![]() Immigrants and ultimately invaders crossed the isthmus into Egypt, attracted by the country’s stability and prosperity. It offered the principal route for contact with Sinai, from which came turquoise and possibly copper, and with southwestern Asia, Egypt’s most important area of cultural interaction, from which were received stimuli for technical development and cultivars for crops. ![]() To the northeast was the Isthmus of Suez. The eastern desert, between the Nile and the Red Sea, was more important, for it supported a small nomadic population and desert game, contained numerous mineral deposits, including gold, and was the route to the Red Sea. West of the Nile was the arid Sahara, broken by a chain of oases some 125 to 185 miles (200 to 300 km) from the river and lacking in all other resources except for a few minerals. Nubia was significant for Egypt’s periodic southward expansion and for access to products from farther south. To the south lay the far less hospitable area of Nubia, in which the river flowed through low sandstone hills that in most regions left only a very narrow strip of cultivable land. The First Cataract at Aswān, where the riverbed is turned into rapids by a belt of granite, was the country’s only well-defined boundary within a populated area. The Nile was Egypt’s sole transportation artery. Between the floodplain and the hills is a variable band of low desert that supported a certain amount of game. The country’s chief wealth came from the fertile floodplain of the Nile valley, where the river flows between bands of limestone hills, and the Nile delta, in which it fans into several branches north of present-day Cairo. Introduction to ancient Egyptian civilization Life in ancient EgyptĪncient Egypt can be thought of as an oasis in the desert of northeastern Africa, dependent on the annual inundation of the Nile River to support its agricultural population. For subsequent history through the contemporary period, see Egypt. This article focuses on Egypt from its prehistory through its unification under Menes (Narmer) in the 3rd millennium bce-sometimes used as a reference point for Egypt’s origin-and up to the Islamic conquest in the 7th century ce. Its many achievements, preserved in its art and monuments, hold a fascination that continues to grow as archaeological finds expose its secrets. Travel down the Nile to discover important ancient Egyptian cultural sites such as the Pyramids of Giza See all videos for this articleĪncient Egypt, civilization in northeastern Africa that dates from the 4th millennium bce. SpaceNext50 Britannica presents SpaceNext50, From the race to the Moon to space stewardship, we explore a wide range of subjects that feed our curiosity about space!.Learn about the major environmental problems facing our planet and what can be done about them! ![]()
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