Map of Egypt’s Physiographic Features

Egypt’s and the Near East’s Map Questions

1. What is the longest river in Africa?

2. What ocean lies east of Africa?

3. What is the large body of water that separates Africa from Europe?

4. What is the sea south of the Sinai Peninsula that is linked to the Indian Ocean?

5. What chain of mountains is located in the southern part of modern Turkey? 6. What body of water lies between the Arabian Peninsula and modern Iran?

7. What river flows southeast across modern Iraq, near the city of Baghdad?

Nile River

Indian Ocean

Mediterranean Sea

Red Sea

Taurus Mountains

Persian Gulf

Tigris River

8. What river is located southwest of the Tigris River and flows southeast to the Persian Gulf?

9. What mountain range is located east of the Tigris River, in the

southwestern part of Iran? 10. What desert lies west of the Nile River and covers parts of modern

Egypt, Libya, and Sudan?

11. What desert lies in modern Egypt between the Nile River and the Red Sea?

12.What triangular area, bordered by water on three sides, connects the

continents of Africa and Asia?

13. What body of water is fed by the Jordan River and lies south of the Sea of Galilee?

14.What river flows through the Sea of Galilee and into the Dead Sea? 15. What mountain range runs parallel to the Mediterranean Sea from

Lebanon into Syria?

Euphrates River

Zagros Mountains

Libyan Desert

Arabian Desert

Sinai Peninsula

Dead Sea

Jordan River

Lebanon Mountains

16.What desert is located between the Sinai Peninsula and the Dead Sea?

17. What term is used to refer to the northernmost region of the Nile River, which is roughly shaped like a triangle?

18. What desert lies mostly south of Egypt between the Nile River and the Red Sea?

19. What large body of land is bordered on the northeast by the Persian Gulf, on the southeast by the Indian Ocean, and on the west by the Red Sea?

20. What desert lies west of the Euphrates River and north of the Arabian Peninsula?

Negev Desert

Nile Delta

Nubian Desert

Arabian Peninsula

Syrian Desert

E

GYp

T

TO

D

A

Y

Physiographic Features of Egypt

NUBIAN DESERT

The Nubian Desert is located in northeast Africa, between the Nile River and the Red Sea. It is an approximately 97,000 square mile region of the Sahara Desert. Primarily a sandstone plateau, this arid (dry) region has numerous wadis, or dry watercourses, which fill with water that flows to the Nile during periods of heavy rainfall. The ancient Kushites mined copper and gold from this desert, and traded these metals to Egypt for linen and grain.

NUBIAN DESERT

NILE DELTA

The delta of the Nile River is a triangle shaped region located north of Cairo, in northeastern Egypt. Originally, as many as seven branches of the Nile wound through the delta. The delta contains sixty percent of Egypt’s cultivated land (farmland), large areas of marshy wetlands, and shallow lakes. During ancient times, the Egyptians took advantage of the region’s rich soil, gentle winds, and level landscape to develop an extremely productive agricultural system.

NILE DELTA

ARABIAN DESERT

The Arabian Desert is the eastern desert of Egypt. It runs from the Nile River in the west to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez in the east. The desert is mountainous and rutted by deep, dry riverbeds. The ancient Egyptians used its abundant quarries of granite, feldspar, and other materials for many of their building projects.

ARABIAN DESERT

NILE RIVER

The Nile River is the longest river in the world, stretching 4,160 miles. It flows northward from its headstream in Central Africa to its delta on the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile runs through parts of Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Zaire. At six different places along the Nile, crystalline rocks form cataracts, or stretches of rapids and waterfalls that are not navigable. According to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, Egypt was “the gift of the Nile” because its waters supported large scale agriculture, made transportation easier, and provided a variety of edible plants and animals.

NILE RIVER

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

The Mediterranean Sea is the world’s largest inland sea. Surrounded by Europe, Africa, and Asia, it covers an area approximately of nine hundred and sixty-five thousand square miles. The Mediterranean Sea connects with the Atlantic Ocean and the Black Sea by way of the Aegean Sea. The shores of the sea are mainly mountainous. Many species of fish, sponges, and coral are abundant in the sea. The ancient Egyptians were originally afraid to sail on the Mediterranean, and so they relied on traders from other lands to bring them goods from Anatolia (Turkey) and Canaan. Eventually, the Egyptians got over their fear and sailed the Mediterranean Sea doing their own trading.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

LIBYAN DESERT

The Libyan Desert is the northeastern part of Africa’s Sahara Desert, the largest desert in the world. The Libyan Desert covers parts of southwestern Egypt, eastern Libya, and northwestern Sudan. The region consists primarily of sand dunes, course, stony plains, and plateaus of bare rock. Although its hot, dry climate is harsher and more forbidding than that of Egypt’s eastern deserts, the oases of this region were known in ancient times for their wines and agricultural products.

