the government in the 1950s and 1960s led to the redistribution of nearly 15 percent of the arable land to about 10 percent of the rural population. Land reform limited individual landownership to twenty-one hectares, thus forcing the wealthiest landed families to sell most of their holdings. Small peasant proprietors were the main beneficiaries of the redistribution. By the early 1980s, however, continued population growth and rising production costs had eroded many of the accomplishments of land reform. Inheritance tended to fragment already small holdings, and the number of landless people increased.

Land reform was only one of several social programs initiated by the Free Officers who led the 1952 Revolution. The majority of these officers, who came mostly from the middle class, was determined to broaden opportunities in a society that had been dominated by a narrow elite. They perceived education as a critical force for change. Beginning in the nineteenth century, secular education provided the country with the foundation for a civil bureaucracy. Access to a university education and government employment, however, was generally limited to the urban upper classes until the mid-1930s, when sons of urban and rural middle-class families were accepted into the military or civil administration. Following the 1952 Revolution, educational opportunities from primary school through university increased substantially. Through the 1980s, university enrollments swelled as increasing numbers of middle- and lowerclass youth pursued higher education in the hope of obtaining prestigious employment.

By the 1980s, overstaffing in the state bureaucracy had become a major problem. Periodic discussion by the mass media on the need to reform the government’s hiring and promotion systems, which gave preference to university graduates, caused anxiety among students, many of whom had migrated from rural areas and faced limited employment prospects in agriculture. Most of these students perceived higher education and government employment as means for achieving upward mobility. They therefore showed little support for the proposed reforms, which would reduce their opportunities.

Massive urbanization beginning after World War II has had a pervasive and accelerating impact on the nation’s cities, especially Cairo and Alexandria. These cities, which were once the enclaves of the relatively prosperous and privileged, have attracted millions of rural migrants, including landowning families’ children who wanted to pursue an education and illiterate sons and daughters of poor, landless peasants who were willing to work as unskilled laborers. The migrants have adapted to urban life by attempting to replicate the social organization found in villages. Residential patterns, employment practices, and socializing have tended to reflect and to reinforce relationships formed in the countryside.

Religion, mainly Islam, is an integral aspect of social life. Although most Egyptian Muslims respect and agree on the basic tenets of Islam, their religious perspectives differ. Trained theologians, for example, practice orthodox Islam while villagers practice a simple form of the religion. Since the 1970s, there has been a resurgence of Islamic political groups. Activists ranged from persons fervent in religious practice to individuals who favor the adoption of the Muslim legal code as the basis of Egyptian law to others who espouse the violent overthrow of the government to achieve an Islamic social order. Some leaders of the Islamic political groups are former university students or recent graduates whose families migrated from rural areas. Many Muslims have responded favorably to these leaders, who are likely to remain a potent political force in the 1990s.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

http://www.sharmexcursion-tours.com

Throughout Egypt, days are commonly warm or hot, and nights are cool. Egypt has only two seasons: a mild winter from November to April and a hot summer from May to October. The only differences between the seasons are variations in daytime temperatures and changes in prevailing winds. In the coastal regions, temperatures range between an average minimum of 14° C in winter and an average maximum of 30° C in summer.

Temperatures vary widely in the inland desert areas, especially in summer, when they may range from 7° C at night to 43° C during the day. During winter, temperatures in the desert fluctuate less dramatically, but they can be as low as 0° C at night and as high as 18° C during the day.

The average annual temperature increases moving southward from the Delta to the Sudanese border, where temperatures are similar to those of the open deserts to the east and west. In the north, the cooler temperatures of Alexandria during the summer have made the city a popular resort. Throughout the Delta and the northern Nile Valley, there are occasional winter cold spells accompanied by light frost and even snow. At Aswan, in the south, June temperatures can be as low as 10° C at night and as high as 41° C during the day when the sky is clear.

