The oldest surviving work about mathematics was written by the ancient Egyptian scribe Ahmes around 1650 B.C. Found on the Rhine Mathematical Papyrus, it is titled “The Entrance into the Knowledge of All Existing Things and All Obscure Secrets.
The oldest death sentence recorded is found in ancient Egypt. Found in the Amherst papyri, a teenaged male in 1500 B.C. is sentenced to kill himself by either poison or stabbing for practicing magic.
Hieroglyphs were used only for ritual purposes and official inscriptions. For everyday use, Egyptians used a script called “hieratic.” In 700 B.C., a second script called “demotic” was used, of which a derivative is used by Coptic Christians today.
Ancient Egyptian tomb builders had their own guarded villages. They were well fed and looked after because their work was so important.
The oldest recorded standard of weight is the beqa, an ancient Egyptian unit equal to between 6.66 and 7.45 ounces. It is still used today.
In 2011, archeologists discovered an enormous statue of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III (grandfather of Tutankhamen). One of the largest statues ever found, it was actually first discovered in 1923 and then rehidden.
The ancient obelisk known as Cleopatra’s Needle has suffered more damage in the 125 years it has stood in New York City from pollution and weather than in the thousands of years it stood in Egypt.
The last known hieroglyphic inscription was made in A.D. 394 in the temple of Isis in Philae.
Although it is a popular notion that Napoleon’s troops shot off the nose of the Sphinx at Giza, sketches of the Sphinx from 1737 show it without a nose, more than 60 years before Napoleon reached Egypt. The only person known to have damaged it was an Islamic cleric, Sa’im al-dahr, who was hanged in 1378 for vandalism. He reportedly disapproved of “graven images.”
Scholars believe that ancient Egyptians were the first to sew wounds closed some 4,000 years ago. Egyptian doctors would often store their surgical needles in a case made from a hollowed-out bird bone.
The scarab beetle was sacred to the Egyptians and represented life after death or resurrection.
Egypt has the largest Arabic population in the world.The formal name of Egypt is the Arab Republic of Egypt.
Approximately 90% of Egyptians are Muslim (primarily Sunni), 9% are Coptic, and 1% is Christian.Pharaoh Pepi II (2246-2152 B.C.) had the longest reign in history—94 years. He became Egypt’s king when he was only 6 years old.Pharaoh Pepi II allegedly would smear naked slaves with honey to attract flies away from him.
The shape of ancient Egyptian pyramids is thought to have been inspired by the spreading rays of the sun.
The Egyptian flag is similar to the flags of Syria, Iraq, and Yemen and consists of three bands of colors from the Arab Liberation flag—red, white, and black—with the golden eagle of Saladin on the white band. On the Egyptian flag, black represents oppression, red represents the bloody struggle against oppression, and white is symbolic of a bright future.
The literacy rate for Egyptian men is 83% and 59.4% for women.
On average, only an inch of rain falls in Egypt per year.
Egyptian history is generally considered to have begun in 3200 B.C. when King Menes (also called Narmer) united the Upper and Lower Kingdoms. The last native dynasty fell to the Persians in 341 B.C. and was replaced by Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines. Arabs introduced Islam and the Arabic language into Egypt in the seventh century.
As of July 2011, the population of Egypt was 82,079,663, making it the 15th most populated country in the world. Approximately 99% of the population lives on about 5.5% of the land.[3]
The famous Great Pyramid at Giza was built as a burial place for King Khufu (2589-2566 B.C.) and took more than 20 years to build. It is built from over two million blocks of limestone, each one weighing as much as two and a half elephants. It stands about 460 feet (149 m) high—taller than the Statue of Liberty. The base of the Great Pyramid takes up almost as much space as five football fields.
Ancient Egyptians believed that mummification ensured the deceased a safe passage to the afterlife. The mummification process had two stages: first the embalming of the body, then the wrapping and burial of the body. Organs were stored in canopic jars, each jar representing a god.
