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Faiyum Oasis
The Faiyum Oasis ( ''Wāḥat al-Fayyum'') is a depression or basin in the desert immediately west of the Nile river, 62 miles south of Cairo, Egypt. The extent of the basin area is estimated at between 1,270 km2 (490 mi2) and 1,700 km2 (656 mi2). The basin floor comprises fields watered by a channel of the Nile, the Bahr Yussef, as it drains into a desert hollow to the west of the Nile Valley. The Bahr Yussef veers west through a narrow neck of land north of Ihnasya, between the archaeological sites of El Lahun and Gurob near Hawara; it then branches out, providing agricultural land in the Faiyum basin, draining into the large saltwater Lake Moeris (Birket Qarun). In prehistory it was a freshwater lake, but is today a saltwater lake. It is a source for tilapia and other fish for the local area. Differing from typical oases, whose fertility depends on water obtained from springs, the cultivated land in the Faiyum is formed of Nile mud brought by the Bah ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Messinian Salinity Crisis
In the Messinian salinity crisis (also referred to as the Messinian event, and in its latest stage as the Lago Mare event) the Mediterranean Sea went into a cycle of partial or nearly complete desiccation (drying-up) throughout the latter part of the Messinian age of the Miocene epoch, from 5.96 to 5.33 Year#SI prefix multipliers, Ma (million years ago). It ended with the Zanclean flood, when the Atlantic reclaimed the basin. Sediment samples from below the deep seafloor of the Mediterranean Sea, which include evaporite minerals, soils, and fossil plants, show that the precursor of the Strait of Gibraltar closed about 5.96 million years ago, sealing the Mediterranean off from the Atlantic. This resulted in a period of partial desiccation of the Mediterranean Sea, the first of several such periods during the late Miocene. After the strait closed for the last time around 5.6 Ma, the region's generally dry climate at the time dried the Mediterranean basin out nearly completely within ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hieroglyph
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters.In total, there were about 1,000 graphemes in use during the Old Kingdom period; this number decreased to 750–850 during the Middle Kingdom, but rose instead to around 5,000 signs during the Ptolemaic period. Antonio Loprieno, ''Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction'' (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995), p. 12. Cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood. The later hieratic and demotic Egyptian scripts were derived from hieroglyphic writing, as was the Proto-Sinaitic script that later evolved into the Phoenician alphabet. Egyptian hieroglyphs are the ultimate ancestor of the Phoenician alphabet, the first widely adopted phonetic writing system. Moreover, owing in large part to the Greek and Aramaic sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt ( ', shortened to , , locally: ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the Nile River valley south of the delta and the 30th parallel North. It thus consists of the entire Nile River valley from Cairo south to Lake Nasser (formed by the Aswan High Dam). Name In ancient Egypt, Upper Egypt was known as ''tꜣ šmꜣw'', literally "the Land of Reeds" or "the Sedgeland", named for the sedges that grow there. In Biblical Hebrew it was known as and in Akkadian it was known as . Both names originate from the Egyptian '' pꜣ- tꜣ- rsj'', meaning "the southern land". In Arabic, the region is called Sa'id or Sahid, from صعيد meaning "uplands", from the root صعد meaning to go up, ascend, or rise. Inhabitants of Upper Egypt are known as Sa'idis and they generally speak Sa'idi Egyptian Arabic. Geography Upper Egypt is between the Cataracts of the Nile beyond modern-day Aswan, downriver (northward) to the area of El-Ayait, which places modern- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nome (Egypt)
A nome (, from , ''nomós'', "district") was a territorial division in ancient Egypt. Each nome was ruled by a nomarch (, "Great Chief"). The number of nomes changed through the various periods of the history of ancient Egypt. Etymology The term ''nome'' comes from Ancient Greek νομός ''nomós'' meaning "pasture" extended to "dwelling" and "district"; the Ancient Egyptian term was ( /sɛpɑt/). Today's use of the Ancient Greek rather than the Ancient Egyptian term came about during the Ptolemaic period, when the use of Greek was widespread in Egypt. The availability of Greek records on Egypt influenced the adoption of Greek terms by later historians. History Dynastic Egypt The division of ancient Egypt into nomes can be traced back to prehistoric Egypt (before 3100 BC). These nomes originally existed as autonomous city-states, but later began to unify. According to ancient tradition, the ruler Menes completed the final unification. Not only did the division into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Egyptians
Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower Egypt were amalgamated by Menes, who is believed by the majority of Egyptologists to have been the same person as Narmer. The history of ancient Egypt unfolded as a series of stable kingdoms interspersed by the " Intermediate Periods" of relative instability. These stable kingdoms existed in one of three periods: the Old Kingdom of the Early Bronze Age; the Middle Kingdom of the Middle Bronze Age; or the New Kingdom of the Late Bronze Age. The pinnacle of ancient Egyptian power was achieved during the New Kingdom, which extended its rule to much of Nubia and a considerable portion of the Levant. After this period, Egypt entered an era of slow decline. Over the course of its history, it was invaded or conquered by a number of foreign civ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Twelfth Dynasty Of Egypt
