One of the oldest countries in the world, Egypt has (at least) 5,000 years of recorded history, although many Egyptians claim much longer.
History | Egypt
Egypt according to Napoleon
In his first interview, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), French general and emperor, declared that “Egypt is the most important country in the world”. Among the reasons that guide this statement, the following can be highlighted: Egypt is included in the list of countries with the oldest civilizations in the world, the roles it played in history and its strategic location (land bridge between Africa and Asia and crossing point between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean). Regarding its influence, we can observe it in ancient peoples, such as the Hebrews, Mesopotamians and Syrians, as well as the Greeks and Romans. Egypt also emerged as an important player in Islamic history in several spheres: political, commercial, religious and cultural.
Modern Egypt has become the most populous “Arab” state (about 104 million inhabitants, 2021 estimate) and has achieved high heights in education, literature, music, architecture, cinema, radio and television.
Cairo, its capital, is the largest city on the African Continent and the Arab world, in addition to hosting the Arab League, an organization of Arab states founded in 1945, whose initiative was encouraged by the United Kingdom due to the Second World War, as a stratagem to obtain allies against Nazi Germany and the Axis countries. Another very relevant point to be mentioned is the maxim that hardly any political issue in the Middle East can be analyzed or dealt with without taking into account Egypt and its influence in the region.
Among other reasons, it is important to understand, for example, the identities of the Egyptian people, namely: Egyptian, Arab and Muslim. Currently, Egyptians carry documents such as Egyptian identity cards or passports; They communicate through the Arabic language, whether colloquial Arabic or classical Arabic for the more literate, encompassing reading and writing. In this context, it is also worth highlighting the interaction of Egyptians with other cultures, values and historical experiences, among which we can mention more than a century of European colonialism, followed by decades of American political influence, which left some psychological marks. Although Egypt is home to the Copts, an important Christian minority, Sunni Muslims comprise more than 90% of the Egyptian population, are committed to the Islamic community (ummah in Arabic) and are proud of their great leadership in education and architecture. It is also worth highlighting that the importance of these three identities is very relevant, as they shape the political options of Egyptians, however, they do not prevail over family loyalty, including clan, tribe, city or village.
Egypt is located in the northeast corner of Africa, between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, with a territorial extension of 1,001,449 km² housing more than 100 million inhabitants, as mentioned previously. Egypt's survival is due to the existence of the Nile River, as, without it, the country would be an almost entirely desert area with very few people living in the region. According to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, “Egypt is the gift of the Nile”. The country can be divided into five regions: the Nile River Valley, the Nile Delta, the Western Desert, the Eastern Desert and the Sinai Peninsula.
Nile River Valley
The Nile River enters Egypt from Sudan in the south, but its headwaters are in the lakes of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and the Ethiopian Highlands. It is the second longest river in the world with a length of 6,650 km², second (only and by a very small margin) to the Amazon River, in South America, with 6,992 km². The Nile facilitated the transportation of people and goods in Egypt and parts of Sudan, but no boat ever traveled the entire distance from any of its origins to its current mouth at the Rosetta and Damietta Canal. To the ancients, Egypt included only the lands along the last 500 miles of the Nile, from the First Cataract (narrow rapids) at Aswan to the Mediterranean. The Upper Nile Valley is relatively narrow and flat; it widens after the bend at Qena, reaching a width of 11 miles (or 18 km) at Cairo. After this point, the river spreads out, forming the Nile Delta as it reaches the Mediterranean Sea.
In Upper Egypt, the Nile Valley was never more than six miles wide, or 9 km. The area where the crops were grown formed a narrow green band around the banks of the river, contrasting with the desert, a “no man’s land” for the valley’s farmers. The Nile Valley itself has for centuries been distinguished – and made habitable – by the annual flood of the Nile, which carries water and rich silt from the Ethiopian highlands. Moisture-laden trade winds blow across Africa from the South Atlantic and meet dry winds from the North, producing heavy spring rains that swell the Sobat, Blue Nile and Atbara rivers in Ethiopia, causing flooding. Before the construction of the high Aswan Dam in the 1960s, residents of the valley saw the Nile begin to rise between mid-May and early July, with the flood peaking in September. Agricultural lands were flooded, not only in the valley and Delta, but also in the Fayyum Oasis connected to the Nile. The receding waters left a layer of sedimentary mud that fertilized the following year's crops.
