• Egypt is one of the cradles of civilisation, with recorded habitation along its iconic Nile (the longest river in the world), dating back to the sixth–fourth millennia BC.
• The Nile has brought Egypt its wealth, with its regular inundations (floods, bringing fertile mud down river and into the enormous delta). This is why Egypt is known as 'The Gift of the Nile'.

Ancient Egypt

• The long and illustrious history of Egypt stretches back to the first farmers of 5,000 BC.
• Ancient Egyptian civilization proper dates back to around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, under the first king of the First Dynasty, Narmer.
• Ancient Egyptian history is divided into:
  • the Old Kingdom (pyramid building and the invention of writing),
  • the Middle Kingdom (more pyramids and the Israeli exodus)
  • and the New Kingdom (huge temples and the tombs in the Valley of the Kings).
• The kingdoms were divided by more chaotic interim periods, when invaders arrived. At times, the empire stretched to include substantial proportions of Nubia, in current day Sudan.
• Whilst the Great Pyramids of Giza are the most well known, the ancient Egyptians built over 100 pyramids in total (and even more in present day Sudan).
• The ancient Egyptians were known for their love of board games, with Senet being one of the oldest known games, played for over 2,000 years.
• Both men and women wore makeup, believing it had healing properties. Green eye paint was used to ward off evil spirits.
• Cats were considered sacred animals, and some were even mummified.
• Ancient Egyptians believed strongly in the afterlife and felt that that preserving the body through mummification was essential for the soul to continue living.
• The priests and scribes created hieroglyphs, a system of writing using pictures and symbols, about 3,000 BC (there were over 700 hieroglyphs). This was arguably the earliest form of written communication, although cuneiform in Sumer, Mesopotamia also has a claim.

• The ancient Egyptians invented papyrus paper (paper as we know it is claimed by the Chinese), pens, locks, keys, and even toothpaste.
• The pyramids were not technically built by slaves. Evidence suggests that the workforce was conscripted farmers, who laboured on the pyramids during the flooding season, in the summer, when they couldn't work their own lands.
• Over the years much of Egypt's fascinating ancient history was a mystery, temples hidden under sand ,or built over, and no-one could decipher the ubiquitous hieroglyphs, Until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone at the port city of Rosetta, east of Alexandria, during a Napoleonic expedition The stele was inscribed with a decree, from Ptolemy V, issued in Memphis, in three languages: Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Ancient Egyptian Demotic script and Ancient Greek, all saying virtually the same thing. (It's in the British Museum now, after Napoleon's soldiers were made to hand it over.) It took until 1803 to decipher the Hellenistic Greek and then there was a race to match it to the other two languages, both of which were symbolic/pictorial. It helped that both used phonetic language for foreign words. The code was finally cracked by Frenchman Champollion, in 1822. The stores of the pharaohs were cracked and the fascination with Egyptology began.

Ancient Egyptian Mythology

Ancient Egyptian mythology is fascinating, setting the scene for much mythology which followed. Here is the cast of characters, some of the more important Gods, who figure in their ancient beliefs, sometimes confusingly:

• Amun or Amun Ra – A creator god, tutelary deity of the city of Thebes, head of the trinity and the king of the Gods in ancient Egypt during the New Kingdom, morphing into Zeus (Greece) and Jupiter (Rome). Sometimes shown as a goose.
• Anubis – The god of funerals, embalming and protector of the dead, usually with a jackal (or canine) head.
• Aten – A sun disk deity who became the focus of the breakaway monotheistic Atenist belief system during the reign of Akhenaten, was also the literal Sun disk. He was demoted again by Akhenaten's son, Tutankhamun.
• Bastet – A goddess represented as a cat or lioness, tutelary deity of the city of Bubastis, linked with protection from evil
• Hapi – The hermaphroditic personification of the Nile flood
• Hathor – One of the most important goddesses, linked with the sky, the Sun, sexuality and motherhood, music and dance, foreign lands and goods, and the afterlife. One of many forms of the Eye of Ra, she is often depicted as a cow
• Horus – A kingship god, usually shown as a falcon/hawk (often with a double crown) or as a human child, linked with the sky, the sun, kingship, protection, and healing; often said to be the son of Osiris and Isis, who fought to revenge his father's death and become the ruler of Egypt. Very confusingly, there's also sometimes thought to be a Horus the elder manifestation called Heru-ur. He is not the sone of Osiris and Isis.
• Imhotep – Architect and vizier to pharaoh Djoser, eventually deified as a healer god
• Isis – Wife of brother Osiris, helping to resurrect him and mother of Horus, linked with funerary rites, motherhood, protection, and magic. She also became a deity in Greek and Roman religion
• Khnum – A ram god, the tutelary deity of Elephantine Island, who was said to control the Nile flood and give life to gods and humans

