research paper about ancient egypt

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• Published: 16 May 2024

The Egyptian pyramid chain was built along the now abandoned Ahramat Nile Branch

• Eman Ghoneim   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3988-0335 1 ,
• Timothy J. Ralph   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4956-606X 2 ,
• Suzanne Onstine 3 ,
• Raghda El-Behaedi 4 ,
• Gad El-Qady 5 ,
• Amr S. Fahil 6 ,
• Mahfooz Hafez 5 ,
• Magdy Atya 5 ,
• Mohamed Ebrahim   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4068-5628 5 ,
• Ashraf Khozym 5 &
• Mohamed S. Fathy 6  

Communications Earth & Environment volume  5 , Article number:  233 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

• Archaeology
• Geomorphology
• Hydrogeology
• Sedimentology

The largest pyramid field in Egypt is clustered along a narrow desert strip, yet no convincing explanation as to why these pyramids are concentrated in this specific locality has been given so far. Here we use radar satellite imagery, in conjunction with geophysical data and deep soil coring, to investigate the subsurface structure and sedimentology in the Nile Valley next to these pyramids. We identify segments of a major extinct Nile branch, which we name The Ahramat Branch, running at the foothills of the Western Desert Plateau, where the majority of the pyramids lie. Many of the pyramids, dating to the Old and Middle Kingdoms, have causeways that lead to the branch and terminate with Valley Temples which may have acted as river harbors along it in the past. We suggest that The Ahramat Branch played a role in the monuments’ construction and that it was simultaneously active and used as a transportation waterway for workmen and building materials to the pyramids’ sites.

Introduction

The landscape of the northern Nile Valley in Egypt, between Lisht in the south and the Giza Plateau in the north, was subject to a number of environmental and hydrological changes during the past few millennia 1 , 2 . In the Early Holocene (~12,000 years before present), the Sahara of North Africa transformed from a hyper-arid desert to a savannah-like environment, with large river systems and lake basins 3 , 4 due to an increase in global sea level at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The wet conditions of the Sahara provided a suitable habitat for people and wildlife, unlike in the Nile Valley, which was virtually inhospitable to humans because of the constantly higher river levels and swampy environment 5 . At this time, Nile River discharge was high, which is evident from the extensive deposition of organic-rich fluvial sediment in the Eastern Mediterranean basin 6 . Based on the interpretation of archeological material and pollen records, this period, known as the African Humid Period (AHP) (ca. 14,500–5000 years ago), was the most significant and persistent wet period from the early to mid-Holocene in the eastern Sahara region 7 , with an annual rainfall rate of 300–920 mm yr −1   8 . During this time the Nile would have had several secondary channels branching across the floodplain, similar to those described by early historians (e.g., Herodotus).

During the mid-Holocene (~10,000–6000 years ago), freshwater marshes were common within the Nile floodplain causing habitation to be more nucleated along the desert margins of the Nile Valley 9 . The desert margins provided a haven from the high Nile water. With the ending of the AHP and the beginning of the Late Holocene (~5500 years ago to present), rainfall greatly declined, and the region’s humid phase gradually came to an end with punctuated short wet episodes 10 . Due to increased aridity in the Sahara, more people moved out of the desert towards the Nile Valley and settled along the edge of the Nile floodplain. With the reduced precipitation, sedimentation increased in and around the Nile River channels causing the proximal floodplain to rise in height and adjacent marshland to decrease in the area 11 , 12 estimated the Nile flood levels to have ranged from 1 to 4 m above the baseline (~5000 BP). Inhabitants moved downhill to the Nile Valley and settled in the elevated areas on the floodplain, including the raised natural levees of the river and jeziras (islands). This was the beginning of the Old Kingdom Period (ca. 2686 BCE) and the time when early pyramid complexes, including the Step Pyramid of Djoser, were constructed at the margins of the floodplain. During this time the Nile discharge was still considerably higher than its present level. The high flow of the river, particularly during the short-wet intervals, enabled the Nile to maintain multiple branches, which meandered through its floodplain. Although the landscape of the Nile floodplain has greatly transformed due to river regulation associated with the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s, this region still retains some clear hydro-geomorphological traces of the abandoned river channels.

Since the beginning of the Pharaonic era, the Nile River has played a fundamental role in the rapid growth and expansion of the Egyptian civilization. Serving as their lifeline in a largely arid landscape, the Nile provided sustenance and functioned as the main water corridor that allowed for the transportation of goods and building materials. For this reason, most of the key cities and monuments were in close proximity to the banks of the Nile and its peripheral branches. Over time, however, the main course of the Nile River laterally migrated, and its peripheral branches silted up, leaving behind many ancient Egyptian sites distant from the present-day river course 9 , 13 , 14 , 15 . Yet, it is still unclear as to where exactly the ancient Nile courses were situated 16 , and whether different reaches of the Nile had single or multiple branches that were simultaneously active in the past. Given the lack of consensus amongst scholars regarding this subject, it is imperative to develop a comprehensive understanding of the Nile during the time of the ancient Egyptian civilization. Such a poor understanding of Nile River morphodynamics, particularly in the region that hosts the largest pyramid fields of Egypt, from Lisht to Giza, limits our understanding of how changes in the landscape influenced human activities and settlement patterns in this region, and significantly restricts our ability to understand the daily lives and stories of the ancient Egyptians.

Currently, much of the original surface of the ancient Nile floodplain is masked by either anthropogenic activity or broad silt and sand sheets. For this reason, singular approaches such as on-ground searches for the remains of hidden former Nile branches are both increasingly difficult and inauspicious. A number of studies have already been carried out in Egypt to locate segments of the ancient Nile course. For instance 9 , proposed that the axis of the Nile River ran far west of its modern course past ancient cities such as el-Ashmunein (Hermopolis) 13 . mapped the ancient hydrological landscape in the Luxor area and estimated both an eastward and westward Nile migration rate of 2–3 km per 1000 years. In the Nile Delta region 17 , detected several segments of buried Nile distributaries and elevated mounds using geoelectrical resistivity surveys. Similarly, a study by Bunbury and Lutley 14 identified a segment of an ancient Nile channel, about 5000 years old, near the ancient town of Memphis ( men-nefer ). More recently 15 , used cores taken around Memphis to reveal a section of a lateral ancient Nile branch that was dated to the Neolithic and Predynastic times (ca. 7000–5000 BCE). On the bank of this branch, Memphis, the first capital of unified Egypt, was founded in early Pharaonic times. Over the Dynastic period, this lateral branch then significantly migrated eastwards 15 . A study by Toonen et al. 18 , using borehole data and electrical resistivity tomography, further revealed a segment of an ancient Nile branch, dating to the New Kingdom Period, situated near the desert edge west of Luxor. This river branch would have connected important localities and thus played a significant role in the cultural landscape of this area. More recent research conducted further north by Sheisha et al. 2 , near the Giza Plateau, indicated the presence of a former river and marsh-like environment in the floodplain east of the three great Pyramids of Giza.

Even though the largest concentration of pyramids in Egypt are located along a narrow desert strip from south Lisht to Giza, no explanation has been offered as to why these pyramid fields were condensed in this particular area. Monumental structures, such as pyramids and temples, would logically be built near major waterways to facilitate the transportation of their construction materials and workers. Yet, no waterway has been found near the largest pyramid field in Egypt, with the Nile River lying several kilometers away. Even though many efforts to reconstruct the ancient Nile waterways have been conducted, they have largely been confined to small sites, which has led to the mapping of only fragmented sections of the ancient Nile channel systems.

In this work, we present remote sensing, geomorphological, soil coring and geophysical evidence to support the existence of a long-lost ancient river branch, the Ahramat Branch, and provide the first map of the paleohydrological setting in the Lisht-Giza area. The finding of the Ahramat Branch is not only crucial to our understanding of why the pyramids were built in these specific geographical areas, but also for understanding how the pyramids were accessed and constructed by the ancient population. It has been speculated by many scholars that the ancient Egyptians used the Nile River for help transporting construction materials to pyramid building sites, but until now, this ancient Nile branch was not fully uncovered or mapped. This work can help us better understand the former hydrological setting of this region, which would in turn help us learn more about the environmental parameters that may have influenced the decision to build these pyramids in their current locations during the time of Pharaonic Egypt.

Position and morphology of the Ahramat Branch

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery and radar high-resolution elevation data for the Nile floodplain and its desert margins, between south Lisht and the Giza Plateau area, provide evidence for the existence of segments of a major ancient river branch bordering 31 pyramids dating from the Old Kingdom to Second Intermediate Period (2686−1649 BCE) and spanning between Dynasties 3–13 (Fig.  1a ). This extinct branch is referred to hereafter as the Ahramat Branch, meaning the “Pyramids Branch” in Arabic. Although masked by the cultivated fields of the Nile floodplain, subtle topographic expressions of this former branch, now invisible in optical satellite data, can be traced on the ground surface by TanDEM-X (TDX) radar data and the Topographic Position Index (TPI). Data analysis indicates that this lateral distributary channel lies between 2.5 and 10.25 km west from the modern Nile River. The branch appears to have a surface channel depth between 2 and 8 m, a channel length of about 64 km and a channel width of 200–700 m, which is similar to the width of the contemporary neighboring Nile course. The size and longitudinal continuity of the Ahramat Branch and its proximity to all the pyramids in the study area implies a functional waterway of great significance.

a Shows the Ahramat Branch borders a large number of pyramids dating from the Old Kingdom to the 2 nd Intermediate Period and spanning between Dynasties 3 and 13. b Shows Bahr el-Libeini canal and remnant of abandoned channel visible in the 1911 historical map (Egyptian Survey Department scale 1:50,000). c Bahr el-Libeini canal and the abandoned channel are overlain on satellite basemap. Bahr el-Libeini is possibly the last remnant of the Ahramat Branch before it migrated eastward. d A visible segment of the Ahramat Branch in TDX is now partially occupied by the modern Bahr el-Libeini canal. e A major segment of the Ahramat Branch, approximately 20 km long and 0.5 km wide, can be traced in the floodplain along the Western Desert Plateau south of the town of Jirza. Location of e is marked in white a box in a . (ESRI World Image Basemap, source: Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics).

A trace of a 3 km river segment of the Ahramat Branch, with a width of about 260 m, is observable in the floodplain west of the Abu Sir pyramids field (Fig.  1b–d ). Another major segment of the Ahramat Branch, approximately 20 km long and 0.5 km wide can be traced in the floodplain along the Western Desert Plateau south of the town of Jirza (Fig.  1e ). The visible segments of the Ahramat Branch in TDX are now partially occupied by the modern Bahr el-Libeini canal. Such partial overlap between the courses of this canal, traced in the1911 historical maps (Egyptian Survey Department scale 1:50,000), and the Ahramat Branch is clear in areas where the Nile floodplain is narrower (Fig.  1b–d ), while in areas where the floodplain gets wider, the two water courses are about 2 km apart. In light of that, Bahr el-Libeini canal is possibly the last remnant of the Ahramat Branch before it migrated eastward, silted up, and vanished. In the course of the eastward migration over the Nile floodplain, the meandering Ahramat Branch would have left behind traces of abandoned channels (narrow oxbow lakes) which formed as a result of the river erosion through the neck of its meanders. A number of these abandoned channels can be traced in the 1911 historical maps near the foothill of the Western Desert plateau proving the eastward shifting of the branch at this locality (Fig.  1b–d ). The Dahshur Lake, southwest of the city of Dahshur, is most likely the last existing trace of the course of the Ahramat Branch.

Subsurface structure and sedimentology of the Ahramat Branch

Geophysical surveys using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and Electromagnetic Tomography (EMT) along a 1.2 km long profile revealed a hidden river channel lying 1–1.5 m below the cultivated Nile floodplain (Fig.  2 ). The position and shape of this river channel is in an excellent match with those derived from radar satellite imagery for the Ahramat Branch. The EMT profile shows a distinct unconformity in the middle, which in this case indicates sediments that have a different texture than the overlying recent floodplain silt deposits and the sandy sediments that are adjacent to this former branch (Fig.  2 ). GPR overlapping the EMT profile from 600–1100 m on the transect confirms this. Here, we see evidence of an abandoned riverbed approximately 400 m wide and at least 25 m deep (width:depth ratio ~16) at this location. This branch has a symmetrical channel shape and has been infilled with sandy Neonile sediment different to other surrounding Neonile deposits and the underlying Eocene bedrock. The geophysical profile interpretation for the Ahramat Branch at this locality was validated using two sediment cores of depths 20 m (Core A) and 13 m (Core B) (Fig.  3 ). In Core A between the center and left bank of the former branch we found brown sandy mud at the floodplain surface and down to ~2.7 m with some limestone and chert fragments, a reddish sandy mud layer with gravel and handmade material inclusions at ~2.8 m, a gray sandy mud layer from ~3–5.8 m, another reddish sandy mud layer with gravel and freshwater mussel shells at ~6 m, black sandy mud from ~6–8 m, and sandy silt grading into clean, well-sorted medium sand dominated the profile from ~8 to >13 m. In Core B on the right bank of the former branch we found recently deposited brown sandy mud at the floodplain surface and down to ~1.5 m, alternating brown and gray layers of silty and sandy mud down to ~4 m (some reddish layers with gravel and handmade material inclusions), a black sandy mud layer from ~4–4.9 m, and another reddish sandy mud layer with gravel and freshwater mussel shells at ~5 m, before clean, well-sorted medium sand dominated the profile from 5 to >20 m. Shallow groundwater was encountered in both cores concurrently with the sand layers, indicating that the buried sedimentary structure of the abandoned Ahramat Branch acts as a conduit for subsurface water flow beneath the distal floodplain of the modern Nile River.

a Locations of geophysical profile and soil drilling (ESRI World Image Basemap, source: Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics). Photos taken from the field while using the b Electromagnetic Tomography (EMT) and c Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR). d Showing the apparent conductivity profile, e showing EMT profile, and f showing GPR profiles with overlain sketch of the channel boundary on the GPR graph. g Simplified interpretation of the buried channel with the location of the two-soil coring of A and B.

It shows two-soil cores, A and core B, with soil profile descriptions, graphic core logs, sediment grain size charts, and example photographs.

Alignment of old and middle kingdom pyramids to the Ahramat Branch

The royal pyramids in ancient Egypt are not isolated monuments, but rather joined with several other structures to form complexes. Besides the pyramid itself, the pyramid complex includes the mortuary temple next to the pyramid, a valley temple farther away from the pyramid on the edge of a waterbody, and a long sloping causeway that connects the two temples. A causeway is a ceremonial raised walkway, which provides access to the pyramid site and was part of the religious aspects of the pyramid itself 19 . In the study area, it was found that many of the causeways of the pyramids run perpendicular to the course of the Ahramat Branch and terminate directly on its riverbank.

In Egyptian pyramid complexes, the valley temples at the end of causeways acted as river harbors. These harbors served as an entry point for the river borne visitors and ceremonial roads to the pyramid. Countless valley temples in Egypt have not yet been found and, therefore, might still be buried beneath the agricultural fields and desert sands along the riverbank of the Ahramat Branch. Five of these valley temples, however, partially survived and still exist in the study area. These temples include the valley temples of the Bent Pyramid, the Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Menkaure from Dynasty 4; the valley temple of the Pyramid of Sahure from Dynasty 5, and the valley temple of the Pyramid of Pepi II from Dynasty 6. All the aforementioned temples are dated to the Old Kingdom. These five surviving temples were found to be positioned adjacent to the riverbank of the Ahramat Branch, which strongly implies that this river branch was contemporaneously functioning during the Old Kingdom, at the time of pyramid construction.

Analysis of the ground elevation of the 31 pyramids and their proximity to the floodplain, within the study area, helped explain the position and relative water level of the Ahramat Branch during the time between the Old Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period (ca. 2649–1540 BCE). Based on Fig. ( 4) , the Ahramat Branch had a high-water level during the first part of the Old Kingdom, especially during Dynasty 4. This is evident from the high ground elevation and long distance from the floodplain of the pyramids dated to that period. For instance, the remote position of the Bent and Red Pyramids in the desert, very far from the Nile floodplain, is a testament to the branch’s high-water level. On the contrary, during the Old Kingdom, our data demonstrated that the Ahramat Branch would have reached its lowest level during Dynasty 5. This is evident from the low altitudes and close proximity to the floodplain of most Dynasty 5 pyramids. The orientation of the Sahure Pyramid’s causeway (Dynasty 5) and the location of its valley temple in the low-lying floodplain provide compelling evidence for the relatively low water level proposition of the Ahramat Branch during this stage. The water level of the Ahramat Branch would have been slightly raised by the end of Dynasty 5 (the last 15–30 years), during the reign of King Unas and continued to rise during Dynasty 6. The position of Pepi II and Merenre Pyramids (Dynasty 6) deep in the desert, west of the Djedkare Isesi Pyramid (Dynasty 5), supports this notion.