In order to take advantage, the Egyptians learned to build dams, dams, dikes and basins, channeling and storing river waters to facilitate cultivation.
The river flooded annually, with small variations in the dates of its rise and fall, but the amount of water could vary greatly from one year to the next. While large amounts of water can sweep away homes, food stores, animals and people, too little water can leave the earth hard and cracked and, consequently, unable to support crops. Other rivers in the Middle East flood in spring, damaging crops and settlements, but only the Nile rises at the right time, when it would be too hot for agriculture. In Ancient Egypt, Egyptians thought their king, or sovereign, controlled these variations in the annual flooding of the Nile, but over the past two centuries, people have come to understand how and why the flood happens.
Nile Delta
The Nile Delta is situated along the northern coast of Egypt, where the river flows into the Mediterranean Sea. This region contains more than half of the agricultural land in modern-day Egypt. A flat widening area totaling 22,000 km² was built up over time as the Nile deposited sediment near its mouth. The Delta is mostly flat, although there are slopes that mark the sites of ancient settlements. One of the most cultivated areas in the world is dotted with thousands of agricultural villages, for example, the northwest corner of Alexandria, Mahalla and Tanta in its center. The Nile Valley and Delta regions are home to almost all of Egypt's population. Both ancient and modern Egyptians differentiated between those living in the Nile Valley, south of Cairo (or Upper Egypt), known as the "Saidis", and those living in the Delta, north of Cairo, called "Bahrawis". It is worth noting that the ancient kings of Egypt had “double royalty” or two crowns, since Ancient Egypt represented the unification of the Valley (Upper Egypt) and the Delta (Lower Egypt).
Western Desert
This portion encompasses more than two-thirds of Egypt's total area, but also receives a small percentage of the population. The Western Desert is an extension of the Libyan Desert and therefore the easternmost part of the Sahara. The land is basically a low plateau, mainly sandstone in the south, some limestone in the north and covered by the Great Sand Sea in its western half. Some underground strata contain large amounts of water. There are five oases in spring-watered depressions: Siwa, Bahriya, Farafra, Dakhla and Kharga. In the northwest there is a very low and uninhabited Qattara depression. The white sand beaches and coastal towns along the Mediterranean were developed during the 1990s as an area of resorts and vacation homes. Some oil and natural gas deposits have been discovered and are being explored as exploration in the Western Desert continues.
Eastern Desert
The Eastern Desert has no similarities to the Western Desert, as it mainly encompasses high, rugged mountains parallel to the Red Sea coast. The western and northern hills contain a lower plateau of limestone. The highest of the southern mountains is more than 7,000 feet (or 2,000 m) above sea level. Some of the mountains near the Red Sea contain mineral deposits that began to be explored only since 2016. The coastal beaches of the Red Sea have been developed as a resort area for swimmers, divers and shell collectors.
Sinai Peninsula
Sometimes referred to as part of Asia, sometimes as part of Africa, the Sinai Peninsula is part of Egypt, has a triangular shape, its base is bathed by the Mediterranean Sea and its tip is the Red Sea. It is administratively divided into two Egyptian provinces: North Sinai (Shamal Sina) and South Sinai (Janub Sina). It was separated by the geological faults that form the Gulf of Suez and provided the largest oil deposits. South Sinai is especially known for Jabal Katarina (Mount Saint Catherine, site of the famous Greek Orthodox monastery of that name) and Jabal Musa, "Mountain of Moses" or more popularly called Mount Sinai, although there is disagreement among scholars about the exact place where Moses received the Ten Commandments. Sinai has developed rapidly since Israel returned it to Egypt, thanks to the peace treaty signed in 1979. Today, it is a center for oil production, mineral mining and international tourism. North Sinai is a limestone plateau, relatively flat and extremely accessible to invading armies and migrating peoples throughout history. The Isthmus of Suez was pierced in 1869 by the Suez Canal, an important maritime route that connects Europe to Asia and East Africa, in addition to serving as a barrier to the migration of Bedouins.