LIBYAN DESERT

Settling Ancient Egypt

Most Egyptians settled along the Nile River.

The Nile provides farmable soil from when it flooded, water for bathing/drinking/etc., fish, ducks, geese, and papyrus.

A shaduf is a device Egyptian farmers used to irrigate their cultivated fields. It was important because they could water their plants with fresh water to keep their fields fertile.

The Egyptians did not have to worry about fighting many enemies because they were protected on 3 sides by deserts and they had plenty of farmland and did not have to conquer others to get more.

+ -river flooded predictably relying on a riverrich soil near river dry environmentprotected by deserts have to irrigateplenty of resources

1) Where did most people in Egypt settle?

2) What are resources the Nile provided/gave to the Egyptians?

3) What is a shaduf and why was it important to Egyptian farmers?

4) What are two reasons why the Egyptians did not have to worry about fighting many enemies?

5) What are the positive and negative aspects of settling in Egypt?

UNIFICATION OF EGYPT

PARTS of EGYPT

UPPER EGYPT

• southern Egypt• over 500 miles long• first cataract

northward to the Nile Delta

LOWER EGYPT

• northern Egypt• It is the Nile Delta• 100 miles long but

very wide

1) Which Egyptian king united Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt and which part of Egypt was he from?

2) What was the title given to the king/ruler of Egypt?

3) What did the Egyptians believe their ruler was?

4) What were the two responsibilities of the pharaoh?

5) Ancient Egypt was ruled by over thirty different dynasties. What is a dynasty?

Unification

Narmer united Upper and Lower Egypt and he was from Upper Egypt

The king/ruler of Egypt was known as the “Pharaoh”

The Egyptians believed their ruler was a god

keep Egyptian society in orderprotect Egypt from its enemies

A dynasty is a series of rulers from the same family

KINGDOMS

Prehistoric Egypt

Old Kingdom

Middle

Kingdom

New

Kingdom

Dates 3700 – 2700

BCE

2686 – 2181

BCE

2055 – 1650

BCE

1570 – 1070

BCE

Nickname Age of Pyramids

Period of Reunification

Egypt’s Golden Age

Important Achievements

•Irrigation

•Formed

Government

•Hieroglyphs

•Built the

Great

Pyramids

•Became strong

again

•Achievements

in literature, art

and architecture

•Became a

world power

by

conquering

others

Famine Stella

Old Kingdom 2630-2611 BCE

• 1. Reigned for 19 years

• 2. During his reign there were new developments in agriculture, and increase in trade, and the development of cities

• 3. Fought and expanded Egypt’s territory

• 1. Built the world’s first complete stone building, the Step Pyramid

 • 2. Brought a “miraculous

end” to a severe food shortage (famine) by constructing a new temple to honor the God, Khnum (god who controlled the annual flow of the Nile)

FACTS and SIGNIFICANCE

• Step Pyramid

Khufu’s only remaining statue

Khufu’s sarcophagus

Old Kingdom 2551-2528 BCE

• 1. He reigned for 23 years

• 2. He was very cruel and harsh to the people of Egypt

• 3. Few written records left from his time

• 1. Built the Great Pyramid at Giza

• 2.   He was buried in the Great Pyramid at Giza

FACTS and SIGNIFICANCE

The Great Pyramid at Giza

Senusret I statuePillar from the Jubilee Chapel showing Senusret I talking to

a god

Middle Kingdom 1971-1926 BCE

• 1. He reigned for 45 years

• 2. Expanded Egypt’s territory by fighting Nubia and Libya

 • 3. Established strong

fortresses throughout Egypt to protect its gold, copper, and granite sources

 

• 1. Improved shrines and temples and built the Jubilee Chapel

• 2. Encouraged cultural development – fine jewelry and literature

• 3. One of the greatest works of Egyptian literature was produced during his reign, The Story of Sinuhe

