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Arabian Desert

(Encyclopedia)Arabian Desert or Eastern Desert, c.86,000 sq mi (222,740 sq km), E Egypt, bordered by the Nile valley in the west and the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez in the east. It extends along most of Egypt's ea...

Psamtik

(Encyclopedia)Psamtik sämˈtĭk, sămˈ– [key], Lat. Psammetichus, d. 609 b.c., king of ancient Egypt, founder of the XXVI dynasty. When his father, Necho, lord of Saïs under the Assyrians, was defeated and kil...

Suez Canal

(Encyclopedia)Suez Canal, Arab. Qanat as Suways, waterway of Egypt extending from Port Said to Port Tawfiq (near Suez) and connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Gulf of Suez and thence with the Red Sea. The can...

Middle Kingdom

(Encyclopedia)Middle Kingdom or Middle Country, Mandarin Zhongguo, Chinese name for China. It dates from c.1000 b.c., when it designated the Chou empire situated on the North China Plain. The Chou people, unaware o...

Amenemhet I

(Encyclopedia)Amenemhet I äˌmĕnĕmˈhĕt, āˌ– [key], d. 1970 b.c., king of ancient Egypt, founder of the XII dynasty. The son of a powerful Theban family, he seized the kingship c.2000 b.c. The XII dynasty u...

Bani Hasan

(Encyclopedia)Bani Hasan bäˈnē häsänˈ [key], village, E central Egypt, on the Nile near Al Minya. There are 39 tombs, carved out of solid rock in the XII dynasty of ancient Egypt. The name is also spelled Ben...

Pyramids, battle of

(Encyclopedia)Pyramids, battle of, July, 1798, during the French Revolutionary Wars, battle fought between the French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte and the Egyptian Mamluks led by Murad Bey. Napoleon's victory ga...

Hyksos

(Encyclopedia)Hyksos hĭkˈsōs [key] [Egyptian,=rulers of foreign lands], invaders of ancient Egypt, now substantiated as the XV–XVIII dynasties. They were a northwestern Semitic (Canaanite or Amorite) people wh...

Breasted, James Henry

(Encyclopedia)Breasted, James Henry brĕsˈtĭd [key], 1865–1935, American Egyptologist, b. Rockford, Ill., grad. North Central College, 1888, M.A. Yale, 1891, Ph.D. Univ. of Berlin, 1894. He began teaching at th...

Nile

(Encyclopedia)Nile, longest river in the world, c.4,160 mi (6,695 km) long from its remotest headstream, the Luvironza River in Burundi, central Africa, to its delta on the Mediterranean Sea, NE Egypt. The Nile flo...