It explains the position and relative water level of the Ahramat Branch during the time between the Old Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period. a Shows positive correlation between the ground elevation of the pyramids and their proximity to the floodplain. b Shows positive correlation between the average ground elevation of the pyramids and their average proximity to the floodplain in each Dynasty. c Illustrates the water level interpretation by Hassan (1986) in Faiyum Lake in correlation to the average pyramids ground elevation and average distances to the floodplain in each Dynasty. d The data indicates that the Ahramat Branch had a high-water level during the first period of the Old Kingdom, especially during Dynasty 4. The water level reduced afterwards but was raised slightly in Dynasty 6. The position of the Middle Kingdom’s pyramids, which was at lower altitudes and in close proximity to the floodplain as compared to those of the Old Kingdom might be explained by the slight eastward migration of the Ahramat Branch.

In addition, our analysis in Fig. ( 4) , shows that the Qakare Ibi Pyramid of Dynasty 8 was constructed very close to the floodplain on very low elevation, which implies that the Nile water levels were very low at this time of the First Intermediate Period (2181–2055 BCE). This finding is in agreement with previous work conducted by Kitchen 20 which implies that the sudden collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt (after 4160 BCE) was largely caused by catastrophic failure of the annual flood of the Nile River for a period of 30–40 years. Data from soil cores near Memphis indicated that the Old Kingdom settlement is covered by about 3 m of sand 11 . Accordingly, the Ahramat Branch was initially positioned further west during the Old Kingdom and then shifted east during the Middle Kingdom due to the drought-induced sand encroachments of the First Intermediate Period, “a period of decentralization and weak pharaonic rule” in ancient Egypt, spanning about 125 years (2181–2055 BCE) post Old Kingdom era. Soil cores from the drilling program at Memphis show dominant dry conditions during the First Intermediate Period with massive eolian sand sheets extended over a distance of at least 0.5 km from the edge of the western desert escarpment 21 . The Ahramat Branch continued to move east during the Second Intermediate Period until it had gradually lost most of its water supply by the New Kingdom.

The western tributaries of the Ahramat Branch

Sentinal-1 radar data unveiled several wide channels (inlets) in the Western Desert Plateau connected to the Ahramat Branch. These inlets are currently covered by a layer of sand, thus partially invisible in multispectral satellite imagery. In Sentinal-1 radar imagery, the valley floors of these inlets appear darker than the surrounding surfaces, indicating subsurface fluvial deposits. These smooth deposits appear dark owing to the specular reflection of the radar signals away from the receiving antenna (Fig.  5a, b ) 22 . Considering that Sentinel-1’s C-Band has a penetration capability of approximately 50 cm in dry sand surface 23 , this would suggest that the riverbed of these channels is covered by at least half a meter of desert sand. Unlike these former inlets, the course of the Ahramat Branch is invisible in SAR data due in large part to the presence of dense farmlands in the floodplain, which limits radar penetration and the detection of underlying fluvial deposition. Moreover, the radar topographic data from TDX revealed the areal extent of these inlets. Their river courses were extracted from TDX data using the Topographic Position Index (TPI), an algorithm which is used to compute the topographic slope positions and to automate landform classifications (Fig.  5c, d ). Negative TPI values show the former riverbeds of the inlets, while positive TPI signify the riverbanks bordering them.

a Conceptual sketch of the dependence of surface roughness on the sensor wavelength λ (modified after 48 ). b Expected backscatter characteristics in sandy desert areas with buried dry riverbeds. c Dry channels/inlets masked by desert sand in the Dahshur area. d The channels’ courses were extracted using TPI. Negative TPI values highlight the courses of the channels while positive TPI signify their banks.

Analysis indicated that several of the pyramid’s causeways, from Dynasties 4 and 6, lead to the inlet’s riverbanks (Fig.  6 ). Among these pyramids, are the Bent Pyramid, the first pyramid built by King Snefru in Dynasty 4 and among the oldest, largest, and best preserved ancient Egyptian pyramids that predates the Giza Pyramids. This pyramid is situated at the royal necropolis of Dahshur. The position of the Bent Pyramid, deep in the desert, far from the modern Nile floodplain, remained unexplained by researchers. This pyramid has a long causeway (~700 m) that is paved in the desert with limestone blocks and is attached to a large valley temple. Although all the pyramids’ valley temples in Egypt are connected to a water body and served as the landing point of all the river-borne visitors, the valley temple of the Bent Pyramid is oddly located deep in the desert, very distant from any waterways and more than 1 km away from the western edge of the modern Nile floodplain. Radar data revealed that this temple overlooked the bank of one of these extinct channels (called Wadi al-Taflah in historical maps). This extinct channel (referred to hereafter as the Dahshur Inlet due to its geographical location) is more than 200 m wide on average (Fig.  6 ). In light of this finding, the Dahshur Inlet, and the Ahramat Branch, are thus strongly argued to have been active during Dynasty 4 and must have played an important role in transporting building materials to the Bent Pyramid site. The Dahshur Inlet could have also served the adjacent Red Pyramid, the second pyramid built by the same king (King Snefru) in the Dahshur area. Yet, no traces of a causeway nor of a valley temple has been found thus far for the Red Pyramid. Interestingly, pyramids in this site dated to the Middle Kingdom, including the Amenemhat III pyramid, also known as the Black Pyramid, White Pyramid, and Pyramid of Senusret III, are all located at least 1 km far to the east of the Dynasty 4 pyramids (Bent and Red) near the floodplain (Fig.  6 ), which once again supports the notion of the eastward shift of the Ahramat Branch after the Old Kingdom.

a The two inlets are presently covered by sand, thus invisible in optical satellite imagery. b Radar data, and c TDX topographic data reveal the riverbed of the Sakkara Inlet due to radar signals penetration capability in dry sand. b and c show the causeways of Pepi II and Merenre Pyramids, from Dynasty 6, leading to the Saqqara Inlet. The Valley Temple of Pepi II Pyramid overlooks the inlet riverbank, which indicates that the inlet, and thus Ahramat Branch, were active during Dynasty 6. d Radar data, and e TDX topographic data, reveal the riverbed of the Dahshur Inlet with the Bent Pyramid’s causeway of Dynasty 4 leading to the Inlet. The Valley Temple of the Bent Pyramid overlooks the riverbank of the Dahshur Inlet, which indicates that the inlet and the Ahramat Branch were active during Dynasty 4 of the Old Kingdom.

Radar satellite data revealed yet another sandy buried channel (tributary), about 6 km north of the Dahshur Inlet, to the west of the ancient city of Memphis. This former fluvial channel (referred to hereafter as the Saqqara Inlet due to its geographical location) connects to the Ahramat Branch with a broad river course of more than 600 m wide. Data shows that the causeways of the two pyramids of Pepi II and Merenre, situated at the royal necropolis of Saqqara and dated to Dynasty 6, lead directly to the banks of the Saqqara Inlet (see Fig.  6 ). The 400 m long causeway of Pepi II pyramid runs northeast over the southern Saqqara plateau and connects to the riverbank of the Saqqara Inlet from the south. The causeway terminates with a valley temple that lies on the inlet’s riverbank. The 250 long causeway of the Pyramid of Merenre runs southeast over the northern Saqqara plateau and connects to the riverbank of the Saqqara Inlet from the north. Since both pyramids dated to Dynasty 6, it can be argued that the water level of the Ahramat Branch was higher during this period, which would have flooded at least the entrance of its western inlets. This indicates that the downstream segment of the Saqqara Inlet was active during Dynasty 6 and played a vital role in transporting construction materials and workers to the two pyramids sites. The fact that none of the Dynasty 5 pyramids in this area (e.g., the Djedkare Isesi Pyramid) were positioned on the Saqqara Inlet suggests that the water level in the Ahramat Branch was not high enough to enter and submerge its inlets during this period.

In addition, our data analysis clearly shows that the causeways of the Khafre, Menkaure, and Khentkaus pyramids, in the Giza Plateau, lead to a smaller but equally important river bay associated with the Ahramat Branch. This lagoon-like river arm is referred to here as the Giza Inlet (Fig.  7 ). The Khufu Pyramid, the largest pyramid in Egypt, seems to be connected directly to the river course of the Ahramat Branch (Fig.  7 ). This finding proves once again that the Ahramat Branch and its western inlets were hydrologically active during Dynasty 4 of the Old Kingdom. Our ancient river inlet hypothesis is also in accordance with earlier research, conducted on the Giza Plateau, which indicates the presence of a river and marsh-like environment in the floodplain east of the Giza pyramids 2 .

The causeways of the four Pyramids lead to an inlet, which we named the Giza Inlet, that connects from the west with the Ahramat Branch. These causeways connect the pyramids with valley temples which acted as river harbors in antiquity. These river segments are invisible in optical satellite imagery since they are masked by the cultivated lands of the Nile floodplain. The photo shows the valley temple of Khafre Pyramid (Photo source: Author Eman Ghoneim).

During the Old Kingdom Period, our analysis suggests that the Ahramat Branch had a high-water level during the first part, especially during Dynasty 4 whereas this water level was significantly decreased during Dynasty 5. This finding is in agreement with previous studies which indicate a high Nile discharge during Dynasty 4 (e.g., ref. 24 ). Sediment isotopic analysis of the Nile Delta indicated that Nile flows decrease more rapidly by the end of Dynasty 4 25 , in addition 26 reported that during Dynasties 5 and 6 the Nile flows were the lowest of the entire Dynastic period. This long-lost Ahramat Branch (possibly a former Yazoo tributary to the Nile) was large enough to carry a large volume of the Nile discharge in the past. The ancient channel segment uncovered by 1 , 15 west of the city of Memphis through borehole logs is most likely a small section of the large Ahramat Branch detected in this study. In the Middle Kingdom, although previous studies implied that the Nile witnessed abundant flood with occasional failures (e.g., ref. 27 ), our analysis shows that all the pyramids from the Middle Kingdom were built far east of their Old Kingdom counterparts, on lower altitudes and in close proximity to the floodplain as compared to those of the Old Kingdom. This paradox might be explained by the fact that the Ahramat Branch migrated eastward, slightly away from the Western Desert escarpment, prior to the construction of the Middle Kingdom pyramids, resulting in the pyramids being built eastward so that they could be near the waterway.

The eastward migration and abandonment of the Ahramat Branch could be attributed to gradual tilting of the Nile delta and floodplain in lower Egypt towards the northeast due to tectonic activity 28 . A topographic tilt such as this would have accelerated river movement eastward due to the river being located in the west at a relatively higher elevation of the floodplain. While near-channel floodplain deposition would naturally lead to alluvial ridge development around the active Ahramat Branch, and therefore to lower-lying tracts of adjacent floodplain to the east, regional tilting may explain the wholesale lateral migration of the river in that direction. The eastward migration and abandonment of the branch could also be ascribed to sand incursion due to the branch’s proximity to the Western Desert Plateau, where windblown sand is abundant. This would have increased sand deposition along the riverbanks and caused the river to silt up, particularly during periods of low flow. The region experienced drought during the First Intermediate Period, prior to the Middle Kingdom. In the area of Abu Rawash north 29 and Dahshur site 11 , settlements from the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom were found to be covered by more than 3 m of desert sands. During this time, windblown sand engulfed the Old Kingdom settlements and desert sands extended eastward downhill over a distance of at least 0.5 km 21 . The abandonment of sites at Abusir (5 th Dynasty), where the early pottery-rich deposits are covered by wind-blown sand and then mud without sherds, can be used as evidence that the Ahramat Branch migrated eastward after the Old Kingdom. The increased sand deposition activity, during the end of the Old Kingdom, and throughout the First Intermediate Period, was most likely linked to the period of drought and desertification of the Sahara 30 . In addition, the reduced river discharge caused by decreased rainfall and increased aridity in the region would have gradually reduced the river course’s capacity, leading to silting and abandonment of the Ahramat Branch as the river migrated to the east.

The Dahshur, Saqqara, and Giza inlets, which were connected to the Ahramat Branch from the west, were remnants of past active drainage systems dated to the late Tertiary or the Pleistocene when rainwater was plentiful 31 . It is proposed that the downstream reaches of these former channels (wadis) were submerged during times of high-water levels of the Ahramat Branch, forming long narrow water arms (inlets) that gave a wedge-like shape to the western flank of the Ahramat Branch. During the Old Kingdom, the waters of these inlets would have flowed westward from the Ahramat Branch rather than from their headwaters. As the drought intensified during the First Intermediate Period, the water level of the Ahramat Branch was lowered and withdrew from its western inlets, causing them to silt up and eventually dry out. The Dahshur, Saqqara, and Giza inlets would have provided a bay environment where the water would have been calm enough for vessels and boats to dock far from the busy, open water of the Ahramat Branch.

Sediments from the Ahramat Branch riverbed, which were collected from the two deep soil cores (cores A and B), show an abrupt shift from well-sorted medium sands at depth to overlying finer materials with layers including gravel, shell, and handmade materials. This indicates a step-change from a relatively consistent higher-energy depositional regime to a generally lower-energy depositional regime with periodic flash floods at these sites. So, the Ahramat Branch in this region carried and deposited well-sorted medium sand during its last active phase, and over time became inactive, infilling with sand and mud until an abrupt change led the (by then) shallow depression fill with finer distal floodplain sediment (possibly in a wetland) that was utilized by people and experienced periodic flash flooding. Validation of the paleo-channel position and sediment type using these cores shows that the Ahramat Branch has similar morphological features and an upward-fining depositional sequence as that reported near Giza, where two cores were previously used to reconstruct late Holocene Nile floodplain paleo-environments 2 . Further deep soil coring could determine how consistent the geomorphological features are along the length of the Ahramat branch, and to help explain anomalies in areas where the branch has less surface expression and where remote sensing and geophysical techniques have limitations. Considering more core logs can give a better understanding of the floodplain and the buried paleo-channels.

The position of the Ahramat Branch along the western edge of the Nile floodplain suggests it to be the downstream extension of Bahr Yusef. In fact, Bahr Yusef’s course may have initially flowed north following the natural surface gradient of the floodplain before being forced to turn west to flow into the Fayum Depression. This assumption could be supported by the sharp westward bend of Bahr Yusef’s course at the entrance to the Fayum Depression, which could be a man-made attempt to change the waterflow direction of this branch. According to Römer 32 , during the Middle Kingdom, the Gadallah Dam located at the entrance of the Fayum, and a possible continuation running eastwards, blocked the flow of Bahr Yusef towards the north. However, a sluice, probably located near the village of el-Lahun, was created in order to better control the flow of water into the Fayum. When the sluice was locked, the water from Bahr Yusef was directed to the west and into the depression, and when the sluice was open, the water would flow towards the north via the course of the Ahramat Branch. Today, the abandoned Ahramat Branch north of Fayum appears to support subsurface water flow in the buried coarse sand bed layers, however these shallow groundwater levels are likely to be quite variable due to proximity of the bed layers to canals and other waterways that artificially maintain shallow groundwater. Groundwater levels in the region are known to be variable 33 , but data on shallow groundwater could be used to further validate the delineated paleo-channel of the Ahramat Branch.

The present work enabled the detection of segments of a major former Nile branch running at the foothills of the Western Desert Plateau, where the vast majority of the Ancient Egyptian pyramids lie. The enormity of this branch and its proximity to the pyramid complexes, in addition to the fact that the pyramids’ causeways terminate at its riverbank, all imply that this branch was active and operational during the construction phase of these pyramids. This waterway would have connected important locations in ancient Egypt, including cities and towns, and therefore, played an important role in the cultural landscape of the region. The eastward migration and abandonment of the Ahramat Branch could be attributed to gradual movement of the river to the lower-lying adjacent floodplain or tilting of the Nile floodplain toward the northeast as a result of tectonic activity, as well as windblown sand incursion due to the branch’s proximity to the Western Desert Plateau. The increased sand deposition was most likely related to periods of desertification of the Great Sahara in North Africa. In addition, the branch eastward movement and diminishing could be explained by the reduction of the river discharge and channel capacity caused by the decreased precipitation and increased aridity in the region, particularly during the end of the Old Kingdom.