Egypt receives fewer than eighty millimeters of precipitation annually in most areas. Most rain falls along the coast, but even the wettest area, around Alexandria, receives only about 200 millimeters of precipitation per year. Alexandria has relatively high humidity, but sea breezes help keep the moisture down to a comfortable level. Moving southward, the amount of precipitation decreases suddenly. Cairo receives a little more than one centimeter of precipitation each year. The city, however, reports humidity as high as 77 percent during the summer. But during the rest of the year, humidity is low. The areas south of Cairo receive only traces of rainfall. Some areas will go years without rain and then experience sudden downpours that result in flash floods. Sinai receives somewhat more rainfall (about twelve centimeters annually in the north) than the other desert areas, and the region is dotted by numerous wells and oases, which support small population centers that formerly were focal points on trade routes. Water drainage toward the Mediterranean Sea from the main plateau supplies sufficient moisture to permit some agriculture in the coastal area, particularly near Al Arish.

A phenomenon of Egypt’s climate is the hot spring wind that blows across the country. The winds, known to Europeans as the sirocco and to Egyptians as the khamsin, usually arrive in April but occasionally occur in March and May. The winds form in small but vigorous low-pressure areas in the Isthmus of Suez and sweep across the northern coast of Africa. Unobstructed by geographical features, the winds reach high velocities and carry great quantities of sand and dust from the deserts. These sandstorms, often accompanied by winds of up to 140 kilometers per hour, can cause temperatures to rise as much as 20° C in two hours. The winds blow intermittently and may continue for days, cause illness in people and animals, harm crops, and occasionally damage houses and infrastructure.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

http://www.sharmexcursion-tours.com

This triangular area covers about 61,100 square kilometers (slightly smaller than West Virginia). Similar to the desert, the peninsula contains mountains in its southern sector that are a geological extension of the Red Sea Hills, the low range along the Red Sea coast that includes Mount Catherine (Jabal Katrinah), the country’s highest point–2,642 meters. The Red Sea is named after these mountains, which are red.

The southern side of the peninsula has a sharp escarpment that subsides after a narrow coastal shelf that slopes into the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. The elevation of Sinai’s southern rim is about 1,000 meters. Moving northward, the elevation of this limestone plateau decreases. The northern third of Sinai is a flat, sandy coastal plain, which extends from the Suez Canal into the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Before the Israeli military occupied Sinai during the June 1967 War (Arab-Israeli war, also known as the Six-Day War), a single Egyptian governorate administered the whole peninsula. By 1982 after all of Sinai was returned to Egypt, the central government divided the peninsula into two governorates. North Sinai has its capital at Al Arish and the South Sinai has its capital in At Tur.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

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The topographic features of the region east of the Nile are very different from those of the Western Desert. The relatively mountainous Eastern Desert rises abruptly from the Nile and extends over an area of approximately 220,000 square kilometers (roughly equivalent in size to Utah). The upward-sloping plateau of sand gives way within 100 kilometers to arid, defoliated, rocky hills running north and south between the Sudan border and the Delta. The hills reach elevations of more than 1,900 meters. The region’s most prominent feature is the easterly chain of rugged mountains, the Red Sea Hills, which extend from the Nile Valley eastward to the Gulf of Suez and the Red Sea. This elevated region has a natural drainage pattern that rarely functions because of insufficient rainfall. It also has a complex of irregular, sharply cut wadis that extend westward toward the Nile.

The Eastern Desert is generally isolated from the rest of the country. There is no oasis cultivation in the region because of the difficulty in sustaining any form of agriculture. Except for a few villages on the Red Sea coast, there are no permanent settlements. The importance of the Eastern Desert lies in its natural resources, especially oil. A single governorate, the capital of which is at Al Ghardaqah, administers the entire region.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

Throughout Egypt, days are commonly warm or hot, and nights are cool. Egypt has only two seasons: a mild winter from November to April and a hot summer from May to October. The only differences between the seasons are variations in daytime temperatures and changes in prevailing winds. In the coastal regions, temperatures range between an average minimum of 14° C in winter and an average maximum of 30° C in summer.

Temperatures vary widely in the inland desert areas, especially in summer, when they may range from 7° C at night to 43° C during the day. During winter, temperatures in the desert fluctuate less dramatically, but they can be as low as 0° C at night and as high as 18° C during the day.

The average annual temperature increases moving southward from the Delta to the Sudanese border, where temperatures are similar to those of the open deserts to the east and west. In the north, the cooler temperatures of Alexandria during the summer have made the city a popular resort. Throughout the Delta and the northern Nile Valley, there are occasional winter cold spells accompanied by light frost and even snow. At Aswan, in the south, June temperatures can be as low as 10° C at night and as high as 41° C during the day when the sky is clear.

