
Upper Egypt ( ', shortened to , ,
locally: ) is the southern portion of
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
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
Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...
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
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
, 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-day
Cairo
Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
in
Lower Egypt
Lower Egypt ( ') is the northernmost region of Egypt, which consists of the fertile Nile Delta between Upper Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, from El Aiyat, south of modern-day Cairo, and Dahshur. Historically, the Nile River split into sev ...
. The northern (downriver) part of Upper Egypt, between
Sohag and El-Ayait, is also known as
Middle Egypt
Middle Egypt () is the section of land between Lower Egypt (the Nile Delta) and Upper Egypt, stretching upstream from Asyut in the south to Memphis, Egypt, Memphis in the north. At the time, Ancient Egypt was divided into Lower and Upper Egypt, ...
.
History
It is believed to have been united by the rulers of the supposed
Thinite Confederacy who absorbed their rival city states during the
Naqada III
Naqada III is the last phase of the Naqada culture of ancient Prehistoric Egypt, Egyptian prehistory, dating from approximately 3200 to 3000 BC. It is the period during which the process of state formation, which began in Naqada II, became ...
period (c. 3200–3000 BC), and its subsequent unification with
Lower Egypt
Lower Egypt ( ') is the northernmost region of Egypt, which consists of the fertile Nile Delta between Upper Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, from El Aiyat, south of modern-day Cairo, and Dahshur. Historically, the Nile River split into sev ...
ushered in the
Early Dynastic period. Upper and Lower Egypt became intertwined in the symbolism of
pharaonic sovereignty such as the
Pschent
The pschent (/pskʰént/; Ancient Greek, Greek ''wikt:ψχέντ, ψχέντ'') was the double Crown (headgear), crown worn by rulers in ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptians generally referred to it as Pa-sekhemty (''pꜣ-sḫm.ty''), the Two Powe ...
double crown. Upper Egypt remained as a historical region even after the classical period.
Predynastic Egypt
The main city of
prehistoric Upper Egypt was
Nekhen. The patron deity was the goddess
Nekhbet, depicted as a vulture.
By approximately 3600 BC, Neolithic Egyptian societies along the
Nile
The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the List of river sy ...
based their culture on the raising of crops and the domestication of animals. Shortly thereafter, Egypt began to grow and increase in complexity.
A new and distinctive pottery appeared, related to the
Levantine ceramics, and copper implements and ornaments became common.
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
n building techniques became popular, using sun-dried
adobe bricks in arches and decorative recessed walls.
In Upper Egypt, the predynastic
Badari culture was followed by the
Naqada culture
The Naqada culture is an archaeological culture of Chalcolithic Predynastic Egypt (c. 4000–3000 BC), named for the town of Naqada, Qena Governorate. A 2013 Oxford University radiocarbon dating study of the Predynastic period suggests a beginn ...
(Amratian), being closely related to the Lower Nubian; other
northeast African populations, coastal communities from the
Maghreb
The Maghreb (; ), also known as the Arab Maghreb () and Northwest Africa, is the western part of the Arab world. The region comprises western and central North Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. The Maghreb al ...
, some
tropical
The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...
African groups, and possibly inhabitants of the
Middle East
The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
.
According to
bioarchaeologist Nancy Lovell, the morphology of ancient Egyptian skeletons gives strong evidence that: "In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and
Nubia
Nubia (, Nobiin language, Nobiin: , ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the confluence of the Blue Nile, Blue and White Nile, White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), and the Cataracts of the Nile, first cataract ...
had the greatest biological affinity to people of the
Sahara
The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...
and more southerly areas", but exhibited local variation in an African context. S. O. Y. Keita, a
biological anthropologist also reviewed studies on the biological affinities of the Ancient Egyptian population and characterised the skeletal morphologies of predynastic southern Egyptians as a "Saharo-tropical African variant". Keita also added that it is important to emphasize that whilst Egyptian society became more socially complex and biologically varied, the "ethnicity of the Niloto-Saharo-Sudanese origins did not change. The cultural morays, ritual formulae, and symbols used in writing, as far as can be ascertained, remained true to their southern origins."
The proto-dynastic kings emerged from the Naqada region. Excavations at Hierakonpolis (Upper Egypt) found archaeological evidence of ritual masks similar to those used further south of Egypt, and obsidian linked to Ethiopian quarry sites.
Frank Yurco stated that depictions of pharonic iconography such as the
royal crowns,
Horus
Horus (), also known as Heru, Har, Her, or Hor () in Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as the god of kingship, healing, protection, the sun, and t ...
falcons and victory scenes were concentrated in the Upper Egyptian Naqada culture and
A-Group Lower Nubia. He further elaborated that "
Egyptian writing arose in Naqadan Upper Egypt and A-Group Lower Nubia, and not in the Delta cultures, where the direct
Western Asia
West Asia (also called Western Asia or Southwest Asia) is the westernmost region of Asia. As defined by most academics, UN bodies and other institutions, the subregion consists of Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Armenian ...
n contact was made, further vitiates the Mesopotamian-influence argument".
Similarly,
Christopher Ehret
Christopher Ehret (27 July 1941 – 25 March 2025), was an American scholar of African history and African historical linguistics who was particularly known for his efforts to correlate linguistic taxonomy and reconstruction with the archeologic ...
, historian and linguist, stated that the cultural practice of sacral chiefship and kingship which emerged in Upper Egypt in the fourth millennium had originated centuries earlier in Nubia and the Middle Nile south of Egypt. He based this judgement on supporting,
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
and comparative
ethnographic evidence.