The integration of radar satellite data with geophysical surveying and soil coring, which we utilized in this study, is a highly adaptable approach in locating similar former buried river systems in arid regions worldwide. Mapping the hidden course of the Ahramat Branch, allowed us to piece together a more complete picture of ancient Egypt’s former landscape and a possible water transportation route in Lower Egypt, in the area between Lisht and the Giza Plateau.

Revealing this extinct Nile branch can provide a more refined idea of where ancient settlements were possibly located in relation to it and prevent them from being lost to rapid urbanization. This could improve the protection measures of Egyptian cultural heritage. It is the hope that our findings can improve conservation measures and raise awareness of these sites for modern development planning. By understanding the landscape of the Nile floodplain and its environmental history, archeologists will be better equipped to prioritize locations for fieldwork investigation and, consequently, raise awareness of these sites for conservation purposes and modern development planning. Our finding has filled a much-needed knowledge gap related to the dominant waterscape in ancient Egypt, which could help inform and educate a wide array of global audiences about how earlier inhabitants were living and in what ways shifts in their landscape drove human activity in such an iconic region.

Materials and methods

The work comprised of two main elements: satellite remote sensing and historical maps and geophysical survey and sediment coring, complemented by archeological resources. Using this suite of investigative techniques provided insights into the nature and relationship of the former Ahramat Branch with the geographical location of the pyramid complexes in Egypt.

Satellite remote sensing and historical maps

Unlike optical sensors that image the land surface, radar sensors image the subsurface due to their unique ability to penetrate the ground and produce images of hidden paleo-rivers and structures. In this context, radar waves strip away the surface sand layer and expose previously unidentified buried channels. The penetration capability of radar waves in the hyper-arid regions of North Africa is well documented 4 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 . The penetration depth varies according to the radar wavelength used at the time of imaging. Radar signal penetration becomes possible without significant attenuation if the surface cover material is extremely dry (<1% moisture content), fine grained (<1/5 of the imaging wavelength) and physically homogeneous 23 . When penetrating desert sand, radar signals have the ability to detect subsurface soil roughness, texture, compactness, and dielectric properties 38 . We used the European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel-1 data, a radar satellite constellation consisting of a C-Band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensor, operating at 5.405 GHz. The Sentinel-1 SAR image used here was acquired in a descending orbit with an interferometric wide swath mode (IW) at ground resolutions of 5 m × 20 m, and dual polarizations of VV + VH. Since Sentinal-1 is operated in the C-Band, it has an estimated penetration depth of 50 cm in very dry, sandy, loose soils 39 . We used ENVI v. 5.7 SARscape software for processing radar imagery. The used SAR processing sequences have generated geo-coded, orthorectified, terrain-corrected, noise free, radiometrically calibrated, and normalized Sentinel-1 images with a pixel size of 12.5 m. In SAR imagery subsurface fluvial deposits appear dark owing to specular reflection of the radar signals away from the receiving antenna, whereas buried coarse and compacted material, such as archeological remains appear bright due to diffuse reflection of radar signals 40 .

Other previous studies have shown that combining radar topographic imagery (e.g., Shuttle Radar Topography Mission-SRTM) with SAR images improves the extraction and delineation of mega paleo-drainage systems and lake basins concealed under present-day topographic signatures 3 , 4 , 22 , 41 . Topographic data represents a primary tool in investigating surface landforms and geomorphological change both spatially and temporally. This data is vital in mapping past river systems due to its ability to show subtle variations in landform morphology 37 . In low lying areas, such as the Nile floodplain, detailed elevation data can detect abandoned channels, fossilized natural levees, river meander scars and former islands, which are all crucial elements for reconstructing the ancient Nile hydrological network. In fact, the modern topography in many parts of the study area is still a good analog of the past landscape. In the present study, TanDEM-X (TDX) topographic data, from the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), has been utilized in ArcGIS Pro v. 3.1 software due to its fine spatial resolution of 0.4 arc-second ( ∼ 12 m). TDX is based on high frequency X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) (9.65 GHz) and has a relative vertical accuracy of 2 m for areas with a slope of ≤20% 42 . This data was found to be superior to other topographic DEMs (e.g., Shuttle Radar Topography Mission and ASTER Global Digital Elevation Map) in displaying fine topographic features even in the cultivated Nile floodplain, thus making it particularly well suited for this study. Similar archeological investigations using TDX elevation data in the flat terrains of the Seyhan River in Turkey and the Nile Delta 43 , 44 allowed for the detection of levees and other geomorphologic features in unprecedented spatial resolution. We used the Topographic Position Index (TPI) module of 45 with the TDX data by applying varying neighboring radiuses (20–100 m) to compute the difference between a cell elevation value and the average elevation of the neighborhood around that cell. TPI values of zero are either flat surfaces with minimal slope, or surfaces with a constant gradient. The TPI can be computed using the following expression 46 .

Where the scaleFactor is the outer radius in map units and Irad and Orad are the inner and outer radius of annulus in cells. Negative TPI values highlight abandoned riverbeds and meander scars, while positive TPI signify the riverbanks and natural levees bordering them.

The course of the Ahramat Branch was mapped from multiple data sources and used different approaches. For instance, some segments of the river course were derived automatically using the TPI approach, particularly in the cultivated floodplain, whereas others were mapped using radar roughness signatures specially in sandy desert areas. Moreover, a number of abandoned channel segments were digitized on screen from rectified historical maps (Egyptian Survey Department scale 1:50,000 collected on years 1910–1911) near the foothill of the Western Desert Plateau. These channel segments together with the former river course segments delineated from radar and topographic data were aggregated to generate the former Ahramat Branch. In addition to this and to ensure that none of the channel segments of the Ahramat Branch were left unmapped during the automated process, a systematic grid-based survey (through expert’s visual observation) was performed on the satellite data. Here, Landsat 8 and Sentinal-2 multispectral images, Sentinal-1 radar images and TDX topographic data were used as base layers, which were thoroughly examined, grid-square by grid-square (2*2 km per a square) at a full resolution, in order to identify small-scale fluvial landforms, anomalous agricultural field patterns and irregular ditches, and determine their spatial distributions. Here, ancient fluvial channels were identified using two key aspects: First, the sinuous geometry of natural and manmade features and, second the color tone variations in the satellite imagery. For example, clusters of contiguous pixels with darker tones and sinuous shapes may signify areas of a higher moisture content in optical imagery, and hence the possible existence of a buried riverbed. Stretching and edge detection were applied to enhance contrasts in satellite images brightness to enable the visualization of traces of buried river segments that would otherwise go unobserved. Lastly, all the pyramids and causeways in the study site, along with ancient harbors and valley temples, as indicators of preexisting river channels, were digitized from satellite data and available archeological resources and overlaid onto the delineated Ahramat Branch for geospatial analysis.

Geophysical survey and sediment coring

Geophysical measurements using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and Electromagnetic Tomography (EMT) were utilized to map subsurface fluvial features and validate the satellite remote sensing findings. GPR is effective in detecting changes of dielectric constant properties of sediment layers, and its signal responses can be directly related to changes in relative porosity, material composition, and moisture content. Therefore, GPR can help in identifying transitional boundaries in subsurface layers. EMT, on the other hand, shows the variations and thickness of large-scale sedimentary deposits and is more useful in clay-rich soil than GPR. In summer 2022, a geophysical profile was measured using GPR and EMT units with a total length of approximately 1.2 km. The GPR survey was conducted with a central frequency antenna of 35 MHz and a trigger interval of 5 cm. The EMT survey was performed using the multi-frequency terrain conductivity (EM–34–3) measuring system with a spacing of 10–11 meters between stations. To validate the remote sensing and geophysical data, two sediment cores with depths of 20 m (Core A) and 13 m (Core B) were collected using a deep soil driller. These cores were collected from along the geophysical profile in the floodplain. Sieving and organic analysis were performed on the sediment samples at Tanta University sediment lab to extract information about grain size for soil texture and total organic carbon. In soil texture analysis medium to coarse sediment, such as sands, are typical for river channel sediments, loamy sand and sandy loam deposits can be interpreted as levees and crevasse splays, whereas fine texture deposits, such as silt loam, silty clay loam, and clay deposits, are representative of the more distal parts of the river floodplain 47 .

Data availability

Data for replicating the results of this study are available as supplementary files at: https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Pyramids_Elevations_and_Distances_xlsx/25216259 .

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by NSF grant # 2114295 awarded to E.G., S.O. and T.R. and partially supported by Research Momentum Fund, UNCW, to E.G. TanDEM-X data was awarded to E.G. and R.E by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) (contract # DEM_OTHER2886). Permissions for collecting soil coring and sampling were obtained from the Faculty of Science, Tanta University, Egypt by coauthors Dr. Amr Fhail and Dr. Mohamed Fathy. Bradley Graves at Macquarie University assisted with preparation of the sedimentological figures. Hamada Salama at NRIAG assisted with the GPR field data collection.

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Eman Ghoneim

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Timothy J. Ralph

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Raghda El-Behaedi

National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (NRIAG), Helwan, Cairo, 11421, Egypt

Gad El-Qady, Mahfooz Hafez, Magdy Atya, Mohamed Ebrahim & Ashraf Khozym

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Eman Ghoneim conceived the ideas, lead the research project, and conducted the data processing and interpretations. The manuscript was written and prepared by Eman Ghoneim. Timothy J. Ralph co-supervised the project, contributed to the geomorphological and sedimentological interpretations, edited the manuscript and the figures. Suzanne Onstine co-supervised the project, contributed to the archeological and historical interpretations, and edited the manuscript. Raghda El-Behaedi contributed to the remote sensing data processing and methodology and edited the manuscript. Gad El-Qady supervised the geophysical survey. Mahfooz Hafez, Magdy Atya, Mohamed Ebrahim, Ashraf Khozym designed, collected, and interpreted the GPR and EMT data. Amr S. Fahil and Mohamed S. Fathy supervised the soil coring, sediment analysis, drafted sedimentological figures and contributed to the interpretations. All authors reviewed the manuscript and participated in the fieldwork.

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Ghoneim, E., Ralph, T.J., Onstine, S. et al. The Egyptian pyramid chain was built along the now abandoned Ahramat Nile Branch. Commun Earth Environ 5 , 233 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01379-7

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Ahmad E. Mostafa

Mostafa m. hegazy, wael m. afifi, deqiang dou.

e College of Pharmacy, Liaoning University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 77 Life One Road, Dalian Economic and Technical Development Zone, Dalian 116600, China

The ancient Egyptians practiced medicine with highly professional methods. They had advanced knowledge of anatomy and surgery. Also, they treated a lot of diseases including dental, gynecological, gastrointestinal, and urinary disorders. They could diagnose diabetes and cancer. The used therapeutics extended from different plants to include several animal products and minerals. Some of these plants are still used in the present day. Fortunately, they documented their life details by carving on stone, clay, or papyri. Although a lot of these records have been lost or destroyed, the surviving documents represent a huge source of knowledge in different scientific aspects including medicine. This review article is an attempt to understand some information about traditional medicine in ancient Egypt, we will look closely at some basics, sources of information of Egyptian medicine in addition to common treated diseases and therapeutics in this great civilization.

1. Introduction

According to WHO traditional medicine can be defined to be the sum of the knowledge, skills, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether used in health maintenance as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement, or treatment of physical and mental illness ( WHO, 2018 ).

The Egyptian civilization extended for centuries along the sides of the Nile River in the place which is now the country Egypt as one of the greatest and oldest civilizations in the history of humankind, it was renowned for its remarkable achievements in several fields including arts, science, and medicine ( Kemp, 2007 ). Ancient Egypt (3300BCE to 525BCE) is where the first dawn of modern medical care has been found, including bone setting, dentistry, simple surgery, and the use of different sets of medicinal pharmacopeias ( Nunn, 2002 ). The first mention of a physician in history is back to 3533BCE, at that time it was documented that Sekhet'enanch, chief physician healed the Pharaoh Sahura of the fifth dynasty from a disease in his nostrils ( Withington, 1894 ). Documentation of the use of malachite in ancient Egypt as an eye paint and treatment around 4000BCE has been found ( Žuškin et al., 2008 ). Imhotep (2780BCE) was the most famous of early Egyptian physicians, Imhotep was the chief vizier to the pharaoh Zoser, who was the first king of the Third Dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Additionally, he was known as the engineer of the step pyramid at Sakkara ( Cormack, 1965 ). Some pictures carved on the door-posts of a tomb in Memphis may be considered as the earliest known pictures of surgical operations (2500B. C.) ( Garrison, 1921 ).

Herodotus (The father of History), about 450BCE, wrote about Egyptians: 'The practice of medicine is so divided among them, that each physician is a healer of one disease and no more. All the country is full of physicians, some of the eye, some of the teeth, some of what pertains to the belly, and some of the hidden diseases' ( Todd, 1921b ).

2. Some basic concepts about traditional ancient Egyptian medicine

Ancient Egyptians did not have a clear dichotomy between both medicine and magic, they considered health and illness resulted from a person’s relationship with the universe including people, animals, good and bad spirits ( Zucconi, 2007 ).

The basic concept of health and disease according to the Ebers Papyrus is that the body has twenty-two mtw (vessels) which connect the body carrying various substances such as blood, air, semen, mucus, and tears. These mtw (vessels) are linked up at some junctures, controlled by the heart, and opened to the outside from several points like an anus. Egyptian healers should determine the condition of mtw -vessels by examination of the patient’s pulse. The balance ( maat ) of this movement is vital for human health just like the balance of the Nile flooding and irrigating is vital for Egypt. If the mtw -vessels were blocked by foreign or noxious matters ( wekhedu ), the disease takes place. These matters may enter the patient’s body through wounds or natural openings ( Veiga, 2009 , Zucconi, 2007 ).

Medical practice was rigidly prescribed by the Hermetic Books of Thoth, and if a patient died as a result of a deviation from this strict line of treatment, it was regarded as a capital crime, if the patient didn’t improve after four days of treatment, physicians were allowed to modify the treatment ( Garrison, 1921 ). There was a hierarchy of medical profession starting with the 'swnw' (ordinary doctor); 'imyr swnw' (overseer of doctors); 'wr swnw' (chief of doctors); 'smsw swnw' (eldest of doctors); and 'shd swnw' (inspector of doctors) ( Reeves, 1992 , Sullivan, 1995 ), there is also evidence proved the existence of women physicians ( Willerson and Teaff, 1996a ).

Ancient Egyptians got a surprising knowledge about anatomy, a lot of diseases of the osseous, alimentary, respiratory, circulatory, genital, muscular, nervous, ocular, auditory, and olfactory systems were described in details, They identified the function of the heart, and its relation to the two types of blood vessels, in addition, cerebrospinal fluid was known to them too ( El-Assal, 1972 ). They wrongly thought that the heart was the center for all body fluids including urine and tears ( Ja, 1962 ).

The surgery in ancient Egyptian was so advanced, surgeons used various instruments similar to what we using today such as the scalpel, forceps, and scissors, splints were made of reeds tied together by strips of linen or pieces of wood padded with plant fibers ( Reeves, 1992 , Saber, 2010 ). They sutured wounds, stopped bleeding using cautery ( Reeves, 1992 , Saber, 2010 ). Boils, abscesses, and septic wounds were opened surgically and drained by pieces of linen, and poultices were used as well ( Sipos et al., 2004 , Todd, 1921a ). A dislocated shoulder was treated in a similar way to the Kocher method, also a dislocated mandible was reduced by the method used today ( Sullivan, 1996 ). The plaster used for fractures consisted of linen soaked in a sticky material which hardened, They made circumcision a lot and there are some reports documented a surgical treatment of a hernia ( Ja, 1962 , Saber, 2010 ).

They knew psychology; Diodorus reported that it was written over the library of the Ramesseum “ Healing Place of the Soul ”. The patient suggested to write his troubles in a letter to dead relatives (catharsis), also there were some specialists in dream interpretation ( El-Assal, 1972 ). In most cases, doctors prescribe a remedy of different drugs, not a single drug. The routes of drug administration were basically five; oral, rectal, vaginal, topical, and fumigation. Treatments were given in different forms like; pills, cakes, ointments, eye drops, gargles, suppositories, fumigations, and baths ( Bryan, 1930 ).