• Montu – Another falcon god (confusingly again, but he also has two plumes) god of war and the sun, worshipped at Thebes
• Mut – Consort of Amun, worshipped at Thebes. She wears the feather of truth.
• Nut – A sky goddess, (a woman bending to earth) a member of the Ennead (a group of nine deities in Egyptian mythology worshipped at Heliopolis: the sun god Atum (primordial creator); his children Shu and Tefnut; their children Geb and Nut; and their children Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys).
• Osiris – A god of death and resurrection who rules Duat and enlivens vegetation, the sun god, and deceased souls. Married to sister Isis and the focus of the key resurrection myth after he was killed by brother Set
• Ptah – A creator deity and god of craftsmen, the tutelary deity of capital Memphis
• Ra – The foremost Egyptian sun god, involved in creation and the afterlife Mythological ruler of the gods, father of every Egyptian Pharaoh, and the tutelary deity of Heliopolis. Confusingly (yet again) Ra was also portrayed as a falcon (but usually with a sun disc on his head) and shared characteristics with the sky-god Horus. At times, the two deities were merged as Ra-Horakhty, When the god Amun rose to prominence during Egypt's New Kingdom, he was then fused with Ra, as Amun-Ra.
• Set – An ambivalent god, characterized by violence, chaos, and strength, connected with the desert. Mythological murderer of brother Osiris and enemy of Horus, but also a supporter of the Pharaoh. as is fitting his depiction is also ambivalent, an unidentified animal or man.
• Sobek – A crocodile god, worshipped in the Faiyum and at Kom Ombo
• Taweret – a prominent goddess primarily revered as the protector of women and children, particularly during childbirth and pregnancy. She is often depicted as a cute hippo-like figure, blending the attributes of a hippopotamus, a crocodile, and a lion.
• Thoth – A knowledge god, and a god of writing and scribes, and tutelary deity of Hermopolis

A Brief History of Egypt from the Time of the Achaemenid Empire

• Predominantly native Egyptian rule lasted until the conquest by the Achaemenid Empire, in the sixth century BCIn 332 BC, Alexander the Great of Macedonia conquered the Achaemenids in turn, introducing the Hellenistic Ptolemaic Kingdom. So, Cleopatra, the most famous of pharaohs, was not actually Egyptian. She was part of a long line of Greek Macedonians. The death of Cleopatra, as the last Ptolemy, ended the nominal independence of Egypt, and the country was subsumed into the Roman Empire.
• Roman rule in Egypt (including the Byzantine era ) lasted from 30 BC to 641 AD
• After the Muslim conquest of Egypt, Egypt was divided into the provinces of successive Caliphates and other Muslim dynasties, including the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), the Abbasid Caliphate (750–935) and the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517).
• In 1517, Ottoman sultan Selim I captured Cairo, absorbing Egypt into the Ottoman Empire. Egypt remained entirely Ottoman until 1805, (excepting a brief French occupation, under Napoleon).
• In 1867, Egypt became a nominally autonomous tributary state called the Khedivate of Egypt, but this was swallowed up by the British, in 1882.

• British occupation lasted until the modern Republic of Egypt was founded, in 1953.
• In 1956, Egypt's nationalization of the Suez Canal Company, which had been owned and operated by British and French interests, led to The Suez Crisis, a major international incident. The Crisis sparked an invasion of Egypt, by British, French, and Israeli forces, but ultimately led to a humiliating withdrawal for the invading nations.
• For a brief period, between 1958 and 1961, Egypt merged with Syria, to form the United Arab Republic.
• Egypt fought several armed conflicts with Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973, and occupied the Gaza Strip intermittently until 1967. In 1978, Egypt signed the Camp David Accords, which recognised Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from the occupied Sinai. Sinai Liberation day is celebrated as a national holiday each April 25th.
• After the Arab Spring, which led to the 2011 Egyptian revolution and overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, the country faced a protracted period of political unrest; its first democratic election in 2012 resulted in the short-lived, Muslim Brotherhood-aligned government of Mohamed Morsi, which was overthrown by the military after mass protests in 2013.
• The current government is a semi-presidential republic, led by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who was elected in 2014, but is widely regarded as 'authoritarian'.

Egypt, Facts and Factoids

• 'Egypt' is the English name for the country of course. The Egyptians call it Miṣr. The English name 'Egypt' is derived from the Ancient Greek 'Aígyptos', as used by Homer.
• Egypt straddles both Asia (the Sinai peninsula) and Africa. The great majority of the Egyptian peoples live near the banks of the Nile. They have to - much of the remainder of the land, in the Libyan and Sahara Deserts, is arid and unhospitable. They get one inch of rain a year on average.
• This is the most populated country in the Arab world (roughly 110 million), the third most populated in Africa and the fifteenth most populated in the world, a melange of Islamic (since the seventh century BC) Mediterranean and African culture.
• Egypt is a developing country with the second-largest economy in Africa, a regional power in the Middle East, North Africa and the Muslim world.
• Islam is the official religion and Arabic is the official language, the currency, the Egyptian pound.

Is Egypt Safe?

• The main tourist areas in Egypt are deemed safe to visit by the FCO. There are large areas in the Western Desert and North Sinai which are designated as off limits, in their opinion. Because of ongoing Middle East conflicts and militant groups there is always a risk of terrorist attack in Egypt. You ahve to weight it up. It's not a great risk, but there is one. There's also a risk in the UK. Actual crime rates are relatively low.
• But be prepared for hassle, especially around the tourist sites at Luxor and Aswan. There is still a great deal of poverty in Egypt and vendor tactics can be overly persistent and even aggressive. Keep walking and don't make eye contact. Don't accept any 'free gifts' and don't agree to look 'maybe later' unless you really intend to. They won't forget your face.
• Extra 'baksheesh' is often demanded, when the service is ended. Best to travel with prearranged tours or taxis.
• Watch out for scams. Sadly, they are common. Don't believe people who offer to take you on free expeditions 'to buy spices' or whatever. They are not really chefs or staff from your boat or hotel. Very few folk just want to be your friend or practise their English and no-one really offers guiding services (or anything) for free. Don't change money for anyone, especially not coins for notes. They'll slip some of the cash you think you're getting away, at the final handover. Always count your change.

What to Do and See in Egypt?

• You can't go to Egypt and not see the ancient monuments. Read about my travels all round Egypt here:
• Then take yourself off to the Red Sea Resorts for some sun and water sports.