The Twelfth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty XII) is a series of rulers reigning from 1991–1802 BC (190 years), at what is often considered to be the apex of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, Middle Kingdom (Dynasties XI–XIV). The dynasty periodically expanded its territory from the Nile delta and valley South beyond the Cataracts of the Nile, second cataract and East into Canaan. The Twelfth Dynasty was marked by relative stability and development. It has a notably well recorded history for the period. Its first pharaoh was Amenemhat I and its final was Sobekneferu. History The chronology of the Twelfth Dynasty is the most stable of any period before the New Kingdom of Egypt, New Kingdom. The Turin King List, Turin Royal Canon gives 213 years (1991–1778 BC). Manetho stated that it was based in Thebes, Egypt, Thebes, but from contemporary records it is clear that the first king of this dynasty, Amenemhat I, moved its capital to a new city named "Amenemhat-itj-tawy" ("Amenemha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pharaoh
Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty () until the Roman Egypt, annexation of Egypt by the Roman Republic in 30 BCE. However, the equivalent Egyptian language, Egyptian word for "king" was the term used most frequently by the ancient Egyptians for their monarchs, regardless of gender, through the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty during the New Kingdom of Egypt, New Kingdom. The earliest confirmed instances of "pharaoh" used contemporaneously for a ruler were a letter to Akhenaten (reigned –1336 BCE) or an inscription possibly referring to Thutmose III (–1425 BCE). In the early dynasties, ancient Egyptian kings had as many as ancient Egyptian royal titulary, three titles: the Horus name, Horus, the prenomen (Ancient Egypt), Sedge and Bee (wikt:nswt-bjtj, ''nswt-bjtj''), and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neolithic
The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts of the world. This "Neolithic package" included the History of agriculture, introduction of farming, domestication of animals, and change from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of sedentism, settlement. The term 'Neolithic' was coined by John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system. The Neolithic began about 12,000 years ago, when farming appeared in the Epipalaeolithic Near East and Mesopotamia, and later in other parts of the world. It lasted in the Near East until the transitional period of the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) from about 6,500 years ago (4500 BCE), marked by the development ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Menes
Menes ( ; ; , probably pronounced *; and Μήν) was a pharaoh of the Early Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt, credited by classical tradition with having united Upper and Lower Egypt, and as the founder of the First Dynasty. The identity of Menes is the subject of ongoing debate, although mainstream Egyptological consensus inconclusively identifies Menes with the Naqada III ruler Narmer or his successor, the First Dynasty pharaoh Hor-Aha. Name and identity The name ''Menes'' is first documented in the work of Manetho, an Egyptian historian and priest of the relatively late Ptolemaic period. Manetho noted the name in Greek as Μήνης (transliterated: ''Mênês'').Manetho, Fr. 6, 7a, 7b. Text and translation in ''Manetho'', translated by W.G. Waddell (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1940), pp.26–35 An alternative Greek form, Μιν (transliterated: ''Min''), was cited by the fifth-century-BC historian Herodotus, but this variant appears to be unrelated, the result of c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
3000 BC
The 30th century BC was a time period that lasted from the year 3000 BC to 2901 BC. Events * Before 3000 BC: An image of a deity (detail from a cong) recovered from Tomb 12 in Fanshan, Yuyao, Zhejiang, is made during the Neolithic period by the Liangzhu culture. It is now kept at Zhejiang Provincial Museum, Hangzhou. *c. 3000 BC: Earliest remains from Aniba (Nubia). * c. 3000 BC: Early agriculture in North Africa. * c. 3300 BC – 2600 BC: Early Harappan period continues in the Indus Valley. * c. 3000 BC: Camels are domesticated in Egypt. * c. 3000 BC: There is an intense phase of burial at on the Hill of Tara, the ancient seat of the High King of Ireland. * c. 3000 BC: Stonehenge begins to be built. In its first version, it consists of a circular ditch and bank, with 56 wooden posts. * c. 3000 BC: Cycladic civilization in the Aegean Sea starts. * c. 3000 BC: Helladic period starts. * c. 3000 BC: Aegean Bronze Age starts. * c. 3000 BC: Austronesian expansion begins. * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aswan
Aswan (, also ; ) is a city in Southern Egypt, and is the capital of the Aswan Governorate. Aswan is a busy market and tourist centre located just north of the Aswan Dam on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract. The modern city has expanded and includes the formerly separate community on the island of Elephantine. Aswan includes five monuments within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae; these are the Old and Middle Kingdom tombs of Qubbet el-Hawa, the town of Elephantine, the stone quarries and Unfinished Obelisk, the Monastery of St. Simeon and the Fatimid Cemetery. The city's Nubian Museum is an important archaeological center, containing finds from the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia before the Aswan Dam flooded all of Lower Nubia. The city is part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in the category of craft and folk art. Aswan joined the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities in 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