3. Ancient Egyptian medical papyri

Pharaohs documented day after day events using hieroglyphic language by carving on walls of temples, stones, clay, or papyri ( Baines, 1983 ). The translation of the Rosetta stone in 1822, gave an excellent chance to translate several ancient Egyptian papyri including medical papyri ( Parkinson et al., 1999 ). The language which was used for writing on papyri is mostly the hieratic, which was written from the right side to left, using red ink for the headings and black ink for the bulk. Papyrus made from Cyperus papyrus by split interweaving, pounding in water, and drying to form brownish sheets then being written with brush and ink, and finally glued at edges, making a roll ( Baines, 1983 ).

The ancient Egyptian medical papyri documented several details about the way by which they practiced medicine. The papyri describe in-depth the diseases, how to diagnose, and different remedies that were used to treat. These remedies included herbal remedies, sometimes surgery, and even magical spells. ( Leake, 1952 ). Starting from the Middle Kingdom, about 1800 to 300BCE, the remains of more than 40 papyri describing the medical procedures that used to treat various illnesses have explored ( Pommerening, 2012 ).

Most of our knowledge of ancient Egyptian traditional medicine was originated from the ancient Egyptian medical papyri includes Ebers papyrus, Edwin Smith papyrus, Kahun Papyrus, Ramesseum medical papyri, Hearst papyrus, London Medical Papyrus, Brugsch Papyrus, Carlsberg papyrus, Chester Beatty Medical Papyrus, Brooklyn Papyrus, Erman Papyrus, and Leiden Papyrus, the most important eight papyri are listed in table 1 .

Chief Medical Papyri of ancient Egypt.

4. Kahun gynecological papyrus

The text contains 34 sections that deal with gynecology, contraception, and conception techniques ( Haimov-Kochman et al., 2005 ). All of the treatments in the Kahun Papyrus are non-surgical, varied, and interesting including fumigation, massage, and medicines introduced into the body in the form of pessaries or as a liquid to be drunk or rubbed on the skin. Eyes and the womb are, for some reason, closely linked in ancient Egyptian health and medicine ( Stevens, 1975 ). The papyrus discusses each case as the following; a brief description of the symptoms, then the physician is advised how to tell the patient her diagnosis and, finally, treatment is suggested ( Smith, 2011 ). In order to prevent pregnancy (conception), the papyrus recommends excrement (not identified for sure) of crocodile dispersed in honey or sour milk with a pinch of natron (sodium carbonate decahydrate) and injected into the vagina ( Griffith and Petrie, 1898 , Reeves, 1992 ).

5. The Edwin Smith papyrus

This papyrus was named after the man who purchased it in 1862 from a dealer. It is a very old medical text dating back to 1600BCE, it’s about surgical trauma discussing 62 diseases and surgery cases, just fourteen cases with known treatments, maybe because other cases are chronic diseases difficult to treat or even unknown ( Veiga, 2009 ). It has seventeen pages documenting head, neck, and arms injuries in addition to detailing a diagnosis, prognosis, and cause of the trauma ( van Middendorp et al., 2010 ). The treatments included the closure of wounds using sutures, prevent and treat infection with honey and stop bleeding using raw meat. The papyrus recommends immobilizing the head and neck in the case of its injuries in addition to some detailed anatomical observations ( Brandt-Rauf and Brandt-Rauf, 1987 , Breasted, 1930 ). Six cases of spinal injuries were documented in the papyrus, diagnosed with a specific description of symptoms in addition to the clear description for the treatment of three cases of them ( van Middendorp et al., 2010 ).

6. The Ebers papyrus

The famous Ebers Papyrus has been written in 1550BCE using 328 different ingredients (most of them are derived from plant species) to make 876 prescriptions ( Bryan, 1930 ). It’s the longest medical papyrus (68 feet in length and 12 in. in width) and the most complete surviving one, being an encyclopedia of medicine discussing details of a huge number of prescriptions and treatments for a wide variety of diseases that were in vogue among Egyptians of the eighteenth dynasty (c. 1630–1350BCE) including helminthiasis, ophthalmology, dermatology, gynecology, obstetrics, dentistry, and surgery. There is a short section on psychiatry, describing a “despondency” which may be similar to depression in our concept, besides, more than 700 magical formulas were described ( Subbarayappa, 2001 ).

7. The Hearst medical papyrus

The Hearst Papyrus, found in a house made of mud-brick in a provincial town, it’s thought to be a reference for a local physician, and, less carefully organized than Ebers, seems to have been made for this very purpose. The Hearst papyrus contains several remedies including; six remedies related to purging, eight remedies relating to teeth and bones, seven remedies relating to pains, eleven remedies relating to digestion, ten remedies relating to the urinary organs, seven remedies related to head diseases, thirty remedies relating to the vessels, eight remedies relating to the blood, thirteen remedies relating to the hair, the skin, thirty-six remedies relating to fingers and toes, eighteen remedies relating to broken bones, seven or more remedies concerning bites in addition to two incantations and twelve remedies against unidentified diseases ( Bryan, 1930 , Leake, 1952 ).

8. The Berlin papyrus

It was discovered in a jar by Heinrich Brugsch during excavations at Saqqara in the early twentieth century. It consists of 279 lines of prescriptions and is housed in the Berlin Museum. The Berlin Papyrus discusses a pregnancy test; the woman has to moisten barley and emmer with her urine every day … if grow, she will give birth. If the barley grows, she will get a boy child. If the emmer grows, she will get a girl child. If neither grows, she will not get a birth ( Reeves, 1992 ).

9. Diseases

There is a lot of prescriptions for the management of different urinary disorders such as; hematuria, urine retention, urine frequency, infection, and dropsy have been mentioned in medical papyri ( Salem and Eknoyan, 1999 ). The ancient Egyptian physicians were aware of a variety of cardiac diseases, including arrhythmia, aneurysm, congestive heart failure, and venous insufficiency ( Saba et al., 2006 , Willerson and Teaff, 1996 ).

Ancient Egyptians treated different dental problems including dental caries, mouth ulcers, teeth extraction, pyorrhea, abscesses, calculus formation, gums inflammation, jawbone, and jaw dislocation, all such data found in the Edwin Smith and Ebers Papyri ( Leek, 1967 ). Furthermore, they performed dental surgeries, where surgically produced holes used to an abscess drain under the 1st molar were found in the mandible of a 4th dynasty mummy around (2625–2510BCE) ( Harbort et al., 2008 ). Amazingly, it was discovered that a mummy had two teeth, a lower third and a lower second molar joined together by a golden wire piece woven around the gingival margins, Professor Euler who examined that discovery confirmed that this dental work has been performed in the mouth before death ( Puech et al., 1983 ).

The first known medical reference to diabetes mellitus was the Ebers Papyrus containing the following description; “. to eliminate urine which is too plentiful .” the condition described was polyuria (increased Urine volume) which refers mainly to diabetes ( Ahmed, 2002 , Loriaux, 2006 ).”

The first written description of cancer was reported in the Edwin Smith Papyrus, it was for a breast cancer case and described as “ bulging tumor of the breast was a grave disease and there was no treatment for it ” ( Breasted, 1930 , Hajdu, 2011 ). In the Ebers Papyrus, several tumors have been described such as; enlarged thyroids, polyps, and tumors of the pharynx, skin, stomach, rectum, and uterus ( Hajdu, 2004 , Weiss, 2000 , Withington, 1894 ). Some reports indicated the usage of different types of treatments for cancer such as cautery, knife, or salts of lead and sulfur or arsenic paste ( Hajdu, 2011 , Riordan, 1949 ).

10. Therapeutics in traditional ancient Egyptian medicine

Humans relied on nature as the main source of treatments since the dawn of history. In order to fulfill this need, he used different sources such as plants ( Han et al., 2019 , Metwaly et al., 2019 , Wang et al., 2019 ), marines ( El-Demerdash et al., 2021 , Sperstad et al., 2011 ), and microbes( Metwaly, 2019 , Metwaly et al., 2014a , Metwaly et al., 2017 ). Similarly, the ancient Egyptian pharmacopeia comprised a wide diversity of treatments, these treatments include minerals, metals, animals, and plant sources. The range of plants used by ancient Egyptians was very wide, they have used the whole plant, or its fruit, leaves, juice, or root ( Ja, 1962 ). The mentioned plants belonged to different species such as; acacia, anise, barley, cassia, castor bean, coriander, cucumber, cumin, date, fennel, fig, mulberry, garlic, gourd, juniper, leek, lettuce, lotus, peas, poppy seeds, saffron, sunflower, styrax, terebinth, wheat, willow buds, white thistle, and wormwood. Plants contain wide range of bioactive secondary compounds that belong to vast diverse of chemical classes such as saponins ( Mostafa et al., 2016 , Sharaf et al., 2021 , Yassin et al., 2017 ), diterpenes ( Zhanzhaxina et al., 2021 ), sesquiterpenes ( Jalmakhanbetova et al., 2021a , Jalmakhanbetova et al., 2021b ), pyrones ( Metwaly et al., 2014b ), isochromenes ( Metwaly et al., 2014c ), flavonoids ( Ghoneim et al., 2019 , Liu et al., 2020 , Mostafa et al., 2014 ), isoflavonoids ( Alesawy et al., 2021 ), and alkaloids ( Metwaly et al., 2015 ). Some of the extensively used plants in ancient Egypt in addition to their major bioactive compounds and uses have been summarized in table 2 .

some plants used in traditional ancient Egyptian medicine.

11. Minerals and metals

Minerals and metals in the Egyptian pharmacopeia included antimony, alum, carbon from charred wood, copper, feldspar, iron oxide, limestone, red ochre, sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, salt, stibnite, sulphur, and possibly arsenical compounds ( Leake, 1952 ). These remedies are usually recommended for local mild astringent or antiseptic action in cases of boils, felons, and burns. Antimony sulphide Given by mouth for bilharziasis Sulphur For scabies, calamine for its soothing effect, yellow ochre hydrated oxide of iron, used in the anemia of ankylostoma, red ochre natural oxide of iron, to combat hemorrhage, green copper ore against eye inflammation ( El-Assal, 1972 ). Some minerals possessed strong color and used for cosmetic use such as antimony and lead sulfides were used to produce the black paints used for beautifying men's and women's eyes, also the green color in eye make-up mainly produced by malachite. Also, chrysocolla and copper silicate, which is a lovely blue-green, was used ( Smith, 2011 ).

Natron was used a lot as a cleansing product in addition to using for household cleansing, Kahun papyrus mentioned that natron can be used also for contraception, namely: “honey, sprinkle over her womb, this to be done on a natron bed” ( Smith, 2011 ). Nubian ochre was used in an antidiabetic remedy and to fix a loose tooth ( Carpenter et al., 2006 , Leek, 1967 ).

12. Animal sources

Many different types of drugs from animal sources are recommended in the medical papyri, Fat and grease from different animals are mentioned in various prescriptions, sometimes for internal use and other times topically as a treatment or as a base in the formation of ointments. Goose-fat was a part of a remedy used orally to remove pain and is also used externally for relaxation ( Veiga, 2009 ).

Different forms of animal-derived drugs have been described; animal products such as; urine, eggs, feces, or milk in addition to animal structural components such as blood, bone, meat, bone marrow, bile, liver, spleen, and skin were used also. The liver (which is rich in vitamin A) was described to prevent grey hair and to treat night blindness ( El-Assal, 1972 ). There was a wide range of animals from which animal constituents were obtained, including cow, goose, donkey, man, cat, pig, mouse, goat, sheep, bat, hippopotamus, antelope, dog, insect, ostrich, pigeon, pelican, raven, frog, lizard, snake, tortoise and crocodile, animal sources are included invertebrates (beetles and worms) and fish ( Ja, 1962 ).

Different products have been used as vehicles; some of them have strong curative properties such as bee’s wax which was extensively recommended for use as a vehicle or binding material in various ointments or preparations for applications to the skin or wounds. Honey is a vital constituent in about five hundred prescriptions and remedies; it was used for its efficacy, also as a vehicle. Honey was the most commonly used agent in the Hearst document ( Reeves, 1992 ) and was used as anti-cough, antidiarrheal, wound healing, antiseptic, fix a loose tooth, and for toothache ( Aboelsoud, 2010a , Leek, 1967 , Sipos et al., 2004 ). Several other foodstuffs are included as vehicles to such as; beer, wine, milk, and water ( Leake, 1952 ).

Prescriptions for cosmetic use have been mentioned also in several Egyptian papyri, for instance, these sentences were written in the Ebers papyrus “ To make the skin of the face smooth, soak meal in spring water. Let her wash her face daily, and then apply the meal “ ( Withington, 1894 ). Although I couldn’t find a satisfying meaning for the word meal in this paragraph, the authors of the book “Albany Medical Annals” have mentioned that the meal is more effective and safer than most used toilet powders and face washers ( Babcock et al., 1921 ). Also, some prescriptions have been mentioned for households such as cleaning the house and keep harmful animals and rodents away “ To keep away mice, smear everything possible with cat's fat.” “ To prevent the hefu-snake from coming out of his hole, put a dried ant-fish, or soda, or an onion upon it—he will not crawl out .” ( Withington, 1894 ).

13. Past, present and future

Interestingly, a lot of ingredients that used in ancient Egyptian remedies are still used for the same purpose today. Their biological activities were confirmed using modern methods and techniques. For example, Ammi majus fruit which is endogenous to Egypt was used to treat vitiligo, recently, a compound (8-methoxypsoralen) has been isolated from Ammi majus ( Rather and Mohammad, 2015 ) to treat psoriasis and vitiligo ( Pakkish et al., 1980 ). Ziziphus spina has been mentioned as an ingredient of 33 ancient Egyptian prescriptions under the name nebes, mostly to treat different types of inflammations. Recently, gallocatechin and epigallocatechin were identified as two major compounds in the plant, and they were significantly correlated to the expression of 79 inflammation-related genes in the National Cancer Institute (NCI, USA) cell lines ( Kadioglu et al., 2016 ). Likewise, the methods of analysis of the materials (organic and inorganic) that incorporated in ancient Egyptian pharmaceuticals and cosmetics preparations including (lead chloride, cerussite, beeswax, mastic resin, pine resin, frankincense resin, castor oil, animal fat, and starches) have been reported ( Ribechini et al., 2011 ). Additionally, the powerful effect of honey as an antimicrobial agent besides its great effect in wound healing with six different mechanisms of action has been reported recently ( Krishnakumar et al., 2020 ). Accordingly, a huge amount of research must be conducted in the future to review the reported remedies, authenticate their content, and confirm their biological activities.

14. Conclusion

Ancient Egyptians surprisingly had a great knowledge of different medical fields such as anatomy, surgery, and general medicine; they could diagnose and treat several diseases successfully. Hundreds of cases have been mentioned in several medical papyri. The treatment in that time included a huge diversity of sources as plants, animals, and minerals. Most of our knowledge of this great medicine was derived from the medical pharaonic papyri which could be an incredible source to understand and learn several things from such a great civilization.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to AlMaarefa University for their financial support.

Peer review under responsibility of King Saud University.