Egypt receives fewer than eighty millimeters of precipitation annually in most areas. Most rain falls along the coast, but even the wettest area, around Alexandria, receives only about 200 millimeters of precipitation per year. Alexandria has relatively high humidity, but sea breezes help keep the moisture down to a comfortable level. Moving southward, the amount of precipitation decreases suddenly. Cairo receives a little more than one centimeter of precipitation each year. The city, however, reports humidity as high as 77 percent during the summer. But during the rest of the year, humidity is low. The areas south of Cairo receive only traces of rainfall. Some areas will go years without rain and then experience sudden downpours that result in flash floods. Sinai receives somewhat more rainfall (about twelve centimeters annually in the north) than the other desert areas, and the region is dotted by numerous wells and oases, which support small population centers that formerly were focal points on trade routes. Water drainage toward the Mediterranean Sea from the main plateau supplies sufficient moisture to permit some agriculture in the coastal area, particularly near Al Arish.

A phenomenon of Egypt’s climate is the hot spring wind that blows across the country. The winds, known to Europeans as the sirocco and to Egyptians as the khamsin, usually arrive in April but occasionally occur in March and May. The winds form in small but vigorous low-pressure areas in the Isthmus of Suez and sweep across the northern coast of Africa. Unobstructed by geographical features, the winds reach high velocities and carry great quantities of sand and dust from the deserts. These sandstorms, often accompanied by winds of up to 140 kilometers per hour, can cause temperatures to rise as much as 20° C in two hours. The winds blow intermittently and may continue for days, cause illness in people and animals, harm crops, and occasionally damage houses and infrastructure.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

This triangular area covers about 61,100 square kilometers (slightly smaller than West Virginia). Similar to the desert, the peninsula contains mountains in its southern sector that are a geological extension of the Red Sea Hills, the low range along the Red Sea coast that includes Mount Catherine (Jabal Katrinah), the country’s highest point–2,642 meters. The Red Sea is named after these mountains, which are red.

The southern side of the peninsula has a sharp escarpment that subsides after a narrow coastal shelf that slopes into the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. The elevation of Sinai’s southern rim is about 1,000 meters. Moving northward, the elevation of this limestone plateau decreases. The northern third of Sinai is a flat, sandy coastal plain, which extends from the Suez Canal into the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Before the Israeli military occupied Sinai during the June 1967 War (Arab-Israeli war, also known as the Six-Day War), a single Egyptian governorate administered the whole peninsula. By 1982 after all of Sinai was returned to Egypt, the central government divided the peninsula into two governorates. North Sinai has its capital at Al Arish and the South Sinai has its capital in At Tur.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

The topographic features of the region east of the Nile are very different from those of the Western Desert. The relatively mountainous Eastern Desert rises abruptly from the Nile and extends over an area of approximately 220,000 square kilometers (roughly equivalent in size to Utah). The upward-sloping plateau of sand gives way within 100 kilometers to arid, defoliated, rocky hills running north and south between the Sudan border and the Delta. The hills reach elevations of more than 1,900 meters. The region’s most prominent feature is the easterly chain of rugged mountains, the Red Sea Hills, which extend from the Nile Valley eastward to the Gulf of Suez and the Red Sea. This elevated region has a natural drainage pattern that rarely functions because of insufficient rainfall. It also has a complex of irregular, sharply cut wadis that extend westward toward the Nile. The Eastern Desert is generally isolated from the rest of the country. There is no oasis cultivation in the region because of the difficulty in sustaining any form of agriculture. Except for a few villages on the Red Sea coast, there are no permanent settlements. The importance of the Eastern Desert lies in its natural resources, especially oil. A single governorate, the capital of which is at Al Ghardaqah, administers the entire region. Source: U.S. Library of Congress

http://www.youregypttours.com

Throughout Egypt, days are commonly warm or hot, and nights are cool. Egypt has only two seasons: a mild winter from November to April and a hot summer from May to October. The only differences between the seasons are variations in daytime temperatures and changes in prevailing winds. In the coastal regions, temperatures range between an average minimum of 14° C in winter and an average maximum of 30° C in summer.

Temperatures vary widely in the inland desert areas, especially in summer, when they may range from 7° C at night to 43° C during the day. During winter, temperatures in the desert fluctuate less dramatically, but they can be as low as 0° C at night and as high as 18° C during the day.