Ancient Egyptians mummified not only people but animals as well. Archeologists discovered a 15-foot- (4.5-m-) long mummified crocodile. The crocodile is known as the “devourer of human hearts” in the ancient Book of the Dead.[1]
Ramses II (1279-1212 B.C.) is often considered the greatest pharaoh (“great house”) of the Egyptian empire. He ruled Egypt for 60 years and was the only pharaoh to carry the title “the Great” after his name. He had over 90 children: approximately 56 boys and 44 girls. He had eight official wives and nearly 100 concubines. He also had red hair, which was associated with the god Seth.
The Egyptian polymath Imhotep (“the one who comes in peace”) is known as the first physician, the first engineer, and the first architect.
Egypt’s Nile River is the world’s longest, running 4,135 miles (6,670 km). Ancient Egyptians would measure the depth of the Nile using a “nilometer.” The English word “Nile” is derived from the Semitic nahal, meaning “river.” Ancient Egyptians called the river iteru, meaning “great river.”
In an attempt to control the annual flooding of the Nile, one of the largest dams in the world was built in Egypt in 1971: Aswan High Dam. Unfortunately, the rich silt that normally fertilized the dry Egyptian land settled in Lake Nasser after the building of the dam, forcing farmers to use one million tons of artificial fertilizer every year.
Ancient Egyptians believed the tears of the goddess Isis made the Nile overflow each year. They celebrated the flood with a festival called the “Night of the Tear Drop.”
A priest often wore the jackal-headed mask of the god Anubis when making a body into a mummy. Ancient Egyptians associated Anubis (the god of the death) with jackals because jackals would uncover bodies from Egyptian cemeteries and eat them.
The Copts are the largest Christian community in Egypt and in the Middle East. Because Christianity was the main religion in Egypt between the fourth and sixth centuries, the term “Copt” originally meant all Egyptians.
In France, a glass pyramid stands outside the famous Louvre museum as a tribute to the ancient Egyptians and their amazing world.
Fly swatters made from giraffe tails were a popular fashion item in ancient Egypt.
(1) the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,
(2) the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus,
(3) the Statue of Zeus at Olympia
, (4) the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus,
(5) the Colossus of Rhodes,
(6) the Lighthouse of Alexandria.
The oldest surviving work about mathematics was written by the ancient Egyptian scribe Ahmes around 1650 B.C. Found on the Rhine Mathematical Papyrus, it is titled “The Entrance into the Knowledge of All Existing Things and All Obscure Secrets.”
The oldest death sentence recorded is found in ancient Egypt. Found in the Amherst papyri, a teenaged male in 1500 B.C. is sentenced to kill himself by either poison or stabbing for practicing magic.
Hieroglyphs were used only for ritual purposes and official inscriptions. For everyday use, Egyptians used a script called “hieratic.” In 700 B.C., a second script called “demotic” was used, of which a derivative is used by Coptic Christians today.
Ancient Egyptian tomb builders had their own guarded villages. They were well fed and looked after because their work was so important.[9]
The oldest recorded standard of weight is the beqa, an ancient Egyptian unit equal to between 6.66 and 7.45 ounces. It is still used today.
In 2011, archeologists discovered an enormous statue of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III (grandfather of Tutankhamen). One of the largest statues ever found, it was actually first discovered in 1923 and then rehidden
The ancient obelisk known as Cleopatra’s Needle has suffered more damage in the 125 years it has stood in New York City from pollution and weather than in the thousands of years it stood in Egypt.
The last known hieroglyphic inscription was made in A.D. 394 in the temple of Isis in Philae.
Although it is a popular notion that Napoleon’s troops shot off the nose of the Sphinx at Giza, sketches of the Sphinx from 1737 show it without a nose, more than 60 years before Napoleon reached Egypt. The only person known to have damaged it was an Islamic cleric, Sa’im al-dahr, who was hanged in 1378 for vandalism. He reportedly disapproved of “graven images.
Scholars believe that ancient Egyptians were the first to sew wounds closed some 4,000 years ago. Egyptian doctors would often store their surgical needles in a case made from a hollowed-out bird bone.
The scarab beetle was sacred to the Egyptians and represented life after death or resurrection
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