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Egyptian Civilization

• OIS 9. Heaven on Earth: Temples, Ritual, and Cosmic Symbolism in the Ancient World. Edited by Deena Ragavan. 2013. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIMP 35. Between Heaven and Earth: Birds in Ancient Egypt. Edited by Rozenn Bailleul-LeSuer. 2012. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• SAOC 66. Pesher Nahum: Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature from Antiquity through the Middle Ages Presented to Norman (Nahum) Golb. Edited by Joel L. Kraemer and Michael G. Wechsler with the participation of Fred Donner, Joshua Holo, and Dennis Pardee. 2012. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIMP 34. Picturing the Past: Imaging and Imagining the Ancient Middle East. Edited by Jack Green, Emily Teeter, and John A. Larson. 2012. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• SAOC 65. Perspectives on Ptolemaic Thebes. Occasional Proceedings of the Theban Workshop. Peter F. Dorman and Betsy M. Bryan, eds. 2011. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIC 30. Bir Umm Fawakhir, Volume 2: Report on the 1996-1997 Survey Seasons. Carol Meyer, with contributions by Lisa Heidorn, Alexandra A. O'Brien, and Clemens Reichel. 2011. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIMP 33. Before the Pyramids: The Origins of Egyptian Civilization. Edited by Emily Teeter. 2011. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIP 133. Baked Clay Figurines and Votive Beds from Medinet Habu. Emily Teeter. 2010. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• Egypt through the Stereoscope: A Journey through the Land of the Pharaohs. By James Henry Breasted. Originally published in 1908. Electronic publication in 2010. Download Terms of Use
• OIDA 1. Letters from James Henry Breasted to His Family, August 1919 - July 1920. Edited by John A. Larson. 2010. Download Terms of Use
• OIMP 30. Pioneers to the Past: American Archaeologists in the Middle East, 1919-1920. Edited by Geoff Emberling. Published in 2010. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• Pioneer to the Past: The Story of James Henry Breasted, Archaeologist, Told by His Son Charles Breasted. By Charles Breasted. Reprint of the Charles Scribner's Sons 1943 Edition with New Foreword and Photographs. Published in 2009. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIP 136. Medinet Habu IX. The Eighteenth Dynasty Temple, Part I: The Inner Sanctuaries. With Translations of Texts, Commentary, and Glossary. By The Epigraphic Survey. 2009. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIS 5. Nomads, Tribes, and the State in the Ancient Near East: Cross-disciplinary Perspective. Jeffrey Szuchman, ed. 2009. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIMP 29. The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt. Edited by Emily Teeter and Janet H. Johnson. 2009. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• SAOC 54, 4th Printing. The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice, 4th Printing. R. K. Ritner. Originally published in 2008. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIS 3. Performing Death: Social Analyses of Funerary Traditions in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean Nicola Laneri, ed. 2007. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• SAOC 61. Sacred Space and Sacred Function in Ancient Thebes. Peter F. Dorman and Betsy M. Bryan, eds. 2007. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIP 132. The Egyptian Coffin Texts, Volume 8. Middle Kingdom Copies of Pyramid Texts. James P. Allen. 2006. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIS 2. Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures. Seth L. Sanders, ed. 2005. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIC 29. Catalog of Demotic Texts in the Brooklyn Museum. George R. Hughes. 2005. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIP 123. Temple of Khonsu, Volume 3. The Graffiti on the Khonsu Temple Roof at Karnak: A Manifestation of Personal Piety. Helen Jacquet-Gordon. 2003. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIMP 23. Ancient Egypt: Treasures from the Collection of the Oriental Institute. E. Teeter. 2003. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIP 118. Scarabs, Scaraboids, Seals, and Seal Impressions from Medinet Habu. Emily Teeter. 2003. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIP 119. Theban Desert Road Survey in the Egyptian Western Desert, Volume 1: Gebel Tjauti Rock Inscriptions 1–45 and Wadi el-Hôl Rock Inscriptions 1-45. J. C. Darnell, with the assistance of D. Darnell. 2002. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• Letters from Egypt and Iraq, 1954. Margaret Bell Cameron. Originally published in 2001. Download Terms of Use
• SAOC 45. Thus Wrote ‘Onchsheshonqy - An Introductory Grammar of Demotic (Third Edition). Janet H. Johnson. Third edition, 2000. Download Terms of Use
• OIC 28. Bir Umm Fawakhir Survey Project 1993: A Byzantine Gold-Mining Town in Egypt. C. Meyer, L.A. Heidorn, W.E. Kaegi, and T. Wilfong. 2000. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• SAOC 58. Gold of Praise: Studies on Ancient Egypt in Honor of Edward F. Wente. E. Teeter and J. A. Larson, eds. 1999. Purchase
• OIP 116. Reliefs and Inscriptions at Luxor Temple, Volume 2: The Facade, Portals, Upper Register Scenes, Columns, Marginalia, and Statuary in the Colonnade Hall. The Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1998. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• OIP 113. The Oriental Institute Hawara Papyri: Demotic and Greek Texts from an Egyptian Family Archive in the Fayum (Fourth to Third Century B.C.). G. R. Hughes and R. Jasnow. 1997. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• SAOC 57. The Presentation of Maat: Ritual and Legitimacy in Ancient Egypt. By Emily Teeter. Originally published in 1997. Download Terms of Use
• OIC 27. The Registry of the Photographic Archives of the Epigraphic Survey, with Plates from Key Plans Showing Locations of Theban Temple Decorations (H. H. Nelson). The Epigraphic Survey. 1995. Purchase Download Terms of Use
• SAOC 56. Portrait Mummies from Roman Egypt (I-IV Centuries A.D.) with a Catalog of Portrait Mummies in Egyptian Museums. By Lorelei H. Corcoran. Originally published in 1995. Download Terms of Use
• SAOC 55. For His Ka: Essays Offered in Memory of Klaus Baer. D. P. Silverman, ed. 1994. Purchase
• OIP 112. Reliefs and Inscriptions at Luxor Temple, Volume 1: The Festival Procession of Opet in the Colonnade Hall. The Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1994.

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Egyptology: The Study of Ancient Egypt

• Introduction
• Dictionaries, Encyclopedia, & Lexicons
• LC Classification
• Book Catalogs & Search Engines
• Find Articles
• Select Journals
• Library Databases
• Historical Newspapers
• Timelines and Period Specific Websites
• Museums & Research Institutions
• Egyptologists and Select Publicatons
• Selected Websites
• Organizations
• Egyptian Hieroglyphic Writing
• Audio-Visual (film video, sound)
• Sites and Digs
• Graduate Programs - Egyptology
• Guide & Contact Info

Recommended Journals for Ancient Egypt Research Articles

Research journals recommended by our faculty members.

British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan (BMSAES)

Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research

Cambridge Archaeological Journal

Journal of Ancient Egyptian Architecture

Journal of Egyptian Archaeology

Journal of the American Oriental Society

Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt

Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient

Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology

Journal of Near Eastern Studies

Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities ( not currently available online)

Near Eastern Archaeology

World Archaeology

E-Journals and Digitized Paper Periodicals (Egyptology)

Version, December 28, 2016.

Compiled for the Egyptologists' Electronic Forum ( EEF ).

Journals that have an electronic edition for subscribers only have not been listed, nor are occasionally free journal articles (only whole issues and series).

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114 Ancient Egypt Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best ancient egypt topic ideas & essay examples, 💡 interesting topics to write about ancient egypt, 📌 simple & easy ancient egypt essay titles, 👍 good essay topics on ancient egypt, ❓ ancient egypt essay questions.

• The River Nile and Its Contribution to Ancient Egyptian Civilization The source of the river remained a mystery to the early inhabitants of ancient Egypt for a considerable amount of time.
• Comparison Between Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece’s Burial Rituals On the other hand, the burial rituals of the ancient Greeks in the period of 750BCE and 700BCE were affected by the age of geometry.
• The Eloquent Peasant Story and Ancient Egyptian Law The characters in the story are the peasant Khun-Anup, the vassal of the high steward, Nemtynakht, the high steward Rensi, and King Nebkaure.
• Ancient Egypt’s Geographical Features and Development Thanks to the flooding of the river, the Egyptians received irrigation of the land, and it was also used for fishing and hunting. The specific situation of the country was the key to the highest […]
• Religion and Society in Ancient Egypt The king sought to control the flow of resources which were collected from the provinces and peasants and channeled upward. The class division was strongly present in the mythology of Ancient Egypt and was accepted […]
• Civilization in Ancient Egypt The civilization of ancient Egypt happened at the same time Mesopotamian civilization was taking place in other areas in the nations of the Akkadians, Babylonians and the Sumerians. Indeed, religion in ancient Egypt led to […]
• Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead It is a critical and ending part of the journey in the afterlife when the individual would arrive at the Hall of Maat and the purity of their soul is judged before entering the Kingdom […]
• Ancient Egypt vs. Ancient Greece In this paper, the researcher seeks to investigate the extent to which Ancient Egypt became Greek and the extent to which it remained the same during and after the rule by Ancient Greece.
• Art History: Art and Medicine of the Ancient Egypt According to the Egyptian historian Manetho, Imhotep was the first architect who invented the technique of building with the use of a dressed stone. In ancient Egypt, the falcon represented the god Horus who was […]
• The Role of Women in Ancient Egypt Right to the property for married women and their right to private inheritance and inheritance of the community property belonging to the husband was an essential nature of the status of women in Ancient Egyptian […]
• Race in Ancient Egypt Due to race infiltration in Egypt, majority of the black people were under-educated and denied the facts that spelled out the true history of Ancient Egypt, achievements of the black population, and their original works […]
• Cats in Ancient Egyptian Culture: Religious, Social, and Cultural Significance The Egyptians faced lions, panthers, and jungle cats in the woods. In Ancient Egypt, cats were an embodiment of the sun god.
• Deduction in Ancient Greece and Egypt Mathematics and the use of formulas have played an important role in the development of the modern world. The Golden Ratio concept was used in this part of the world.
• Ancient Egyptians’ Origins and Ethnicity For the longest time in the period from the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century, the Caucasian theory of the origin of the ancient Egyptians dominated.
• Herbal Medicine and Remedies in Ancient Egypt Additionally, the water lily, a plant belonging to the genus Nymphaea, was utilized for religious purposes and as a kind of medicine in ancient Egypt. 2005 The Art of Medicine in Ancient Egypt.
• Ethnic Minorities in Ancient Egypt The main topic of the article is the study of the characteristics of various ethnic groups and social organizations in the Ancient Egyptian civilization.
• How “African” Was Ancient Egypt? Some argue that the Ancient Egyptians must have been Black Africans, while others state that cannot be true, at least in terms of physical appearance, Combined with the peculiarity of Egyptian culture, from this emerges […]
• Ancient History of Mesopotamia and Egypt Both Mesopotamian and Egyptian rulers employed art as one of the methods to reinforce their ideology and remain in the cultural memory.
• Ancient Egyptians’ Ethics of War The initial religion of ancient Egypt was to realize the Gods in the form of birds and beasts. With the beginning of agriculture, the Egyptians became more dependent on nature, so they started to revere […]
• Mastaba of Mereruka in Ancient Egypt The Matsaba of Mereruka is a great example of the Old Kingdom tomb and its purpose of ensuring a prosperous afterlife for the buried one. The first mention of the king of the afterlife was […]
• Ancient Egyptian Tomb of Mereruka at Saqqara The tomb of Mereruka at Saqqara is one of the most famous monuments, which is the tomb of the non-royal person.
• Captive’s Statuettes of Ancient Egypt In particular, they were used in the rituals of protection of the land and the king, which were conducted in temples to eliminate the enemies of the king of Egypt.
• The Role of Kingship in Ancient Egypt Moreover, the king was considered the incarnation of the god Horus and “the central figure in the world view of the ancient Egyptians”.
• Ancient Egypt: Geography and Environment Thus, the country’s main river occupies a central place in the peculiarities of the culture and development of Egypt. Being a transit region, Egypt also managed to absorb the influence of other areas and enrich […]
• Art Before History, the Ancient Near East, Egypt Under the Pharaohs 5 million years ago and was marked by the development and use of chipped stone tools Mesolithic- This is a cultural period between the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras that began around 10,000 years ago and […]
• Ancient Egyptian and Greece Literature The history of literature began in the Bronze Age with the invention of writing in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. In Egypt, hieroglyphs and the similarity of drawings were used for writing.
• Black Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt That was the home to the earliest culture of the black people in Africa. It is claimed in the article that the first rulers of Egypt were black.
• The Impact of Geography on Agriculture: Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia Due to the fact that the river overrode the Ethiopian lowland, the inclined gradient of the River Nile sent the water torrent which overflowed the river banks resulting in over flooding of the river.
• The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Ancient Egyptian Culture The Epic of Gilgamesh and the culture of the ancient Egypt have their own similarities and differences based on the historical events that took place in this cultures and the religious beliefs of the two […]
• The Culture of Ancient Egypt To the advantage of Egyptians in the ancient times, the floods carried with them silt, fertile soils, and minerals which when the flood receded lift rich thick mud that the people grew crops during October […]
• Family Structure and Women Status in Ancient Egypt The family structure was also changed in an attempt to match with the wishes of the pharaohs. Many people in this country believed that the practice was important and helped to support the integrity of […]
• Ancient Egypt in “Gardner’s Art Through the Ages” by Kleiner The part of the first chapter of “Gardner’s Art Through the Ages” dwells upon the history of Ancient Egypt from the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt to the period of the New Kingdom.
• Ancient Egypt’s Socioeconomic & Cultural Relations From this perspective, the research of ancient Egypt society as one of the earliest civilizations can help to acquire the idea of how it impacted the further evolution of our views on social, economic, and […]
• Ancient Egyptian Culture: Religion, Art, Sports The Great Pyramids of Giza, the Great Sphinx of Giza, the Karnak Temple Complex, the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, and the Temples of Luxor are among the most famous constructions in the world.
• Ancient Egyptian Culture and Society Vizier, who was the second powerful man after the king and the next person to the king, was in charge of legal matters and at the same time the commander of the police.
• The River Nile’s Importance to the Ancient Egyptians This work is an analysis of Abdul’s assignment on the importance of the River Nile to the Ancient Egyptians. This work analyses Abdul’s task in terms of the satisfaction of the demands of literacy and […]
• Why Ancient Egypt’s Old and Middle Kingdoms Collapsed? The fact that the construction of the famous Egyptian pyramids began approximately at that time shows the capabilities of the civilization.
• Mummification in Ancient Egypt For instance, it may take up to 70 days to complete the entire process of mummification since it is done with extra caution to achieve the much needed perfection.
• The Kings of Ancient Egypt They were empowered by a divine appointment and therefore it is for the best interest of everyone to sustiain the line of succession and preserve the kingdom. The origin of the people, the land mass […]
• Welcome to Ancient Egypt: When Legends Were Born Djoser and Imhotep, carved in people’s memories: the architecture When it comes to the architecture associated with Djoser, the first and the foremost thing to mention is that he was the one to begin the […]
• Ancient Egypt History The national Unity, which portrayed peace among the Egyptian people, was maintained by a central government that had supreme powers and was controlled by the Pharaoh, the only ruler at the time.
• The Magnificence of Ramses II in the History of Ancient Egypt
• The Tomb Of Tutankhamun And The Daily Life In Ancient Egypt
• The Importance of Agriculture and Irrigation Technology: A Study of Ancient Egypt
• The Role of Religion and Major Deities in Ancient Egypt
• The Role and Significance of the Pyramids in Ancient Egypt
• The Significance of the Civilization of Ancient Egypt
• The Valley Of The Kings: The Great Necropolis Of Ancient Egypt
• The Effect of Mythology in Ancient Egypt and Norse Theology, Creating the Past
• The Nile River and Its Key Role in the Shaping of Ancient Egypt
• Medicine in Ancient Egypt as seen by the Archaeological Evidence of Papyrus
• The Cultures of Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome and Athletes
• The Meaning of Civilization and the Political, Economic, and Social Realities of Ancient Egypt
• Understanding Ancient Civilizations: The Life in Ancient Egypt
• Culture of Ancient Egypt and the Mummification Process
• The New and the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt
• Ways Of Live Forever By Ancient Egypt And Greek Culture
• The Pyramid Building of Ancient Egypt and the Beginnings of Engineering, Technology, and Cultural Dynamics
• The Spread of Tuberculosis in Ancient Egypt and Europe
• The Rituals Of Celebrating Birthdays From Ancient Egypt
• Use Of Hydraulic Systems Used From Ancient Egypt
• The Mysteries Surrounding the Secrets of Ancient Egypt
• The History of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt
• The Religion and Government of the Ancient Egypt Civilization
• The Increase Of Gender Equality In Ancient Egypt’s New Kingdom
• The Queen Of Queens And The Golden Sands Of Ancient Egypt
• The Path to the Western Lands: Death Ritual and Beliefs in Ancient Egypt
• The Historical Background of the Philistines and Their Connection to Ancient Egypt in the Book of Genesis
• The Major Impacts of the Culture of Ancient Egypt on Western Civilization
• The Planning and Construction of Pharaoh’s Tombs in the Ancient Egypt
• The Search For God, Ancient Egypt, By Jan Assmann
• The Life and Reign of King Tutankhamen in Ancient Egypt
• The Influence Of Black Sub saharan African Civilization On Ancient Egypt Greece And Rome
• Comparing Creation Myths Of Ancient Egypt And The Christian Bible
• The Use of Abstract Geometry in Ancient Egypt and Babylon
• The Cultures, Religion, Morals and Literature of Ancient Egypt
• The Differences Between Ancient Egypt And Egypt
• The Significance of Mastery of Architecture, Social Organization, and Art in the Construction of the Pyramids of Ancient Egypt
• The Influential Society of Ancient Egypt and Today Essay
• The History of Ancient Egypt and the Influence of Art, Architecture, and Religion
• The Geography of the Egypt and the Culture of the Ancient Egypt
• The Mummification Process and Its Meaning to Ancient Egypt
• The Impact Of Permanent Settlement On Ancient Egypt
• Why Was the Egyptian Calendar the Best in Antiquity?
• How Did Ancient Egypt Contribute Society Today?
• Why Was Hatshepsut Successful Despite the Gender Roles of Ancient Egypt?
• How Did the Geographic Features of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia Impact Civilization Development?
• What Were the Types of Writing Used in Ancient Egypt?
• How Did the Nile River Affect Ancient Egypt?
• What Is the Earliest Evidence of ‘Art’ in Egypt?
• How Were Marriages Arranged and Performed in Ancient Egypt?
• Why Could Herodotus Describe Egypt as “The Gift of the Nile”?
• How Was the Great Pyramid of Ancient Egypt Built?
• What Natural Advantages Did the Nile Valley Have Over Mesopotamia as a Center for the Development of Civilization?
• How Did Belief in an Afterlife Affect Egyptian Religious Ideas and Funeral Practices?
• Why Can the Unification of the Northern and Southern Parts of Egypt Be Described as the “Greatest Event in Ancient Egyptian Political History”?
• How Did Amenhotep Iv (Akhenaton) Try to Offset the Debasement of Religion Under the Empire?
• What Is the Evidence That the Old Kingdom, Unlike So Many Ancient States, Was a Peaceful, Nonaggressive Community?
• Why Has the Twelfth Dynasty Been Referred to as a “Golden Age”?
• How Did the Basis of the Pharaoh’s Rule Change With the Advent of the New Kingdom?
• To What Extent and in What Directions Were the Egyptians Scientific?
• What Was the Ancient Egyptian View of the Origin of Diseases? How Did This Affect Medical Practices?
• Why Does Limestone Occupy a Prominent Place in the History of the Twenty-Seventh Century B.C.E.?
• What Special Features of the Great Pyramid of Cheops Qualified It to Rank as One of the “Seven Wonders of the World”?
• What Features Did Egyptian Society Have in Common With Our Own and What Features Were Different?
• During What Period Were the Great Egyptian Temples Built?
• How Did the Sculpture of the Egyptians Symbolize Their National Aspirations?
• What Was the Structure of Egyptian Society Throughout the Greater Part of Its Ancient History?
• How Did the Position of Women in Ancient Egypt Differ From That in Most Other Ancient Societies?
• To What Extent Was Egyptian Art Bound by Convention? To What Extent Was It Original and Individualistic?
• How Do You Account for the Remarkable Longevity of Egyptian Civilization?
• In What Ways Was Ancient Egyptian Civilization Indebted to Nubia?
• Outline Egypt’s Legacy to World Civilization. Which Aspects of This Legacy Would You Say Are Most Visible Today?
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Ancient Egypt 101