FACTS and SIGNIFICANCE

The recreated Jubilee Chapel

“The Story of Sinuhe” as written in stone

Middle Kingdom 1473-1458 BCE

• 1. She reigned for 15 years

• 2. She was one of ancient Egypt’s few female pharaohs

• 3. She became a pharaoh when she seized power from her nephew

 • 4. When she died, her

nephew destroyed much of the information about his aunt and what she did

• 1. Organized trading expeditions to foreign lands (Punt – an African kingdom southeast of Egypt) to get luxury goods not available in Egypt

• 2. Some of the luxury goods included gold, ivory, leopard skins, ostrich feathers, incense, rare woods, greyhounds and cheetahs

• 3. Thutmose III may have played a role in her death - her body disappeared after she died and was found in 2007

FACTS and SIGNIFICANCE

A picture depicting the Egyptian trade ships

leaving for Punt

A column from one of Hatshepsut’s temples

Hatshepsut’s mummy

New Kingdom 1353-1335 BCE

• 1. He reigned for 18 years

• 2. His real name was Amenhotep until he changed it to Akhenaten – to honor the god, Aten

• 3. Abandoned the capital city of Thebes and started a new capital city called Akhetaten

• 1. Changed the religion of Egypt from worshipping many Gods to one God, Aten - the Sun God

• 2. Changed artwork to show people more natural looking and he attacked other gods by destroying their sites and statues

 • 3. The Egyptian people were

so angry that when the pharaoh died, his successors destroyed almost everything he did, as well as, his corpse

FACTS and SIGNIFICANCE

Remains of the capital city of Akhetaten

New Kingdom 1290-1224 BCE

• 1. He reigned for 66 years

• 2. Considered one of the most important pharaohs of Egypt

• 3. He lived well into his eighties, had more than 100 wives and over 100 children

• 1. Constructed many things – palaces, a new capital, monuments, wells, quarries, mines, tombs, and temples --- Ramesseum

 • 2. Courageous military leader

who fought many battles to expand and protect Egypt’s territory

• 3. Fought the Hittites to a draw even though he was greatly outnumbered

FACTS and SIGNIFICANCE

The Great Temple of Ramesses II

A stone was found near the Nile River by French troops in the city of Rosetta, Egypt in 1799. This stone had the same short story written on it in Greek, in Egyptian Demotic (the popular language of Egypt at the time), and in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Since the year 300 or so, no one in the world remembered how to read the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. However, in 1822, Jean Francois Champollion deciphered the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone and allowed modern scholars to read and understand all of the hieroglyphic messages left to us from the ancient Egyptians.

Since the discovery of and deciphering of the Rosetta Stone, there has been a great interest in ancient Egyptian writing. Egyptian hieroglyphics, holy writing, is a picture-based language. Egyptians started using hieroglyphics around 3000 BCE, and writing soon became a well-developed craft. Scribes (Egyptian writers and teachers) were held in high esteem and given great importance.

Scribes wrote everyday messages on papyrus, a type of paper made from the papyrus plant growing by the Nile. Very important information was carved into stone so that it would last forever. Scribes kept records of supplies and taxes, wrote letters and messages, designed the inscriptions carved into tombs and wrote manuals on just about anything. They worked in temples, markets, army barracks, government offices or anywhere their skills were needed.

EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS

Pictorial symbols represented specific sounds. What made this system confusing was that often the same symbol also represented entire words. For example, the symbol meant either the letters “c” or “k” or the word “basket”. Hieroglyphics are written in rows, and originally they were read from right to left. Scribes were often talented designers and paid attention to how the entire text appeared. Because of this, the scribe would sometimes write the symbols in a row (from top to bottom, bottom to top or left to right) or even stack the hieroglyphs. Finished inscriptions looked very decorative and were colorful. But there are common clues in hieroglyphic writing. Symbols of animals or people are always facing in the direction of the beginning of the row or stack, and each row or stack of symbols is separated by a line drawn underneath the writing.

Names of the pharaohs are enclosed in a cartouche, an oval with a line at the end indicating the person’s royal stature. In reading hieroglyphic text, a cartouche is easily recognized. It was believed that this nameplate would protect the person or site. In ancient Egypt, a cartouche was attached to the coffin of the dead pharaoh and his tomb. The ancient Egyptians believed that you had to have your name written down somewhere to be protected so that you would not disappear when you died.

HIEROGLYPHIC ALPHABET

ROSETTA STONE

JEAN FRANCOIS CHAMPOLLION

HIEROGLYPHS and CARTOUCHES