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Episode Guide
- 1. King Tut's Curse Sep 8, 2009
- A look at one of the world's most ancient civilizations.
- 2. Secret Chambers Revealed Sep 9, 2009
- A broadcast from Egypt in an attempt to solve the mystery of the Great Pyramid.
- 3. Nefertiti's Odyssey Sep 10, 2009
- A look at one of the world's most ancient civilizations.
Learn about Egypt, a transcontinental country in Africa and Asia with a rich and ancient civilisation. Explore its history, geography, culture, religion, government, economy and more on Wikipedia.
3 days ago · 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.
- 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.
Britannica Quiz
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.
Aug 23, 2024 · Egypt is the most populous country in the Arab world and the third-most-populous country in Africa, behind Nigeria and Ethiopia. Most of the country is desert, so about 95% of the population is concentrated in a narrow strip of fertile land along the Nile River, which represents only about 5% of Egypt’s land area.
Oct 14, 2009 · Learn about the rise and fall of ancient Egypt, from its unification under King Menes to its conquest by Alexander the Great. Explore its achievements in art, architecture, religion and more.
Sep 2, 2009 · Learn about the history, culture, and achievements of one of the oldest civilizations on earth. Explore the origins, development, and legacy of ancient Egypt from prehistory to the Ptolemaic Dynasty.