The ancient Egyptian civilization, famous for its pyramids, pharaohs, mummies, and tombs, flourished for thousands of years. But what was its lasting impact? Watch the video below to learn how ancient Egypt contributed to modern-day society with its many cultural developments, particularly in language and mathematics.

Anthropology, Archaeology, Social Studies, Ancient Civilizations

Idea for Use in the Classroom

The world of ancient Egypt is different from students’ contemporary lives in many respects. The  Ancient Egypt 101  video (above) is an ideal place to start them on their exploration of that civilization . Before they watch the video, have student volunteers to share any information they already know about ancient Egypt . Ask:  What do you know about the pyramids ? Are you familiar with any Egyptian pharaohs ? After watching the video once, as a whole class, watch it a second time, section by section, and make a list of topics reflecting the major themes of the video. Discuss how students’ prior knowledge fits into this schema. Your class list may look something like this:

• Development into an empire
• Important leaders and their roles
• Religious beliefs
• Practices related to religious beliefs
• STEM innovations and their uses
• Writing system innovations and their uses
• How the empire ended

For each topic, discuss how thorough students feel their knowledge is after the video. Divide the class into three groups to brainstorm ancient Egyptian topics they would like to know more about. Ask: What are some topics that the video did not cover, or covered only a little? For example, the students may note that they would like to know about ancient Egyptian economics, relationships with neighboring states, social structures, or the arts beyond pyramids and tombs. Have each group record the results of their brainstorming in a list. After each group presents its list to the class, have each student use the discussion to generate a research question to explore during the study of ancient Egypt.

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Ancient Egypt Research Associates

Learn more about AERA, our team, and our work in Egypt.

Explore our excavations on the Giza plateau and across Egypt .

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Join to help us explore further!

I n 1984 we started our search for a pyramid city. How do you find a lost city? Use the arrows to navigate through an introduction to our work.

We looked to the landscape and started the Giza Plateau Mapping Project. From 1984-1987 we mapped the geology and terrain, and studied the clues left by “human disturbance on a geological scale.”

We used this knowledge to build a model of how the pyramid builders organized the Giza Plateau for their building projects. We predicted their city must lie south of the Sphinx, near a large stone wall called the Heit el-Ghurab (or “Wall of the Crow”).

In 1988 we began to excavate this site and found a massive urban settlement containing barracks, bakeries, a livestock corral, officials’ houses, and a large royal administrative building — all parts of a palace city and port that sprawled across the Giza Plateau.

As we dig, we save every scrap of material that the pyramid builders left behind – pottery, flint flakes from sharpening their tools, animal bones, and even plant remains from their diet.

We make some of our most important discoveries in the lab, through magnifying glasses and microscopes.

We use all of this information to help rebuild the everyday lives of the pyramid builders as in this 3D reconstruction. The gallery buildings shown here had unusually thick walls, which may have supported arched roofs and a second story. 

These gallery buildings are early examples of institutional buildings. Were they barracks where the pyramid workers were housed? Each was large enough to house 40 people.

Each gallery may have housed a “za” of 40 men as they served their term of compulsory labor for the crown. If so, we are finding the architectural footprint of early labor organization.

In 2012 we heard word of a discovery on the Red Sea coast — a port of Khufu! At this site Pierre Tallet had discovered the Red Sea scrolls, the world’s oldest papyri. These papyri included the diary of a man named Merer.

Merer described working with his “za” to bring materials to Giza to build Khufu’s pyramid. They must have arrived by boat to deliver their materials to the building site.

We used evidence from the Red Sea Scrolls, along with findings from drill cores and excavations, to reconstruct a model of the ancient waterways needed to transport materials to Giza.

We are now excavating the possible location of the harbor at the Lost City of the Pyramids. Become an AERA member to follow our work and see what we find!

Who Built the Pyramids?

Who built the pyramids and how did the Pyramids help to build Egypt? These questions have driven our research at Giza for over 30 years.

We know the names of the kings who had the Giza Pyramids built: Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. Their monuments convey their power and the technical sophistication of their artisans, but tell us very little about the masses of people who did the actual work of building the pyramids 4,600 years ago.

Estimates for the number of people required to build the pyramids range into the tens of thousands — equal to the populations of the earliest cities. But who were these pyramid workers? Where did they live? What was their life like? In order to answer these questions, we realized we needed to find the pyramid builders’ city.

How do you find a lost city? We looked to the landscape. After three years of mapping and model building, everything we found  pointed to a site south of the Sphinx, near a large stone wall called the Heit el-Ghurab (or “Wall of the Crow” in English). So we started to dig and in 1988 we discovered the Lost City of the Pyramids, a massive urban settlement where people lived and worked while constructing the Giza pyramids.

Today we continue to work at the Lost City of the Pyramids, as well as the Great Pyramid, Sphinx, and the priests’ towns associated with the tombs of Pharaoh Menkaure and Queen Khentkawes.

Use the slideshow at the left to or visit our Fieldwork or Publications pages to learn more about our work.

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Featured news and articles.

Watch "Decoding the Great Pyramid" at PBS.com

How did the ancient Egyptians engineer Khufu’s Great Pyramid? Who were the laborers who raised the stones? How did mobilizing this colossal labor force transform Egypt? In “Decoding the Great Pyramid,” Mark Lehner and the AERA team discuss our latest research.

AERAgram Volume 22

While the most recent AERAgram is only available to our members, previous issues are free to download. The most recent issue available online includes:

• Searching for a Royal Building
• Acres of Bedrock: What the ancient builders’ holes tell us
• Menkaure Valley Temple
• Lost But Found Again: Stamp seals & sealings from MVT

AERA in the News

Recent articles and videos about AERA’s work include Journeys of the Pyramid Builders , the cover story of the July/August 2022 issue of Archaeology magazine, and A Refreshing Look at Egypt’s Ancient Pyramids , a New York Times article.

Field School: Learning Bone

We believe the best way to train students is through a hands-on approach, embedding them in our current research projects. Here two of our archaeozoology students share their first-hand experiences studying ancient animal bones in our lab on the Giza plateau.

Who Built the Sphinx?

Our study of the Sphinx and the Sphinx Temple lead us to believe that  Khafre created most of the Sphinx.

However, Khufu might have started it.

How Old Are the Pyramids?

Find out how we use modern scientific methods to test the accepted historical dates of several Old Kingdom monuments, including the pyramids at Giza.

Featured Books

AERA Object Typology

This richly illustrated book is intended to be used as a reference work for archaeologists working on other Egyptian (Old Kingdom) settlement sites.

This representative sample of everyday tools was selected from our massive collection and is the result of work on the material culture at Giza by a large team of specialists over more than 30 years.

The Red Sea Scrolls: How Ancient Papyri Reveal the Secrets of the Pyramids

Pierre Tallet’s discovery of the Red Sea Scrolls—the world’s oldest surviving written documents—was one of the most remarkable moments in the history of Egyptology.

These papyri, written some 4,600 years ago, and combined with Mark Lehner’s research, changed what we thought we knew about the building of the Great Pyramid at Giza.

Giza and the Pyramids: The Definitive History

In this definitive book, Mark Lehner and Zahi Hawass provide insights into the history of the Giza plateau based on over 40 years of excavation and study.

The monuments are brought to life through hundreds of illustrations, including photographs of the monuments, excavations, and objects, as well as plans, reconstructions, and images from remote-controlled cameras and laser scans.

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Preserving our Tangible Heritage: Clothing in Ancient Egypt to the Present Day

International Academic Journal Faculty of Tourism and Hotel Management

Related Papers

n The Encyclopedia of Ancient History Phase 2 Additions, ed. R. Bagnall et all, Willey-Blackwell

Aleksandra Hallmann

Egyptian clothing fulfilled many functions, from the mundane role of covering and decorating the wearer to protecting the body in a symbolic and apotropaic sense. Clothing expresses identity, gender, social status and/or the ethnicity of the wearer. The most obvious distinction between classes of Egyptian clothing is royal and non-royal. In more general terms, Egyptian garments are divided into two groups. The first consists of untailored/wraparound garments that were usually rectangular pieces of cloth wrapped in a variety of ways, including kilts, wraparound skirts and dresses, and various outer garments, such as cloaks and shawls. The second group comprises cut-to-shape and/or tailored clothes such as tunics, including separate sleeves, loincloths, hip-cloths, aprons, so-called “penis sheaths,” and various sashes such as body- or neck-sashes. Information about Egyptian clothing is primarily based on visual sources, which are not always straightforward to decipher due to the Egypt...

Katlyn Greiner

My thesis focuses on the analysis of two Late Antique Egyptian textiles:mInstitute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology UM/IEAA 2004.1.4 and Victoria and Albert Museum, London 294-1887. Using stylistic, iconographic, and technical analyses, I was able to match these two fragments, in addition to identifying their probable location of manufacture and date. The IEAA textile contains three separate pieces, a neckband and two clavi, sewn together. Observations revealed that these decorative elements were recycled from earlier garments and were reused together based on pomegranate imagery. The IEAA clavi employ an unusual motif, which I identified as a composite representation of the pomegranate flower. Based on acquisition date, technical attributes, stylistic elements, and comparable fragments, I propose that the IEAA and V&A pieces were manufactured in Akhmîm, Egypt, during the 5th- 8th centuries A.D. This study enabled me to reweave the history of these two textiles.

Unwrapping Ancient Egyptian Fashion

isara solutions

International Res Jour Managt Socio Human

One cannot think about an individual’s being without dress to hide his or her body in modern civil society. The dress, evolved out of the requirement to guard one from the fury of the sun and rain. In the early days from the evolution of human being, we find evidences that different materials such as leaves, dead animal skins later on weaving of different material came in existence with advancement of knowledge, later developed into a symbol of civilization. The old saying goes; "Without clothes to cover him a Man is but half of himself” A way human being dress is concerned with the story of man’s first and most faithful addiction , his intense pre –occupation with the appearance of his own body , this but obsession is not surprising as the body is all man have to begin life with only thing we can be sure of keeping until death . It is unknown that dissatisfaction with what nature has given him. It has been seen that by using clothing as a means of aspiring towards his fantasies of better, or least different body. Whatever is the may be the reason, it gave birth to new innovations in costume designs, material, fabrics. It is reflected in the sculptures, paintings and other artefacts found in caves. The simple dress has, however, got deeply embedded in the life of a man and consequently has passed on as a cultural idiom of a society

New Themes, New Styles in the Eastern Mediterranean: Christian, Jewish, and Islamic Encounters (5th-8th Centuries)

Tineke Rooijakkers

Antike Mythologie in christlichen Kontexten der Spätantike, ed. H. Leppin (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, Millennium-Studien vol. 54), 263-296

Troels Myrup Kristensen

Proceedings of the 28th International Congress of Papyrology, Barcelona 2016, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Ines Bogensperger

This paper is a comparative study of the vast corpus of published documentary papyrus texts and preserved textiles from Egypt with a special focus on the information related to signs of using textiles in daily life, textile patterns and techniques and materials used in textile production

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History. 1–9.

Egyptian clothing fulfilled many functions, from the mundane role of covering and decorating the wearer to protecting the body in a symbolic and apotropaic sense. Clothing expresses identity, gender, social status and/or the ethnicity of the wearer. The most obvious distinction between classes of Egyptian clothing is royal and non-royal. In more general terms, Egyptian garments are divided into two groups. The first consists of untailored/wraparound garments that were usually rectangular pieces of cloth wrapped in a variety of ways, including kilts, wraparound skirts and dresses, and various outer garments, such as cloaks and shawls. The second group comprises cut-to-shape and/or tailored clothes such as tunics, including separate sleeves, loincloths, hip-cloths, aprons, so-called “penis sheaths,” and various sashes such as body- or neck-sashes. Information about Egyptian clothing is primarily based on visual sources, which are not always straightforward to decipher due to the Egyptian conceptual and non-perspectival mode of two-dimensional representation, which significantly affects the depiction of a clothed figure. The complex way of examining Egyptian clothing is through analysis of the same garment in two and three dimensions and juxtaposing the represented clothing with extant garments, as well as textual sources.

Maya Mueller

This paper examins Egyptian textile images depicting the defeat of the Amazons and Indians, two Middle Eastern peoples thought to be uncivilized, in Late Antique Egypt. The introduction of contemporaneous, i.e. Late Antique iconographic elements into these ancient Graeco-Roman mythological motifs can be understood as a transformation of their original message which must have alluded to more recent or actual political conditions. A small number of tapestry woven pictures from richly decorated tunics is extant representing a conspicuous idea: the ‹taming› of two ‹wild› Middle Eastern peoples, the Amazons and the Indians. A singular key piece showing the defeat of the Amazons and the Indians in juxtaposition, a tunic or rather the fragments of its pictorial decoration created in the 5th or 6th century CE, belongs to the textile collection of the Museum of Cultures, Basel.

Tamer Fahim

I shall let you see my beauty in a tunic, of the finest royal linen, soaked with cinnamon oil…………&quot; 1 The question that needs to be answered in this paper is the widespread usage of the bag-tunic for all categories of people in ancient Egypt, based on depiction I have tried to show the originality of the bag-tunic in ancient Egypt for both sex and the similarities and differences of the new fashion costume. The paper depends on the statues and reliefs for kings and individuals during the new kingdom to compare the different styles of the bag-tunic which appeared for all classes of people. Analyses to the shape of the bag-tunic and decoration technique have taken place and major features emerged. The paper, then, compared these features and results are discussed This research was developed using analytical and comparative approaches based on document and picture analyses. The paper concluded that bag-tunic appear in new kingdom as anew fashion for all different categories of peop...

