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Hace 1 día · Egypt, country located in the northeastern corner of Africa. Egypt’s heartland, the Nile River valley and delta, was the home of one of the principal civilizations of the ancient Middle East and was the site of one of the world’s earliest urban and literate societies.
- World War II and Its Aftermath
Egypt - WWII, Aftermath, Revolution: Although Egypt provided...
- Renewed European Intervention, 1879–82
Egypt - European Intervention, Colonization, Revolt:...
- World War I and Independence
Egypt - WWI, Independence, Revolution: In November 1914...
- Languages
Egypt - Arabic, Coptic, Nubian: The official language of...
- The Ottomans
Egypt - Ottoman, Nile, Civilization: With the Ottomans’...
- The Arts
Egypt - Art, Architecture, Music: Egypt is one of the Arab...
- The Eastern Desert
Egypt - Oases, Monasteries, Deserts: The Eastern Desert...
- The Arab Conquest
Egypt - Islamic Conquest, Pharaohs, Nile: The period of...
- World War II and Its Aftermath
- Overview
- Life in ancient Egypt
Egyptian kings are commonly called pharaohs, following the usage of the Bible. The term pharaoh is derived from the Egyptian per ʿaa (“great estate”) and to the designation of the royal palace as an institution. This term was used increasingly from about 1400 BCE as a way of referring to the living king.
What were the two types of writing in ancient Egypt?
The two basic types of writing in ancient Egypt were hieroglyphs, which were used for monuments and display, and the cursive form known as hieratic, invented at much the same time in late predynastic Egypt (c. 3000 BCE).
Which pharaoh probably built the first true pyramid?
Snefru was the first king of ancient Egypt of the 4th dynasty (c. 2575–c. 2465 BCE). He probably built the step pyramid of Maydūm and then modified it to form the first true pyramid.
Who was the first king to unify Upper and Lower Egypt?
Ancient Egypt can be thought of as an oasis in the desert of northeastern Africa, dependent on the annual inundation of the Nile River to support its agricultural population. The country’s chief wealth came from the fertile floodplain of the Nile valley, where the river flows between bands of limestone hills, and the Nile delta, in which it fans into several branches north of present-day Cairo. Between the floodplain and the hills is a variable band of low desert that supported a certain amount of game. The Nile was Egypt’s sole transportation artery.
The First Cataract at Aswān, where the riverbed is turned into rapids by a belt of granite, was the country’s only well-defined boundary within a populated area. To the south lay the far less hospitable area of Nubia, in which the river flowed through low sandstone hills that in most regions left only a very narrow strip of cultivable land. Nubia was significant for Egypt’s periodic southward expansion and for access to products from farther south. West of the Nile was the arid Sahara, broken by a chain of oases some 125 to 185 miles (200 to 300 km) from the river and lacking in all other resources except for a few minerals. The eastern desert, between the Nile and the Red Sea, was more important, for it supported a small nomadic population and desert game, contained numerous mineral deposits, including gold, and was the route to the Red Sea.
To the northeast was the Isthmus of Suez. It offered the principal route for contact with Sinai, from which came turquoise and possibly copper, and with southwestern Asia, Egypt’s most important area of cultural interaction, from which were received stimuli for technical development and cultivars for crops. Immigrants and ultimately invaders crossed the isthmus into Egypt, attracted by the country’s stability and prosperity. From the late 2nd millennium bce onward, numerous attacks were made by land and sea along the eastern Mediterranean coast.
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Pop Quiz: 18 Things to Know About Ancient Egypt
At first, relatively little cultural contact came by way of the Mediterranean Sea, but from an early date Egypt maintained trading relations with the Lebanese port of Byblos (present-day Jbail). Egypt needed few imports to maintain basic standards of living, but good timber was essential and not available within the country, so it usually was obtained from Lebanon. Minerals such as obsidian and lapis lazuli were imported from as far afield as Anatolia and Afghanistan.
Egypt is one of the world’s oldest continuous civilizations. Upper and Lower Egypt were united c. 3000 bce, beginning a period of cultural achievement and a line of native rulers that lasted nearly 3,000 years. Egypt’s ancient history is divided into the Old, the Middle, and the New Kingdom, spanning 31 dynasties and lasting to 332 bce.
Egyptian art and architecture, the architectural monuments, sculptures, paintings, and applied crafts of ancient Egypt. Some of the most well-known examples include the pyramids of Giza, Tutankhamun’s funerary mask, and the sculpture bust of Queen Nefertiti.
In Egypt: History. This section presents the history of Egypt from the Islamic conquests of the 7th century ce until the present day. For a discussion of Egypt’s earlier history, see Egypt, ancient. Read More. Arabia. In history of Arabia: Resistance to the Ottomans.
Ancient Egypt, civilization in northeastern Africa that dates from the 4th millennium BCE. Its many achievements, preserved in its art and monuments, hold a fascination that continues to grow as archaeological finds expose its secrets. Learn more about ancient Egypt in this article.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz. National anthem of Egypt. Egypt is a country in the northeastern corner of Africa. The Sinai Peninsula, which links Africa and Asia, is also part of the country. The vast majority of the Egyptian population lives on only about 3.5 percent of Egypt’s land.