The average annual temperature increases moving southward from the Delta to the Sudanese border, where temperatures are similar to those of the open deserts to the east and west. In the north, the cooler temperatures of Alexandria during the summer have made the city a popular resort. Throughout the Delta and the northern Nile Valley, there are occasional winter cold spells accompanied by light frost and even snow. At Aswan, in the south, June temperatures can be as low as 10° C at night and as high as 41° C during the day when the sky is clear.

Egypt receives fewer than eighty millimeters of precipitation annually in most areas. Most rain falls along the coast, but even the wettest area, around Alexandria, receives only about 200 millimeters of precipitation per year. Alexandria has relatively high humidity, but sea breezes help keep the moisture down to a comfortable level. Moving southward, the amount of precipitation decreases suddenly. Cairo receives a little more than one centimeter of precipitation each year. The city, however, reports humidity as high as 77 percent during the summer. But during the rest of the year, humidity is low. The areas south of Cairo receive only traces of rainfall. Some areas will go years without rain and then experience sudden downpours that result in flash floods. Sinai receives somewhat more rainfall (about twelve centimeters annually in the north) than the other desert areas, and the region is dotted by numerous wells and oases, which support small population centers that formerly were focal points on trade routes. Water drainage toward the Mediterranean Sea from the main plateau supplies sufficient moisture to permit some agriculture in the coastal area, particularly near Al Arish.

A phenomenon of Egypt’s climate is the hot spring wind that blows across the country. The winds, known to Europeans as the sirocco and to Egyptians as the khamsin, usually arrive in April but occasionally occur in March and May. The winds form in small but vigorous low-pressure areas in the Isthmus of Suez and sweep across the northern coast of Africa. Unobstructed by geographical features, the winds reach high velocities and carry great quantities of sand and dust from the deserts. These sandstorms, often accompanied by winds of up to 140 kilometers per hour, can cause temperatures to rise as much as 20° C in two hours. The winds blow intermittently and may continue for days, cause illness in people and animals, harm crops, and occasionally damage houses and infrastructure.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

http://www.youregypttours.com

This triangular area covers about 61,100 square kilometers (slightly smaller than West Virginia). Similar to the desert, the peninsula contains mountains in its southern sector that are a geological extension of the Red Sea Hills, the low range along the Red Sea coast that includes Mount Catherine (Jabal Katrinah), the country’s highest point–2,642 meters. The Red Sea is named after these mountains, which are red.

The southern side of the peninsula has a sharp escarpment that subsides after a narrow coastal shelf that slopes into the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. The elevation of Sinai’s southern rim is about 1,000 meters. Moving northward, the elevation of this limestone plateau decreases. The northern third of Sinai is a flat, sandy coastal plain, which extends from the Suez Canal into the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Before the Israeli military occupied Sinai during the June 1967 War (Arab-Israeli war, also known as the Six-Day War), a single Egyptian governorate administered the whole peninsula. By 1982 after all of Sinai was returned to Egypt, the central government divided the peninsula into two governorates. North Sinai has its capital at Al Arish and the South Sinai has its capital in At Tur.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

http://www.youregypttours.com

The topographic features of the region east of the Nile are very different from those of the Western Desert. The relatively mountainous Eastern Desert rises abruptly from the Nile and extends over an area of approximately 220,000 square kilometers (roughly equivalent in size to Utah). The upward-sloping plateau of sand gives way within 100 kilometers to arid, defoliated, rocky hills running north and south between the Sudan border and the Delta. The hills reach elevations of more than 1,900 meters. The region’s most prominent feature is the easterly chain of rugged mountains, the Red Sea Hills, which extend from the Nile Valley eastward to the Gulf of Suez and the Red Sea. This elevated region has a natural drainage pattern that rarely functions because of insufficient rainfall. It also has a complex of irregular, sharply cut wadis that extend westward toward the Nile.