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Scientists find evidence of ancient waterway beside Egypt’s pyramids

A 40-mile stretch of a long-gone branch of the Nile may explain why the ancient monuments were built where they were.

The pyramids of Giza now stand amid a desert landscape of sand and rock, miles from the lush banks of the Nile.

Their modern isolation enhances the sense of majestic relics from a vanished kingdom, but it wasn’t always so: A new study suggests the pyramids once stood beside a major branch of the Nile that was swarming with boats.

“We think this was a superhighway for ancient Egypt,” says geomorphologist Eman Ghoneim , a professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Phantom River

Today, 31 pyramids built between the 27th and 18th centuries B.C.—almost 1,000 years—are strung along the foothills of Egypt’s Western Desert plateau. Researchers have long suspected that they were built beside a dried-up channel of the Nile, and earlier studies have found evidence of a waterway at different sites.

But Ghoneim and her colleagues are the first to map part of its ancient course—and they’ve discovered it was much larger than they expected.

Their study, published today in the journal Communications Earth & Environment , describes the detection of the now-vanished branch of the Nile in satellite photographs by Ghoneim’s expert eye; and their geophysical verification of its path.

For Hungry Minds

The result is a map of a 40-mile stretch of the lost waterway between the town of Lisht, some 30 miles south of Cairo, and the site of the Giza pyramids.

Only a small, watery stretch still survives today as the Bahr el-Libeini canal near the Abu Sir pyramids , but this channel of the Nile was once more than half a mile wide in places and sometimes more than 80 feet deep. The authors of the latest study have named it the Ahramat branch, from the Arabic word for pyramids.

Satellites and sand

Ghoneim, who grew up in Egypt, first saw traces of the Ahramat branch about two years ago in multispectral satellite photographs, which display data captured in wavelengths of light that the eye cannot see. She also examined digital elevation models extracted from the satellite radar data, to determine the heights of landscape features and anomalies.

Following her training as a geomorphologist—an expert on the processes that change a landscape—Ghoneim identified signs of the long-lost waterway now covered by desert sands and many centuries of agricultural development.

Such satellite data wasn’t available before, and so this seems to be the first time that a significant length of the vanished river channel has been identified.

“The actual channel itself—the width, the depth, the length, and its proximity to the pyramid fields—is something new,” Ghoneim says.

Egyptologists have developed a rough chronology of early human development in the Nile valley.

The region transformed from a desert to a savannah-like environment about 12,000 years ago, due to a rise in global sea level after the last phase of the last Ice Age.

From around 12,000 to about 5,000 years ago, much of the Nile valley was inhospitable because of the high water levels and swampy environment—what’s known as the “Wild Nile” period, says University of Cambridge geoarchaeologist Judith Bunbury , who wasn’t involved in the latest study.

People only started entering the Nile valley after that, perhaps to fish, she says; and by about 2700 B.C. the various branches of the Nile had become “tame” enough for the founding of Egypt’s Old Kingdom, although widespread flooding was still frequent.

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Building the pyramids.

Ghoneim says the Ahramat Branch must have been an important waterway during the Old Kingdom until about 2200 B.C; knowing more about its route will help archaeologists target and protect important cultural sites.

Importantly, the river branch would have allowed boats to ferry construction materials for the many pyramids built at that time. “The ancient Egyptians needed a major waterway to transport very heavy building materials and workers to the pyramid sites,” Ghoneim says. “So they used this branch like a highway.”

In some cases, the Ahramat branch ran only a few hundred feet from the pyramids themselves. Many pyramids were connected by causeways to temples on the ancient riverbank that may have served as harbors.

The vast size of the Ahramat branch, revealed during months of geophysical surveys and soil samples at selected spots, surprised the researchers.

It was typically more than a quarter of a mile across, and their study suggests it widened at the northern end to form an inlet near Giza.

“It’s a big branch, similar to the width of the current Nile,” Ghoneim says. “And its proximity to the pyramid sites implies a functional waterway of great importance during ancient Egypt.”

Two-way traffic

Today, however, almost the entire Ahramat branch has disappeared; the study suggests it started moving east and silting up by about 2000 B.C., perhaps from geological activity and windblown sand from the Western Desert.

The researchers found that pyramids built during Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, from about 2040 until about 1780 B.C., were built further east than those built during the Old Kingdom—presumably to be closer to the Ahramat branch as it migrated eastwards.

But Bunbury thinks the silting process could have been worsened by the pyramid-building activities themselves, and that it may have started even earlier, by about 2500 B.C.

At that time the Shepseskaf Masataba —a flat-roofed tomb, rather than a full pyramid—was built between Saqqara and Dahshur; and the diminishing Ahramat branch could explain why it was hurried: “It was a bit of a minimal job, because water transport was more difficult,” Bunbury says.

University of Marseilles palynologist Hader Sheisha also wasn’t involved in the latest study; but she has examined ancient environmental evidence for a water channel near Giza , which may correspond to the Ahramat branch.

Sheisha notes the size and depth of the Ahramat branch challenge some existing theories, such as the idea that the waterway supplying the pyramid sites was narrow and shallow along its length, and therefore probably over-crowded with boat traffic. But Ghoneim believes that the Ahramat branch would have been large enough for boat traffic in both directions.

The research team’s next step will be to radiocarbon date the remains of plants and seashells in buried sediments to fix the ages of the Ahramat branch over the time it was in use; and to continue to map the waterway north and the south beyond its 40-mile stretch beside the pyramids.

“This part of the branch is located in northern Egypt—we still have middle Egypt and southern Egypt that have not been covered yet,” Ghoneim says. “We are going to expand our analysis to see where this branch started, probably near the border with Sudan.”

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Egypt Research Paper

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Nile River allowed Egypt to emerge, beginning from the sixth millennia BCE, as one of the world’s first hydraulic civilizations. Building canals and dikes, Egypt developed a redistributive economy and a complexly ordered, unified society under one king by 2950 BCE. Even as a part of other empires in other eras, Egypt became an icon of Western civilization, with a distinctive artistic canon recognizable today by the general public.

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Egypt has long been accorded a paramount place in world history. This is particularly true of ancient Egypt, which has exerted a powerful influence on both popular and scholarly imaginations to the point that it has been incorporated into the standard view of Western civilization. Other epochs in Egyptian history were also of great importance, however, and not only to Egypt but also to the history of the world.

The Gift of the Nile

As the climate of northeastern Africa dried out during the Holocene period, the peoples of the region had to move to wetter areas, either to the south or to the east to the Nile Valley. By the sixth millennium BCE, most of Egypt’s population had migrated to the valley of the Nile, a remarkable river that was the material basis for Egyptian civilization. Besides providing almost all of Egypt’s water, the Nile annually inundated the fertile land along its banks, leaving behind pools, depositing new soil, and washing away excess minerals, thereby avoiding the salinization that was the bane of other hydraulic civilizations such as ancient Mesopotamia. The river was continuously navigable throughout Egypt, from the broad delta in the north to the first cataract at Aswan, 900 kilometers (559 miles) to the south, providing ready communication and the means to convey heavy loads over long distances. (A cataract, of which the entire Nile has six, is a place where boulders break the water’s surface or where rapids flow; boats pass them only with difficulty.) The river was ideal for sailing craft: the steady current carried vessels north while the prevailing north wind propelled them south. Even today 95 percent of Egypt’s population lives within a few kilometers of the river.

This was the matrix from which one of the world’s first hydraulic civilizations emerged. During Predynastic times (c. 5300–2950 BCE) increasingly complex social and political organizations developed to manage and maximize the river’s gift through construction of canals, dikes, and artificial pools, and through water-raising devices. Control of the resulting agricultural surpluses enabled an exploitative elite to establish a redistributive economy with increasing social stratification and differentiation of labor. A series of kingdoms developed along the Nile, growing ever larger and inevitably coming into conflict with each other and consolidating into still larger kingdoms. Little is known about the process apart from what can be interpreted from enigmatic artistic representations on items such as ceremonial palettes and maces, although it is fairly clear that the unifying impulse came from the south. By 2950 BCE at the latest, Egypt was united under one king, providing one of the earliest models of state formation, and one unmatched in scale by any of its preceding or contemporary societies.

From the intensely innovative and creative experiences of Late Predynastic and early pharaonic times emerged fixed forms of social usage, religion, and artistic expression so suitable to the Egyptians that they remained fixed for thousands of years. At the apex of society was the king, or pharaoh, who ruled with the status of a god. Monumental accomplishments such as the vast pyramid fields of Giza, Saqqara, and Dahshur demonstrated his command of the kingdom’s people and resources. Highly complex systems of religion and magic connected people with the universe and assigned them a place in this life and the next, for which they made elaborate preparation through mummification and tomb construction. Ethical values such as ma’at, which might be loosely translated as justice or truth, guided personal and official conduct. Prodigious artistic production was regulated by an artistic canon that produced works so distinctive that they are readily recognizable today as ancient Egyptian, even by the general public. Stimulated by the need to keep royal records, the art of writing appeared early in Egypt and was expressed in stately hieroglyphic script by a privileged group of learned scribes. Through its monuments, art, and literature, ancient Egypt communicated a compelling impression of itself to succeeding ages.

During the Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom periods (c. 2613–1640 BCE), Egypt functioned largely as a cultural oasis, separated from the rest of the world by deserts, restricted land approaches, and lack of a natural seaport. The ancient Egyptians probably felt little need for external contact, but cultural self-sufficiency can lead to complacency and technological backwardness, as was made apparent by the invasion and domination of Egypt by the foreign Hyksos during the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1640–1550 BCE). That humiliating episode prompted the Egyptians to import innovations such as the horse-drawn chariot, the curved sword, the compound bow, and body armor, as well as improved looms and potters’ wheels, and superior strains of plants and animals.

With the resurgent New Kingdom (c. 1550–1069 BCE), whose monumental remains are so abundant at ancient Thebes (present-day Luxor), Egypt developed closer outside ties as it acquired imperial possessions in Syria through the campaigns of monarchs such as Thuthmose III and Ramses II. The emergence of other powers in the Near East required maintenance of diplomatic contacts, as is shown by the archives of the heretic king Akhenaten. Diplomacy became even more important during the Third Intermediate and Late Periods (c. 1069–332 BCE) when Egypt was often internally divided and occasionally subjected by foreign entities such as the Nubians, the Assyrians, and the Persians. A Greek merchant presence penetrated into the delta, and Greek mercenaries served in Egypt. Greek scholars and travelers were drawn to Egypt, including the fifth century BCE historian Herodotus who famously observed that “Egypt is the gift of the Nile.” Egyptian influences on Greek art are obvious in sculpture and architecture.

Alexandria, the Ptolemies, and Rome

Egypt had fallen under Persian domination when Alexander of Macedon (Alexander the Great) arrived in 332 BCE. Alexander soon departed to complete his conquest of the Persian Empire, but not before establishing a new city, Alexandria, which provided a major seaport to a country that previously had none and firmly connected Egypt to the Mediterranean world. Out of the struggle for power following Alexander’s death in 323 BCE, one of his Macedonian generals, Ptolemy, son of Lagus, secured Egypt for himself and his descendants, establishing a dynasty that lasted three centuries. Although the Ptolemies presented and justified their rule through traditional pharaonic trappings to the masses of Egyptians, they superimposed a Greek-speaking elite class and its foreign culture on Egypt.

The Ptolemies ruled the most powerful state in the eastern Mediterranean, an empire that extended far beyond Egypt, and that was usually able to hold its own and more with its chief rival, Seleucid Syria, another product of the breakup of Alexander’s ephemeral empire. The immense, ever-renewed resources of Egypt enabled the Ptolemies not only to maintain their military power but also to sustain magnificent achievements in material culture and intellectual life. Alexandria became by far the greatest city of the eastern Mediterranean. Its two harbors, guarded by the Lighthouse, teemed with commercial and military vessels. The city was filled with thousands of sumptuous palaces, temples, and public buildings. The Museum became the intellectual center of the Mediterranean world, attracting the greatest scholars and the best collection of books to its incomparable Library.

Under its first three kings—Ptolemy I Soter, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, and Ptolemy III Euergetes—who reigned from 306 to 221 BCE, the Ptolemaic dynasty retained its preeminence, but later rulers were often less capable, and at times the dynasty fell into unscrupulous hands. Rome emerged from the Second Punic War (218–202 BCE) as the strongest power in the Mediterranean and progressively extended its sway eastward, interfering increasingly in Egypt’s affairs throughout the second century BCE. By the following century Egypt was virtually a Roman puppet state. Cleopatra VII (r. 51–30 BCE) attempted to exploit internal Roman competition for power to reassert the independence of her kingdom, hence her liaisons with Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius. In the end, however, the faction led by Octavian, later styled Augustus, prevailed. Egypt became a Roman province in 30 BCE.

If anything, the Roman Empire exploited Egypt more ruthlessly than had the Ptolemies. Besides substantial taxes, Egypt regularly shipped vast quantities of grain to Rome, the first of several times that Egypt served as the breadbasket of a foreign power. By the second century CE the Egyptian economy was experiencing severe stress from the burdens imposed on it. But Egypt also exerted a strong allure on the Roman Empire. The several Egyptian obelisks that were transported to Italy served as reminders of the ancient land through the centuries. Egyptian religious cults such as that of Serapis and Isis spread through the empire. Alexandria remained supreme in intellectual life. Ideas in geography, astronomy, and medicine that were nurtured there circulated in both the West and the Middle East as late as the nineteenth century. Alexandria was foremost in philosophy, being especially notable in the development of Neoplatonism. Another cultural product of Roman Egypt, Hermeticism— a mix of philosophy, metaphysics, alchemy, and astrology that was based on the mythical Hermes Trismegistus—was particularly influential during the European Renaissance. But when the Roman Empire entered a period of extended crisis during the third century CE, probably no province suffered as much as Egypt, weakening old certainties and institutions while opening the way for new ones.

Though usually underappreciated by Christians in general, Egypt played a central role in the establishment and spread of Christianity. Much of Christian orthodoxy was initially hammered out in Egypt; the Nicene Creed, for example— “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things both visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God”—was formulated by Egyptian churchmen; the New Testament in its canonical form was first compiled in Egypt; and Egypt contributed greatly to the development of many of the church’s most important institutions such as monasticism. Traditionally brought to Egypt by Saint Mark, the early development of Christianity in Egypt is obscure, but there can be no doubt that the new religion found fertile soil along the banks of the Nile. The vicissitudes of the third century only made it grow stronger as people turned to it for comfort and support. By the late fourth century, through a combination of conversion, aggressively antipagan measures, and imperial favor, the religion had triumphed. Egypt became almost monolithically Christian.

Byzantines, Persians, and Muslims

With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire at the end of the fifth century, Egypt remained a province of the Eastern or Byzantine Empire. As before, it was regarded as an imperial breadbasket, although the grain shipments went to Constantinople (later called Istanbul), not Rome. Relations between Constantinople and Egypt were far from smooth as irreconcilable areas of conflict developed. Alexandria, the preeminent city of the eastern Mediterranean for more than six centuries, resented its displacement by the upstart capital of Constantinople. Worse, the imperial capital began to assert theological as well political supremacy. Egyptian resentment was exacerbated by the emergence of serious doctrinal differences that found expression during the great church councils of the first half of the fifth century in disputes over matters such as monophysitism, the belief that Christ’s humanity is absorbed by his deity; thus he has only one nature, not two. Imperial attempts to impose its ideas of orthodoxy were vigorously resisted in Egypt.

At the beginning of the seventh century, the Byzantine Empire fell into a bloody civil war that devastated Egypt. Hardly had that conflict been resolved when the Byzantine and Persian empires began a prolonged struggle during which Egypt endured a sustained Persian occupation before the Byzantines finally prevailed. The Byzantine Empire was badly shaken by its conflict, however, and had difficulty in reimposing its rule in Egypt or even in protecting its borders against a new and totally unexpected force. United under the banner of Islam, Arab armies emerged from the Arabian Peninsula and drove the Byzantines from Syria in 636 CE, isolating Egypt from the imperial center. In 639, a small Arab force marched south from Syria to Egypt. An incompetent Byzantine defense and the welcoming attitude of the Egyptian people, who saw the Arabs as liberators from their hated oppressors, quickly delivered the province to the Arabs.

