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Egypt
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Egypt is a country in the northeast of Africa. Its capital is Cairo. Egypt is famous for its very old monuments, such as the Pyramids. Lots of people go to Egypt to see them. Nowadays, Egypt is an arab country which has been independent since 1922. It is a large country, but a large portion of Egypt is desert. Most people live in areas around the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and along the Nile River. The most important cities are Cairo, Alexandria, Aswan and Port Said. Not many people live in the desert. It is too hot! Today, the country has about 70 million people. |
 Pyramid at night |
Archaeologists, or people who dig in the earth to find ancient objects, have found that Egypt was created a very, very long time ago. By the 10th millenium BC, the people in Egypt had created agriculture. Between 5500 and 3100 BC, many small cities appeared on the Nile. As more cities appeared, they needed someone to run everything so rulers came to power. At the beginning two kingdoms were created: Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. The real history of Ancient Egypt starts when the two kingdoms were unified around 3000 BC under a ruler named Menes. Menes was the first pharaoh of Egypt. Egyptologists, or people who study Ancient Egypt, call the writing of Egypt "hieroglyphs." It is the world's earliest writing system, it started out as ideographic system, or writing made of pictures of the words. This writing is found all over objects and tombs. |
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The ancient egyptians were very religious. They created a lot of art dedicated to their gods. This art shows different kinds of divine creatures including the pharaoh, who was considered a god. Egyptians also loved animals, they believed that they were sacred and worshipped them. Life after death was also very important to Egyptians, and they are known for mummifying their dead. Although mummification existed in other cultures, eternal life was the main focus of all Ancient Egyptians, which implied preserving the body forever. These mummies are important to scientists today because they tell them about how the Egyptians lived. The mummies of the pharaohs were buried inside the pyramids. A pyramid is a three-dimensional structure where the upper surfaces are triangular and converge on one point. They are among the largest constructions ever built, and constitute one of the most potent symbols of Ancient Egyptian civilization. Most of them were built during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods. The largest of these huge buildings is the great pyramid at Giza near Cairo. It was built by the pharoh Khafra from the Ancient Egyptian Old Kingdom. Other important pyramids were built by Menkaura and Khufu (both from the Old Kingdom too). Have a nice trip! |
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