FACINATING / AMAZING FACTS ABOUT EGYPT

TAKING YOU BACK TO ACIENT HISTORY

1.Most Ancient Egyptian pyramids were built as tombs for pharaohs (rulers of Ancient Egypt) and their families. To date, over130 pyramidshave been discovered in Egypt.



2.The afterlife was incredibly important to the Egyptians. They believed that by preserving a dead person's body - which they did through the process of mummification - their soul would live on in the after-life forever.



3.ThePyramid of Khufuat Giza is the largest Egyptian pyramid. This incredible structure weighs as much as16Empire State buildings!
Click here for a sneak peak of how the pyramids were built!



4.Both Egyptian men and women wore makeup. The eye-paint was usually green (made from copper) or black (made from lead). As well as offering protection from the sun, the Egyptians believed makeup had magical healing powers, too!



5.Unwrapped, the bandages of an Ancient Egyptian mummy could stretch for1.6km. Yikes!



6. Christianity was the main religion in Egyptbetween the Fourth and Sixth Centuries.

7.The Egyptian alphabet contained more than700 hieroglyphs! Uncover the meaning behind these ancient symbols HERE.



8.Ancient Egyptians believed in more than 2,000 deities! They had gods for everything from, dangers to chores! Each had different responsibilities and needed to be worshipped so that life could be kept in balance.


9.Cats were considered to be a sacred animal by the Ancient Egyptians. It's thought that most families kept a cat as a pet, which they believed would bring the household good luck!


10.Love playing boardgames with your pals? Well, gang - so did the Ancient Egyptians! One popular game was 'Senet', which was played for over 2000 years! The game involved throwing sticks (in the same way we throw dice) to see how many squares to move your piece forward on the board.


11.The Ancient Egyptians invented lots of things we still use today, such as paper, pens, locks and keys and - believe it or not - toothpaste!

TOP FACTS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT EGYPT

Ancient Egypt stood as one of the world’s most advanced civilizations for nearly 3,000 years and created a culture so rich that it has spawned its own field of study. But while Egyptian art, architecture and burial methods have become enduring objects of fascination, there is still a lot you probably don’t know about these famed builders of the pyramids. From the earliest recorded peace treaty to ancient board games, find out 11 surprising facts about the Gift of the Nile.





Cleopatra was not Egyptian.



Along with King Tut, perhaps no figure is more famously associated with ancient Egypt than Cleopatra VII. But while she was born in Alexandria, Cleopatra was actually part of a long line of Greek Macedonians originally descended from Ptolemy I, one of Alexander the Great’s most trusted lieutenants. The Ptolemaic Dynasty ruled Egypt from 323 to 30 B.C., and most of its leaders remained largely Greek in their culture and sensibilities.
In fact, Cleopatra was famous for being one of the first members of the Ptolemaic dynasty to actually speak the Egyptian language.




The ancient Egyptians forged one of the earliest peace treaties on record.



For over two centuries the Egyptians fought against the Hittite Empire for control of lands in modern day Syria. The conflict gave rise to bloody engagements like 1274 B.C.’s Battle of Kadesh, but by time of the pharaoh Ramses II neither side had emerged as a clear victor. With both the Egyptians and Hittites facing threats from other peoples, in 1259 B.C. Ramses II and the Hittite King Hattusili III negotiated a famous peace treaty. This agreement ended the conflict and decreed that the two kingdoms would aid each other in the event of an invasion by a third party. The Egyptian-Hittite treaty is now recognized as one of the earliest surviving peace accords, and a copy can even be seen above the entrance to the United Nations Security council chamber in new york.

Ancient Egyptians loved board games.



After a long day’s work along the Nile River, Egyptians often relaxed by playing board games. Several different games were played, including “Mehen” and “Dogs and Jackals,” but perhaps the most popular was a game of chance known as “Senet.” This pastime dates back as far as 3500 B.C. and was played on a long board painted with 30 squares. Each player had a set of pieces that were moved along the board according to rolls of dice or the throwing sticks. Historians still debate Senet’s exact rules, but there is little doubt of the game’s popularity. Paintings depict Queen Nefertari playing Senet, and pharaohs like Tutankhamen even had game boards buried with them in their tombs.
Egyptian women had a wide range of rights and freedoms.




While they may have been publicly and socially viewed as inferior to men, Egyptian women enjoyed a great deal of legal and financial independence. They could buy and sell property, serve on juries, make wills and even enter into legal contracts. Egyptian women did not typically work outside the home, but those who did usually received equal pay for doing the same jobs as men. Unlike the women of ancient Greece, who were effectively owned by their husbands, Egyptian women also had the right to divorce and remarry. Egyptian couples were even known to negotiate an ancient prenuptial agreement. These contracts listed all the property and wealth the woman had brought into the marriage and guaranteed that she would be compensated for it in the event of a divorce.
Egyptian workers were known to organize labor strikes.




Even though they regarded the pharaoh as a kind of living god, Egyptian workers were not afraid to protest for better working conditions. The most famous example came in the 12th century B.C. during the reign of the New Kingdom pharaoh Ramses III. When laborers engaged in building the royal necropolis at Deir el-Medina did not receive their usual payment of grain, they organized one of the first recorded strikes in history. The protest took the form of a sit-in: The workers simply entered nearby mortuary temples and refused to leave until their grievances were heard. The gamble worked, and the laborers were eventually given their overdue rations.
Some Egyptian doctors had specialized fields of study.



An ancient physician was usually a jack-of-all-trades, but evidence shows that Egyptian doctors sometimes focused on healing only one part of the human body. This early form of medical specialization was first noted in 450 B.C. by the traveler and historian Herodotus. Discussing Egyptian medicine, he wrote, “Each physician is a healer of one disease and no more…some of the eye, some of the teeth, some of what pertains to the belly.” These specialists even had specific names. Dentists were known as “doctors of the tooth,” while the term for proctologists literally translates to “shepherd of the anus.”









Egyptians kept many animals as pets.



The Egyptians saw animals as incarnations of the gods and were one of the first civilizations to keep household pets. Egyptians were particularly fond of cats, which were associated with the goddess Bastet, but they also had a reverence for hawks, ibises, dogs, lions and baboons.

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT EGYPT

1.The shape of ancient Egyptian pyramids is thought to have been inspired by the spreading rays of the sun.



2.An Egyptian father named his newborn daughter “Facebook” to commemorate the role Facebookplayed in the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Her full name is Facebook Jamal Ibrahim.



3.There are five million Facebook users in Egypt, more than any other Middle Eastern country. As of 2009, Egypt has 20.136 million Internet users, ranking 21st in the world.



4.Egypt has the largest Arabic population in the world.


5.The formal name of Egypt is the Arab Republic of Egypt.



6.Approximately 90% of Egyptians are Muslim (primarily Sunni), 9% are Coptic, and 1% is Christian.



7.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.



8.Pharaoh Pepi II allegedly would smear naked slaves with honey to attract flies away from him.nAbusing the Egyptian flag in any way is a criminal offense in Egypt.



9.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.



10.The literacy rate for Egyptian men is 83% and 59.4% for women.



11.On average, only an inch of rain falls in Egypt per year.



12.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.


13.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.

Written By :-
Michael Uzoma Michael

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