The consequences of the Muslim conquest of Egypt were momentous. One consequence, of course, was the establishment of Islam in Egypt, which became a predominantly Muslim land, although Egypt retains to this day a substantial Christian minority. Another consequence was Egypt’s adoption of the Arabic language. And an entirely new capital, Fustat, was established near the apex of the Nile Delta, displacing Alexandria as the center of government and beginning the long decline of the latter city until its resurgence in the nineteenth century.

Thus Egypt became part of a new world empire, governed first from Arabia, then from Damascus under the Umayyad dynasty (661–750 CE). When the Umayyads were overthrown by the Abbasids in 750, the last Umayyad caliph, Marwan II, made his final stand in Egypt. After the Abbasids established a new imperial capital at Baghdad, Egypt became more peripheral and was usually loosely governed, especially as the authority of the Abbasid caliphate steadily diminished. That made Egypt vulnerable to the ambitions of a rival Shi’a Fatimid caliphate that had established itself in present-day Tunisia and was determined to wrest control of the Islamic world from the Sunni Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad. Egypt was the logical first step.

Fatimids, Mamluks, and Ottomans

Through a combination of effective propaganda and Abbasid weakness, at a moment when Egypt was riven with internal divisions, the Fatimids took Egypt almost without opposition in 969. The new dynasty immediately founded a new city a short distance north of Fustat, which became known as Cairo, although Fustat remained of major importance until it was destroyed during a crusader invasion in 1168. Once again Egypt was the center of a major empire, well led and capably administered, and strong both militarily and economically. Fatimid gold coinage, which retained its value almost to the end of the dynasty, set the monetary standard in the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. But the Fatimids never achieved their ambition of destroying the Abbasid caliphate, and less able rulers in less favorable times were hard pressed to meet a new and unexpected challenge in the Middle East.

Egypt does not come readily to mind when thinking of the crusades, which were ostensibly aimed at the Holy Land, but it was involved in them from beginning to end. An Egyptian Fatimid garrison lost Jerusalem to the First Crusade in 1099, and an Egyptian Mamluk army expelled the crusaders from the Asian mainland at the end of the thirteenth century. Several major crusading efforts were primarily directed not at the Holy Land but at Egypt, and on more than one occasion the crusaders came close to success. At such a moment of crisis Salah al-Din, known in the West as Saladin, displaced the enfeebled Fatimid dynasty. Salah al-Din turned back the crusader threat to Egypt and recaptured Jerusalem in 1197. His rivalry with Richard the Lionheart during the subsequent Third Crusade became the stuff of chivalric legend. In Egypt he returned the land to the Sunni fold and established the Citadel, one of Cairo’s major features. He ruled as sultan, paying lip service to the authority of the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. The dynasty that he established, with extensive holdings in Syria as well as Egypt, is called the Ayyubid.

The Ayyubid realms were never functionally integrated, however, and they often failed to support each other effectively. When the French king Louis IX invaded Egypt in 1249 at the head of a strong army, it appeared almost certain that he would succeed. What saved Egypt was a new force of slave soldiers, the Mamluks (literally “owned men”). These formidable warriors met the French at the deltan town of Mansura, defeated them, took Louis IX captive, and turned back the last major crusader threat to Egypt. Within a few years the Mamluks again proved their mettle when the Mongols were about to invade Egypt having recently devastated Baghdad and killed the caliph. After dealing similar destruction to Damascus, the Mongols demanded that Egypt surrender or suffer a similar fate. Not waiting for invasion, the Mamluks rode north into Palestine and engaged the hitherto invincible Mongols at Ain Julut in 1260, defeating them utterly and chasing them out of the region. Within a few decades more the Mamluks had also conquered the last crusader stronghold on the Asian mainland. A crusader or Mongol conquest of Egypt would have had incalculable consequences not only for Egypt but also for world history.

Slave soldiers had long been a factor in Islamic governments. In Egypt the Mamluks institutionalized themselves as the dominant force with one of their number ruling as sultan. Their ranks were replenished by fresh supplies of slave youths from beyond the Muslim world who were brought to Egypt and raised in the arts of war and instructed in Islam from childhood. From slavery they could rise high in the Mamluk hierarchy, commanding groups of Mamluk soldiers, even becoming the sultan. But the system was not hereditary. The only way to become a Mamluk was to enter the system as a slave. Fullfledged warriors and their military establishments were supported by the revenues from extensive grants of land. Yet, for all their warlike orientation, the Mamluks were great patrons of the arts, especially architecture. Many splendid Mamluk buildings still adorn Cairo.

In its heyday, the Mamluk Empire was the mightiest state in the Middle East, but a number of factors attenuated their strength over time. The Black Death, the horrific outbreak of bubonic plague that appeared in 1347, hit Egypt especially hard, destroying perhaps a third of the population, dealing a devastating blow to the economic foundations of the Mamluk system and depleting Mamluk numbers. Plague reappeared with such regularity in Egypt over the next five centuries that Egypt became intimately associated with the disease in the Western imagination. But the Mamluk system also deteriorated from within as its unique training system lost its rigor. New innovations in tactics and military technology were ignored. The Mamluks never successfully adopted artillery, and they despised handguns as unworthy of mounted warriors. This made them vulnerable to the expanding Ottoman Turks who eagerly embraced new military techniques and weapons. After the decisive battle at Marj Dabiq in 1516, Egypt became a province of the Ottoman Empire and remained so in one form or another for four centuries.

Once again Egypt was relegated to the periphery as imperial policy was directed from Istanbul, as Constantinople was now called, and administered within Egypt by a long series of Ottoman governors. Relatively little is known about the first two centuries of Ottoman Egypt because of a dearth of historical sources, but it is clear that Egypt derived some benefit from being part of the extensive Ottoman imperial and commercial systems. Egypt particularly profited from becoming a transshipment point in the coffee trade as that new beverage gained avid markets throughout the Mediterranean and in Europe. Ottoman rule was light in Egypt, allowing the resurgence of the Mamluks as a privileged economic and military power. Eventually these neo-Mamluks became so powerful that they, not the Ottoman governors, were paramount within the land. It was in the wake of a failed attempt to reassert effective imperial authority at the end of the eighteenth century that another disruptive force intruded into Egyptian affairs.

French and British Intervention

At the direction of the revolutionary government of France, General Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt in 1798. The intentions were to sever Britain’s overland ties with India and secure Egypt and its agricultural riches for France. The ambitious young general may also have dreamed of winning an eastern empire for himself. But after some early but superficial successes, the situation became hopeless; Napoleon abandoned his army to seek greater things in Paris, and the French were expelled from Egypt by British and Ottoman forces in 1801. The British evacuated soon after. But Egypt had become firmly fixed in Europe’s political and diplomatic sights.

Another consequence of Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition was the European rediscovery of ancient Egypt. This was initiated to a large degree by the scholars who accompanied the French expedition but was quickly taken up by droves of scholars and travelers, intently followed by a growing reading public in Europe that was fascinated by the resulting flood of publications and the intriguing objects from Egypt that were filling Western museums. By the end of the nineteenth century, Egyptology was becoming a highly institutionalized discipline, one with appeal far beyond the scholarly community. The impact of ancient Egypt on the popular imagination is difficult to overstate. Probably no other vanished civilization has exerted so powerful an allure.

It was reasonably assumed that Ottoman authority would be reestablished in Egypt in the wake of the Napoleonic expedition, but the unexpected again intruded. Muhammad Ali (1769–1849), an Albanian officer in command of one of the Ottoman contingents sent to Egypt, exploited the chaotic situation to establish a personal ascendancy and compel a reluctant Ottoman sultan to grant him the office of pasha, or governor, of Egypt in 1805, which he held until his death in 1849. Steadily consolidating his power, Muhammad Ali exterminated the odious Mamluks and imposed a degree of order on Egypt unknown for centuries. Through ruthless measures he greatly increased the productivity of the country, built a powerful army and navy, and established industries in Egypt. Though nominally loyal to his master, the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul, Muhammad Ali was in fact much more powerful than the sultan with whom he fought two successful wars. So successful was he that the Western powers intervened to prevent the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire—and because of resentment that a non-Western polity could accomplish so much. Muhammad Ali was compelled to dismantle most of his military and industrial establishments, but in return he was granted the hereditary right of rule in Egypt for himself and his family, who retained it until 1952.

But Muhammad Ali’s successors fell increasingly under the sway of the West. Ismail, who ruled with the exalted title of khedive from 1863 to 1879, pursued an especially ruinous policy of borrowing from Western bankers at usurious terms. Debts mounted to unsustainable levels to finance grandiose projects. The most expensive was the Suez Canal, which opened in 1869, but only brought more debt to Egypt while greatly enhancing the importance of the country to covetous imperialist eyes. When debts mounted to levels where the Egyptian government could no longer pay, European governments intervened to take control of the country’s finances. That provoked a nationalist rising which Britain crushed militarily in 1882.

British intervention in Egypt was initially intended to be temporary, but it lasted more than seventy years. Withdrawal would mean the return of unacceptable conditions in Egypt—and leave Egypt and the Suez Canal, which had become Britain’s lifeline to India, vulnerable to other predatory imperialist powers—so the British occupation became institutionalized. Although Britain maintained the diplomatic fiction that it ruled Egypt in the interests of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt was very much part of the British Empire.

The British accomplished much in Egypt in the area of administrative reform, and they thoroughly overhauled the vital irrigation system, with highly beneficial results. But they largely deprived Egyptian officials of administrative responsibility and experience, while discouraging industrialization in favor of agriculture, causing Egypt to fall ever further behind. Education stagnated as the British refused to devote substantial resources to it at any level. Not until 1908 was a national university established in Egypt. Lord Cromer, the British consul-general and de facto ruler of Egypt, calculated that the Egyptians would be so grateful for the efficiency of British control that they would acquiesce in it indefinitely. When that calculation proved mistaken during the first decade of the twentieth century, reluctant steps were taken towards the establishment of a representative parliamentary democracy. But just as that promising process was being implemented, World War I broke out, and Britain found itself at war not only with the German Empire but with the Ottoman Empire as well.

The British were more firmly in control than ever as they suspended Egyptian political activity and imposed a state of emergency. Since they could no longer maintain the fiction of governing in the interests of the Ottoman Empire, they established a formal protectorate in Egypt. The Ottoman menace to the Suez Canal required large numbers of British soldiers to be stationed in Egypt. The country was compelled to make heavy contributions of produce, money, and manpower to the war effort—although Egyptians were not conscripted into the army in large numbers because the British did not want to create a large cadre of trained Egyptian fighting men.

At the conclusion of World War I, to which Egypt had so heavily contributed, and inspired by talk of national self-determination, Egyptians expected their national concerns to be taken seriously. When they learned that their case was not even being considered and that the British intended to continue the protectorate, the country exploded. Realizing that Egypt had become ungovernable, Britain granted independence to Egypt in 1922, but with reservations. These included continued military presence in the canal zone and deferment of the final disposition of Sudan, which the Egyptians considered theirs by right of conquest but which had effectively functioned as a separate British colony since 1899. Britain also reserved the right to intervene to defend Egypt. The result might be better described as autonomy rather than full independence.

Constitutional Monarchy

The constitutional monarchy that was established in 1923 confronted serious problems from the outset. The new king, Fouad I, a descendent of Muhammad Ali, inclined towards autocracy whereas the parliamentary leaders wanted to exert genuine authority. Given time, political realities would probably have produced a working relationship between the two, but a third factor, repeated British interference, prevented the emergence of equilibrium. Even so, modest advances were made in areas such as education and the economy, although lack of investment capital inhibited development, as did the Great Depression. Intellectual and cultural life flourished. Nor was the political scene altogether devoid of accomplishment. A treaty was negotiated in 1936 that provided for full Egyptian sovereignty and British withdrawal from Egypt, albeit after twenty years.

But with the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the British presence returned full force, for Egypt was of immense strategic importance. Threats from neighboring Italian colonies were turned back early on, but two German offensives in North Africa presented much more serious dangers, especially the second, which was stopped at al-Alamein, just one hundred kilometers (about 62 miles) from Alexandria. The British victory there narrowly prevented the Germans from capturing the Suez Canal and breaking into the Middle East and beyond. Egypt bore less of a burden in this war than in the previous one, but the Egyptians bitterly resented the way their government was coerced into cooperation by the British.

The postwar political situation in Egypt was dismal. King Farouk, who succeeded his father in 1936, degenerated into a caricature of depravity. Parliamentary politics were tarred by corruption, and the political spectrum became increasingly fragmented. Military intervention against the new nation of Israel resulted in a humiliating disaster, further discrediting a government that was increasingly out of control. Attempts at reform came too little and too late. The monarchy was overthrown by a military coup in the summer of 1952.

The figure that emerged supreme was an officer named Gamal Abdel Nasser, who held the office of president until his death in 1970. Determined to make a clean break with the past, the new regime extensively and repeatedly reorganized Egypt’s political and economic systems, introducing a system of state socialism and an outwardly democratic system, but one in which the president was supreme. The British finally withdrew from Egypt in 1956 but returned later that year in an ill-advised joint British- French-Israeli invasion when Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal to pay for construction of the High Dam at Aswan. Britain’s failure in the Suez crisis underscored that nation’s decline as a world power. The British were, however, able to prevent the union of Sudan with Egypt, a point of departure with enormous consequences for both nations. Enhanced in prestige after Suez, Egypt played a prominent role on the world stage during the 1950s and 1960s, with implications for the Cold War, the nonaligned movement, and especially for the Arab world where Egypt asserted a prominent leadership position. But that and Nasser’s espousal of the Palestinian cause led to Egypt’s disastrous defeat when Israel attacked in June 1967.

Under its next two presidents, Egypt gradually changed course in a number of significant ways. Anwar Sadat’s surprise attack on Israeli forces along the canal zone in October 1973 achieved some initial successes and recovered sufficient prestige to enable Egypt to make a peace treaty with Israel that recovered territories lost in 1967, but at the price of alienation from other Arab countries who resented Egypt’s abandonment of a united front against Israel. Sadat also began the process of moving away from a closed system of state socialism toward economic reengagement with the rest of the world. But he alienated many conservative elements within his own country, leading to his assassination in October 1981. Sadat’s successor, Hosni Mubarak, continued Sadat’s move toward more open economic policies and, with some reluctance, toward privatization and free markets. He also restored Egypt’s relations with other Arab countries. Despite some further tentative steps toward democratization, the country remains firmly under presidential control.

The challenges that confront Egypt in the early twenty-first century involve many of the most pressing issues confronting the world today. Egypt has serious demographic concerns. Cairo is the largest city on the African continent, with a population of more than 16 million people, and the entire country contains over 80 million inhabitants with a high rate of increase. Like many other countries, Egypt must also worry about energy, although it has some oil and extensive natural gas fields. Water may prove to be the worst problem of all, as demands upon the Nile approach the river’s maximum capacity. Egypt, which contributes nothing to the river’s supply, yet uses most of the water, will have to share with increasingly water-hungry nations upstream. Also, in a break with millennia of historical precedent, Egypt ceased to be a net food exporter in the mid-twentieth century and became a net food importer. The country can no longer feed itself, much less serve as a breadbasket to other nations. But the extraordinarily strong fabric of Egyptian society, which has withstood many stresses during the long millennia of its existence, will likely prove equal to these challenges as well as others that arise. Meanwhile the complex tapestries of its varied past, which have so often been interwoven with those of world events, will continue to enrich the human imagination.

Bibliography:

• Baines, J., & Malek, J. (2002). Atlas of ancient Egypt (Rev. ed.). Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.
• Bowman, A. K. (1986). Egypt after the pharaohs. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Goldschmidt, A. (1988). Modern Egypt: The formation of a nation-state. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• Kamil, J. (2002). Christianity in the land of the pharaohs. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.
• Midant-Reynes, B. (2000). The prehistory of Egypt: From the first Egyptians to the first pharaohs (I. Shaw, Trans.). Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell.
• Petry, C. F. (Ed.). (1998). The Cambridge history of Egypt (2 vols.). Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
• Shaw, I. (Ed.). (2000). The Oxford history of ancient Egypt. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press.
• Thompson, J. (2008). A history of Egypt from earliest times to the present. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.
• Vatikiotis, P. J. (1985). The history of Egypt (3rd ed.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.

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