The Eastern Desert is generally isolated from the rest of the country. There is no oasis cultivation in the region because of the difficulty in sustaining any form of agriculture. Except for a few villages on the Red Sea coast, there are no permanent settlements. The importance of the Eastern Desert lies in its natural resources, especially oil. A single governorate, the capital of which is at Al Ghardaqah, administers the entire region.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

http://www.fly2egy.com

Egypt is predominantly desert. Only 35,000 square kilometers- -3.5 percent of the total land area–are cultivated and permanently settled. Most of the country lies within the wide band of desert that stretches from Africa’s Atlantic Coast across the continent and into southwest Asia. Egypt’s geological history has produced four major physical regions: the Nile Valley and Delta, the Western Desert (also known as the Libyan Desert), the Eastern Desert (also known as the Arabian Desert), and the Sinai Peninsula. The Nile Valley and Delta is the most important region because it supports 99 percent of the population on the country’s only cultivable land.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

http://www.youregypttours.com

The Western Desert covers about 700,000 square kilometers (equivalent in size to Texas) and accounts for about two-thirds of Egypt’s land area. This immense desert to the west of the Nile spans the area from the Mediterranean Sea south to the Sudanese border. The desert’s Jilf al Kabir Plateau has an altitude of about 1,000 meters, an exception to the uninterrupted territory of basement rocks covered by layers of horizontally bedded sediments forming a massive plain or low plateau. The Great Sand Sea lies within the desert’s plain and extends from the Siwah Oasis to Jilf al Kabir. Scarps (ridges) and deep depressions (basins) exist in several parts of the Western Desert, and no rivers or streams drain into or out of the area.

The government has considered the Western Desert a frontier region and has divided it into two governorates at about the twenty-eighth parallel: Matruh to the north and New Valley (Al Wadi al Jadid) to the south. There are seven important depressions in the Western Desert, and all are considered oases except the largest, Qattara, the water of which is salty. The Qattara Depression is approximately 15,000 square kilometers (about the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island) and is largely below sea level (its lowest point is 133 meters below sea level). Badlands, salt marshes, and salt lakes cover the sparsely inhabited Qattara Depression.

Limited agricultural production, the presence of some natural resources, and permanent settlements are found in the other six depressions, all of which have fresh water provided by the Nile or by local groundwater. The Siwah Oasis, close to the Libyan border and west of Qattara, is isolated from the rest of Egypt but has sustained life since ancient times. The Siwa’s cliff-hung Temple of Amun was renowned for its oracles for more than 1,000 years. Herodotus and Alexander the Great were among the many illustrious people who visited the temple in the pre-Christian era.

The other major oases form a topographic chain of basins extending from the Al Fayyum Oasis (sometimes called the Fayyum Depression) which lies sixty kilometers southwest of Cairo, south to the Bahriyah, Farafirah, and Dakhilah oases before reaching the country’s largest oasis, Kharijah. A brackish lake, Birkat Qarun, at the northern reaches of Al Fayyum Oasis, drained into the Nile in ancient times. For centuries sweetwater artesian wells in the Fayyum Oasis have permitted extensive cultivation in an irrigated area that extends over 1,800 square kilometers.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

http://www.youregypttours.com

The Nile Valley and Delta, the most extensive oasis on earth, was created by the world’s second-longest river and its seemingly inexhaustible sources. Without the topographic channel that permits the Nile to flow across the Sahara, Egypt would be entirely desert; the Nile River traverses about 1,600 kilometers through Egypt and flows northward from the Egyptian-Sudanese border to the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is a combination of three long rivers whose sources are in central Africa: the White Nile, the Blue Nile, and the Atbarah.

The White Nile, which begins at Lake Victoria in Uganda, supplies about 28 percent of the Nile’s waters in Egypt. In its course from Lake Victoria to Juba in southern Sudan, the elevation of the White Nile’s channel drops more than 600 meters. In its 1,600-kilometer course from Juba to Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, the river descends only 75 meters. In southern and central Sudan, the White Nile passes through a wide, flat plain covered with swamp vegetation and slows almost to stagnation.

The Blue Nile, which originates at Lake Tana in Ethiopia, provides an average of 58 percent of the Nile’s waters in Egypt. It has a steeper gradient and flows more swiftly than the White Nile, which it joins at Khartoum. Unlike the White Nile, the Blue Nile carries a considerable amount of sediment; for several kilometers north of Khartoum, water closer to the eastern bank of the river is visibly muddy and comes from the Blue Nile, while the water closer to the western bank is clearer and comes from the White Nile.