Economy
For most of Egypt's history, the mainstay of the economy was agriculture, especially the cultivation and export of cereal grains around the Mediterranean basin. Egypt transitioned from a subsistence-based economy to a cash crop economy long before most other Middle Eastern countries. By the end of the 19th century, long-base cotton (Egyptian) had become its main export product, followed by tobacco, indigo and sugar. Due to the increasing use of synthetic fibers throughout the world, cotton exports declined in the late 20th century.
As Egypt's arable land declined relative to its total population, other crops overtook cotton, notably corn, rice, vegetables, and fruits. Subsequently, the Egyptian economy shifted from agriculture to industry and services. The Egyptian government tried to promote manufacturing, but the construction, transportation, oil, natural gas and mineral extraction sectors added more to the gross domestic product. International tourism has become a service industry that employs millions of Egyptians, demonstrating that it is a culture that highly values hospitality. However, this scenario is often interrupted by political instability and terrorist acts. On the other hand, the country continues to lead in education, finance and culture in the Arab world.
People
Due to its central and prominent location on trade routes, conquest and migration events throughout the centuries of its recorded history, Egypt became the “residence” of many temporary residents and permanent immigrants.
Over time, each wave of immigration assimilated into the local mix of peoples, transforming modern Egypt into a combination of Libyans, Nubians, Syrians, Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Arabs, Turks, Circassians, Greeks, Italians and Armenians, together with the descendants of the people of Ancient Egypt. The characteristics of the ancient Egyptians were largely small and fine-boned, with narrow skulls and dark wavy hair, while the Nile Delta population had more contact with the people of Southwest Asia and were heavier, taller, and their skulls were wider. . Although Egyptian artistic conventions were highly stylized, paintings and statues show men with reddish-brown skin, while women are shown with much lighter skin, perhaps because they spent more time indoors. Their facial features resemble those of sub-Saharan Africans. However, hypotheses about physical appearance must be assimilated with a certain caution, not as an absolute truth.
Language and Religion
Linguists consider the ancient Egyptian language to be part of the Afro-Asiatic language group, which includes many other languages spoken by ancient people. It survives in Coptic, a language spoken from ancient times until about 1500, but is now used by Egyptian Christians only in religious ceremonies. Contemporary Egyptians speak Arabic with some variants, that is, words and phrases that may be derived from the ancient Egyptian language. Written Arabic is the same for all Arabic speakers, in addition to being the language of Islam. The spoken language in Egypt is not exactly the same as written Arabic, which has elaborate rules about grammar and syntax. Many Egyptians believe that having Arabic as their native language makes them Arabs, but the urban Egyptian community considers the Bedouins to be “Arabs”, not themselves, which is not entirely wrong, because if we take into account the etymology of the word “Arab”, this means “one who lives in the desert”.
The vernacular dialects of Cairo and Upper Egypt differ from the colloquial Arabic of the Bedouins and other Arab countries. In fact, Egyptians (as well as other Arabs) consider their spoken dialects to be "slang" and written Arabic to be their "true" language, even though it must be learned at school. Pharaonic religious beliefs gave way to Coptic Christianity, but many ancient practices survived, especially among farmers. For example, the months of the modern Egyptian agricultural calendar are the same as those of Ancient and Coptic Egypt.
From the Arab conquest of the 7th century until modern times, Christianity was replaced by Islam, but conversion to Islam was gradual and rarely forced.
Although Christians and Muslims celebrate holidays limited to their religions, they share a spring holiday, Shamm al-Nasim, observed on Easter Monday in the Coptic calendar, when families leave their homes to picnic in celebration of the beginning of Easter. spring. Furthermore, as the Nile flooded its banks each year, all Egyptians—Jewish, Christian, or Muslim—participated in seasonal festivities marking the beginning, progress, and climax of the flood that gave life and prosperity to their country, Egypt.
Source:
GOLDSCHMIDT JR., Arthur. A Brief History of Egypt. Pennsylvania State University, 2008, pp. 1-10.
Author: Vanessa Chamma
Graduated in Arabic Literature and bachelor's in international relations
Researcher and Author
Lines of Research: History, Middle East, Geopolitics.
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