About Egypt

History
The recorded history of Egypt goes back for at least a thousand years, as is evident from the ruined monuments, pyramids and temples.

It was the Romans who overshadowed the Egyptian dynasties, Egypt then lapsed into relative obscurity and it remained this way until the armies of Islam overran the country following the death of the Prophet Mohammed.

Cairo shortly became one of the greatest centres of Islamic culture.

Egypt later became part of the Turkish Empire, the Sultans becoming virtual recluses inside the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.

The Janissaries led Egypt into autonomous rule, these were mercenary troops of the Turks. The country declined under corruption and cultural decline.

It was not until the late 19th century when the British took over, that the corruption ended. The British took over due to Egypt's inability to finance her foreign debts.

In the 19th century there was a period of rivalry between the British and the French for political control and trading concessions in Egypt.

During the 19th century also, de Lesseps conceived of and built the Suez canal. This has profited the country greatly, but due to the fact that it was privately owned up to the 1950s by the British and French shareholders, a large percentage of its income by-passed the Egyptian economy.

In 1952 there was a military coup which overthrew the corrupt monarchy. The coup was led by Colonel Abdel Nasser, a nationalist and a tough negotiator. He was one of the most outstanding politicians in the less developed world. Using rivalry between the Americans and Russians he attracted the aid he needed for the construction of the Aswan dam, and also obtained the military hardware required for wars against Israel.

During his period of rule there were many attempts at federation or unification with other Arab states, these did not succeed.

There have also been proposals to merge with Libya and Sudan but nothing has come of this.

Relations have remained tense between Egypt and Libya, due to the Camp David peace treaty in 1978.

There have been many wars with Israel causing a devastating effect on the country's economy due to the need for development of military hardware. The wars resulted in the closure of the Suez canal also the occupation of Sinai, rich in oil wells.

Nasser was succeeded by Sadat who was responsible for putting together a peace treaty with Israel. Egypt has now an open border and trade links with Israel but a closed border and no trade links with Libya.

Sadate was assassinated during a military parade by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, radical Islamic fundamentalists.

Mubarak took over from Sadat and clamped down heavily on the Muslim Brotherhood and improved relations with Jordan.

People rely upon the annual flood from the river Nile to fertilise land to grow crops. The other 95 percent of the country is completely barren. The building of the Aswan dam has stopped the annual flood and the fertility of the land is deteriorating although the dam does allow irrigation, it also generates hydro-electric power and so has proved to be a mixed blessing.

The fishing industry has also deteriorated but a factor that has been increasing is the disease Bilharzia, both in lake Nasser and in the lower Nile valley.

Egyptian's Culture
Egyptians are a very warm and hospitable people accustomed to tourists since the time of Caesar. They are very helpful and immensely proud of their modern and recent history ,and will often give impromptu history lessons to visitors. They are fiercely protective of family,friends, and guests and generally have no problem helping strangers. I always enjoy my time in Egypt and Egyptians genuinely want visitors to enjoy their time in the land of the Pharaohs.

Measurement Unit of Anceint Egypt
An examination of the Great Pyramids of Egypt and other buildings makes it clear that the Egyptians at a very early stage incorporated a measurement system, though really their system of weights and measures was fundamental to all sorts of functions and essential for the smooth running of their bureaucracy. In a system that operated using barter, frequently in bulk commodities, there was certainly a need for standardization. Early tomb scenes record scribes measuring grain, and from the Book of the Dead, scales are clearly depicted, though there the focus of weight is on the heart for the judgment of the dead.

The principal unit of measurement in ancient Egypt was the royal cubit, a length we know to have been 52.4 cm, approximating the length of a man's forearm. The royal cubit comprised seven palm widths each of four digits of thumb width, so that it could be divided into a total of 28 digits. However, prior to the end of the Third Intermediate Period, artists generally used a short cubit for laying out the grid of their drawings. A short cubit was equal to six palms (44.9 cm) which was roughly the length from the elbow to the thumb tip. After the Saite Period, however, the royal cubit was used by artists. During the Persian occupation, however, the royal Persian cubit of 64.2 cm was sometimes used, although a reference cubit for this measure discovered at Abydos is actually 63.85 cm in length.

Land and other larger measurements took several forms. The length of the double remen was equal to that of the diagonal of a square with each side measuring one royal cubit. This measure therefore was 74.07 cm, and could be divided into forty smaller units of 1.85 cm each. Another measure for land was the cord measure known as ta (or meh-ta) of 100 royal cubits and an area could be measured by setjat, which was 100 cubits square. This was later called the aroura.

An even longer measurement is the so called river-unit (itrw). An early source for this unit is the White Chapel of Senusret I at Karnak. It appears that this measurement was equal to 20,000 cubits, or about 10.5 kilometers.

We are well aware of the Egyptian measurement systems because a number of measuring rods of different materials used by craftsmen and surveyors have survived. However, our knowledge of measurements does not so much come from ordinary measuring devices, which could actually vary considerably but from ceremonial cubit-rods cut in stone and deposited in temples, or sometimes buried with officials. Other useful information was sometimes recorded on these devices, such as the inundation levels of the Nile River or references to nomes (provinces) of ancient Egypt.

Some rods found in New Kingdom (about 1550-1069 BC) burials include other divisions: These include:

• Small cubit = 6 palms
• Shoulder (Egyptian rmn) = 5 palms
• Dsr = 4 palms
• Large span (pD aA) = 3 ½ palms
• Small span (pD Sri) = 3 palms

These special divisions have not been found in accounts, and they may never have been used in practical measuring work. A rare unit of measurement is the ‘pole’ (Egyptian nbi), apparently used by craftsmen and corresponding to about 65 cm

For land, a knotted rope rather than a measuring stick was used for surveying. Once measured, the boundaries of land could then be marked with stones, as portrayed in the tomb of Menna (TT69) at on the West Bank at Thebes (modern Luxor).

At first, weights were traditionally made in units known as debens, a standard weight of 93.3 grams, though some weights from the Old and Middle Kingdom appear to have been in unites of around 12 to 14 grams and sometimes 27 grams. Prior to the New Kingdom, there appears to have been less standardization than afterwards. After the 12th Dynasty, a smaller unit known as a kite (qedet) with a weight of 9 to 10 grams was used and the deben itself was increased to ten kite. In reality, while the deben was a general measure of copper, silver and gold, the kite was only used for measuring silver and gold, but mostly only silver. These weights in precious metals were used to describe the equivalent value of a wide variety of non-metallic goods, thus forming a rudimentary price system during the non-monetary economy of the Pharaonic period.

General Information of Egypt
Egypt, officially known as the Arab Republic of Egypt, located in north-eastern Africa and south-western Asia. It is bounded on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, on the east by Israel and the Red Sea, on the south by Sudan, and on the west by Libya. The country has a maximum length from north to south of about 1086 km (about 675 mi) and a maximum width, near the southern border, of about 1255 km (about 780 mi). It has a total area of about 1,001,450 sq km (about 386,662 sq mi). 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 oases, 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 (about 7000 sq mi) 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 (10 mi) across at its widest point. About two-thirds 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.