The much shorter Atbarah River, which also originates in Ethiopia, joins the main Nile north of Khartoum between the fifth and sixth cataracts (areas of steep rapids) and provides about 14 percent of the Nile’s waters in Egypt. During the low-water season, which runs from January to June, the Atbarah shrinks to a number of pools. But in late summer, when torrential rains fall on the Ethiopian plateau, the Atbarah provides 22 percent of the Nile’s flow.

The Blue Nile has a similar pattern. It contributes 17 percent of the Nile’s waters in the low-water season and 68 percent during the high-water season. In contrast, the White Nile provides only 10 percent of the Nile’s waters during the highwater season but contributes more than 80 percent during the lowwater period. Thus, before the Aswan High Dam was completed in 1971, the White Nile watered the Egyptian stretch of the river throughout the year, whereas the Blue Nile, carrying seasonal rain from Ethiopia, caused the Nile to overflow its banks and deposit a layer of fertile mud over adjacent fields. The great flood of the main Nile usually occurred in Egypt during August, September, and October, but it sometimes began as early as June at Aswan and often did not completely wane until January.

The Nile enters Egypt a few kilometers north of Wadi Halfa, a Sudanese town that was completely rebuilt on high ground when its original site was submerged in the reservoir created by the Aswan High Dam. As a result of the dam’s construction, the Nile actually begins its flow into Egypt as Lake Nasser, which extends south from the dam 320 kilometers to the border and an additional 158 kilometers into Sudan. Lake Nasser’s waters fill the area through Lower Nubia (Upper Egypt and northern Sudan) within the narrow gorge between the cliffs of sandstone and granite created by the flow of the river over many centuries. Below Aswan the cultivated floodplain strip widens to as much as twenty kilometers. North of Isna (160 kilometers north of Aswan), the plateau on both sides of the valley rises as high as 550 meters above sea level; at Qina (about 90 kilometers north of Isna) the 300-meter limestone cliffs force the Nile to change course to the southwest for about 60 kilometers before turning northwest for about 160 kilometers to Asyut. Northward from Asyut, the escarpments on both sides diminish, and the valley widens to a maximum of twenty-two kilometers. The Nile reaches the Delta at Cairo.

At Cairo the Nile spreads out over what was once a broad estuary that has been filled by silt deposits to form a fertile, fan-shaped delta about 250 kilometers wide at the seaward base and about 160 kilometers from north to south. The Nile Delta extends over approximately 22,000 square kilometers (roughly equivalent in area to Massachusetts). According to historical accounts from the first century A.D., seven branches of the Nile once ran through the Delta. According to later accounts, the Nile had only six branches by around the twelfth century. Since then, nature and man have closed all but two main outlets: the east branch, Damietta (also seen as Dumyat; 240 kilometers long), and the west branch, Rosetta (235 kilometers long). Both outlets are named after the ports located at their mouths. A network of drainage and irrigation canals supplements these remaining outlets. In the north near the coast, the Delta embraces a series of salt marshes and lakes; most notable among them are Idku, Al Burullus, and Manzilah.

The fertility and productivity of the land adjacent to the Nile depends largely on the silt deposited by floodwaters. Archaeological research indicates that people once lived at a much higher elevation along the river than they do today, probably because the river was higher or the floods more severe. The timing and the amount of annual flow were always unpredictable. Measurements of annual flows as low as 1.2 billion cubic meters and as high as 4.25 billion cubic meters have been recorded. For centuries Egyptians attempted to predict and take advantage of the flows and moderate the severity of floods.

The construction of dams on the Nile, particularly the Aswan High Dam, transformed the mighty river into a large and predictable irrigation ditch. Lake Nasser, the world’s largest artificial lake, has enabled planned use of the Nile regardless of the amount of rainfall in Central Africa and East Africa. The dams have also affected the Nile Valley’s fertility, which was dependent for centuries not only on the water brought to the arable land but also on the materials left by the water. Researchers have estimated that beneficial silt deposits in the valley began about 10,000 years ago. The average annual deposit of arable soil through the course of the river valley was about nine meters. Analysis of the flow revealed that 10.7 million tons of solid matter passed Cairo each year. Today the Aswan High Dam obstructs most of this sediment, which is now retained in Lake Nasser. The reduction in annual silt deposits has contributed to rising water tables and increasing soil salinity in the Delta, the erosion of the river’s banks in Upper Egypt, and the erosion of the alluvial fan along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress