The more
than 3000 year long history of Ancient Egypt has been divided into 8 or
9 periods, sometimes called Kingdoms.
This
modern-day division is somewhat arbitrarily based on the country's unity
and wealth and the power of the central
government.
The Ancient Egyptians themselves did not group their rulers according to
such
criteria. They rather seem to
have
developed the notion of dynasties throughout their history. The Palermo
Stone simply lists the kings one after the other, without any apparent
need of grouping them. The Turin Kinglist, which is more recent, has grouped
the kings according to
their
descendance or origin. Thus, Amenemhat I and his descendants, are described
as the kings of Itj-Tawi, the capital whence
they
ruled. We owe the division into 30 dynasties as we use it now to Manetho,
the Egyptian priest who lived at the beginning
of the
Ptolemaic Era. In many cases, however, it is not clear why Manetho has
grouped some kings into one dynasty and other
kings
into another. The 18th Dynasty, for instance, starts with Ahmose, a brother
of the last king in Manetho's 17th Dynasty. Theoritically, Ahmose and Kamose
should thus have been grouped in the same dynasty. Thutmosis I, on the
other hand, does
not appear
to have been related to his predecessor, Amenhotep I, but still both kings
are grouped in the 18th Dynasty
Officially
known as Arab Republic of Egypt, located in north-eastern Africa and south-western
Asia. Bounded in the north by Mediterranean Sea, in east by Israel and
the Red Sea, in south by Sudan, and in west by Libya. The River Nile divides
the country unevenly in two, while the Suez Canal provides a third division
with the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is probably the world's oldest civilization
and the oldest vavcation spots, having emerged from the Nile Valley around
3100 yrs ago, historically. Early Greeks, Romans and others went there
just for fun, and to see the wonders of some of mankind's earliest triumphs.The
country has a maximum length from north to south of about 1085 km and a
maximum width, near the southern border, of about 1255 km. Cairo is the
capital and the largest city, and the most modern in the middle east and
ad Africa.
Less
than one-tenth of the land area of Egypt is settled or under cultivation.
This territory consists of the valley and delta of the Nile, a number of
desert oasis, and land along the Suez Canal. More than 90 percent of the
country consists of desert areas, including the Libyan Desert in the west,
a part of the Sahara, and the Arabian Desert (also called the Eastern Desert),
which borders the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez, in the east. The Libyan
Desert (also known as the Western Desert) includes a vast sandy expanse
called the Great Sand Sea. Located here are several depressions with
elevations below sea level, including the Qattara Depression, which has
an area of about 18,000 sq km and reaches a depth
of
133 m (436 ft) below sea level, the lowest point in Africa; also found
here are the oases of Siwa, kharga, Baharia and Dakhla. Much of the Arabian
Desert occupies a plateau that rises gradually east from the Nile Valley
to elevations of about 600 m (about 2000 ft) in the east and
is
broken along the Red Sea coast by jagged peaks as high as about 2100 m
(about 7000 ft) above sea level. In the extreme south, along
the
border with Sudan, is the Nubian Desert, an extensive region of dunes and
sandy plains.
The
Sinai Peninsula consists of sandy desert in the north and rugged mountains
in the south, with summits looming more than about 2100 m (about 7000 ft)
above the Red Sea. Mount Catherine (Jabal Katrìnah) (2637 m/8652
ft), the highest elevation in Egypt, is in the Sinai Peninsula,
as
is Mount Sinai (Jabal Mosa), where, according to the Old Testament, Moses
received the Ten Commandments.
The
Nile enters Egypt from Sudan and flows north for about 1545 km (about 960
mi) to the Mediterranean Sea. For its entire length from the southern border
to Cairo, the Nile flows through a narrow valley lined by cliffs. Lake
Nasser, a huge reservoir formed by the Aswan high dam, extends south across
the Sudan border. The lake is about 480 km (about 300 mi) long and is about
16 km across at its widest point. About two third of the lake lies in Egypt.
South of a point near the town of Idfu, the Nile Valley is rarely more
than 3 km (2 mi) wide. From Idfu to Cairo,
the
valley is about 23 km (about 14 mi) in width, with most of the arable
portion on the western side. In the vicinity of Cairo the valley merges
with
the delta, a fan-shaped plain, the perimeter of which occupies about 250
km (about 155 mi) of the Mediterranean coastline. Silt deposited
by
the Rosetta (Arabic Rashid), Damietta (Arabic Dumyat), and other distributaries
has made the delta the most fertile region in the country. However, the
Aswan High Dam has reduced the flow of the Nile, causing the salty waters
of the Mediterranean to erode land along the
coast
near the Nile. A series of four shallow, brackish lakes extends along the
seaward extremity of the delta.
Another
larger lake, Birkat Qarun, is situated inland in the desert north of the
town of Al Fayyum. Geographically and traditionally, the
Nile
Valley is divided into two regions, Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt, the former
consisting of the delta area and the latter comprising
the
valley south of Cairo. Although Egypt has about 2450 km (about 1520 mi)
of coastline, two-thirds of which are on the Red Sea,
indentations
suitable as harbors are confined to the delta. The Isthmus of Suez, which
connects the Sinai Peninsula with the
African
mainland, is traversed from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Suez by the
Suez Canal
ENTRY
FORMALITIES All
Egyptian consulates grant entry visa. Passport authorities at all ports
of entry are also empowered to
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