These cultural advances paralleled the political unification of towns of the upper Nile River, or Upper Egypt, while the same occurred in the societies of the
Nile Delta
The Nile Delta (, or simply , ) is the River delta, delta formed in Lower Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's larger deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the eas ...
, or
Lower Egypt
Lower Egypt ( ') is the northernmost region of Egypt, which consists of the fertile Nile Delta between Upper Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, from El Aiyat, south of modern-day Cairo, and Dahshur. Historically, the Nile River split into sev ...
.
This led to warfare between the two new kingdoms.
During his reign in Upper Egypt, King
Narmer defeated his enemies on the delta and became sole ruler of the two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt, a sovereignty which endured throughout Dynastic Egypt.
Dynastic Egypt
In royal symbolism, Upper Egypt was represented by the tall White Crown ''
Hedjet'', the flowering lotus, and the sedge. Its patron deity, Nekhbet, was depicted by the vulture. After unification, the patron deities of Upper and Lower Egypt were represented together as the ''
Two Ladies'', to protect all of the ancient Egyptians, just as the two crowns were combined into a single pharaonic diadem.
Several dynasties of southern or Upper Egyptian origin, which included the
11th,
12th,
17th,
18th and
25th dynasties, reunified and reinvigorated pharaonic Egypt after periods of fragmentation.
For most of Egypt's ancient history,
Thebes was the administrative center of Upper Egypt. After its devastation by the Assyrians, the importance of Egypt declined. Under the dynasty of the Ptolemies,
Ptolemais Hermiou
Ptolemais Hermiou, or Ptolemais in the Thebaid, was a city and metropolitan archbishopric in Greco-Roman Egypt and remains a Catholic titular see.
Today, the city of El Mansha ()-Bsoi () in the Sohag Governorate is located where the ancient cit ...
took over the role of the capital city of Upper Egypt.
Shomarka Keita reported that a 2005 study on mummified remains found that "some Theban nobles had a
histology
Histology,
also known as microscopic anatomy or microanatomy, is the branch of biology that studies the microscopic anatomy of biological tissue (biology), tissues. Histology is the microscopic counterpart to gross anatomy, which looks at large ...
which indicated notably
dark skin".
Medieval Egypt
In the eleventh century, large numbers of
pastoralists, known as Hilalians, fled Upper Egypt and moved westward into
Libya
Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...
and as far as
Tunis
Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...
. It is believed that degraded grazing conditions in Upper Egypt, associated with the beginning of the
Medieval Warm Period, were the root cause of the migration.
20th-century Egypt
In the twentieth-century Egypt, the title
Prince of the Sa'id (meaning ''Prince of Upper Egypt'') was used by the
heir apparent
An heir apparent is a person who is first in the order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person. A person who is first in the current order of succession but could be displaced by the birth of a more e ...
to the Egyptian throne.
Although the
Kingdom of Egypt was abolished after the
Egyptian revolution of 1952
The Egyptian revolution of 1952, also known as the 1952 coup d'état () and the 23 July Revolution (), was a period of profound political, economic, and societal change in Egypt. On 23 July 1952, the revolution began with the toppling of King ...
, the title continues to be used by
Muhammad Ali, Prince of the Sa'id.
List of rulers of prehistoric Upper Egypt
The following list may not be complete (there are many more of uncertain existence):
List of nomes
Governorates and large cities
Nowadays, Upper Egypt forms part of these 7
governorates:
*
Beni Suef
*
Minya
*
Asyut
*
Sohag
*
Qena
*
Luxor
Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt. Luxor had a population of 263,109 in 2020, with an area of approximately and is the capital of the Luxor Governorate. It is among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited c ...
*
Aswan
Large cities located in Upper Egypt:
*
Beni Suef
*
El Fashn
*
Beni Mazar
*
Minya
*
Mallawi
*
Dairut
*
Asyut
*
Tahta
*
Sohag
*
Girga
*
Nag Hammadi
Nag Hammadi ( ; ) is a city and Markaz (administrative division), markaz in Upper Egypt.
It is located on the west bank of the Nile in the Qena Governorate, about north-west of Luxor. The city had a population of close to 61,737 .
History
...
*
Qena
*
Luxor
Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt. Luxor had a population of 263,109 in 2020, with an area of approximately and is the capital of the Luxor Governorate. It is among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited c ...
*
Edfu
*
Aswan
See also
*
Sa'idi people
*
Nubian people
*
Beja people
*
Upper and Lower Egypt
In History of ancient Egypt, Egyptian history, the Upper and Lower Egypt period (also known as The Two Lands) was the final stage of prehistoric Egypt and directly preceded the Early Dynastic Period (Egypt), unification of the realm. The concepti ...
*
Geography of Egypt
The geography of Egypt relates to two regions: North Africa and West Asia.
Egypt has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea, the River Nile, and the Red Sea. Egypt borders Libya to the west, Palestine and Israel to the east and Sudan to the sou ...
Explanatory notes
References
Citations
General and cited references
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
* Edel, Elmar (1961) ''Zu den Inschriften auf den Jahreszeitenreliefs der "Weltkammer" aus dem Sonnenheiligtum des Niuserre'' Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, , in German.
External links
References to Upper Egypt in Coptic Literature��Coptic Scriptorium database
{{Regions of Africa
*
Historical regions
Upper
States and territories disestablished in the 4th millennium BC
States and territories established in the 4th millennium BC