1.
Ethiopia
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Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north and northeast, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With nearly 100 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world and it occupies a total area of 1,100,000 square kilometres, and its capital and largest city is Addis Ababa. Some of the oldest evidence for modern humans has been found in Ethiopia. It is widely considered as the region from modern humans first set out for the Middle East. According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations settled in the Horn region during the ensuing Neolithic era, tracing its roots to the 2nd millennium BC, Ethiopia was a monarchy for most of its history. During the first centuries AD, the Kingdom of Aksum maintained a unified civilization in the region, subsequently, many African nations adopted the colors of Ethiopias flag following their independence. It was the first independent African member of the 20th-century League of Nations, Ethiopias ancient Geez script, also known as Ethiopic, is one of the oldest alphabets still in use in the world. The Ethiopian calendar, which is seven years and three months behind the Gregorian calendar, co-exists alongside the Borana calendar. A slight majority of the population adheres to Christianity, while around a third follows Islam, the country is the site of the Migration to Abyssinia and the oldest Muslim settlement in Africa at Negash. A substantial population of Ethiopian Jews, known as Bete Israel, resided in Ethiopia until the 1980s, Ethiopia is a multilingual nation with around 80 ethnolinguistic groups, the four largest of which are the Oromiffa, Amhara, Somali, and Tigrayans. Most people in the country speak Afroasiatic languages of the Cushitic or Semitic branches, additionally, Omotic languages are spoken by ethnic minority groups inhabiting the southern regions. Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken by the nations Nilotic ethnic minorities. Ethiopia is the place of origin for the coffee bean which originated from the place called Kefa and it is a land of natural contrasts, with its vast fertile West, jungles, and numerous rivers, and the worlds hottest settlement of Dallol in its north. The Ethiopian Highlands are Africas largest continuous mountain ranges, and Sof Omar Caves contain Africas largest cave, Ethiopia has the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Africa. Ethiopia is one of the members of the UN, the Group of 24, the Non-Aligned Movement, G-77. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ethiopia suffered from civil wars, the country has begun to recover recently however, and now has the largest economy in East Africa and Central Africa. According to Global Fire Power, Ethiopia has the 42nd most powerful military in the world, the origin of the word Ethiopia is uncertain
2.
Sudan
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Sudan, also known as North Sudan since South Sudans independence and officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northern Africa. It is the third largest country in Africa, the River Nile divides the country into eastern and western halves. Before the Sudanese Civil War, South Sudan was part of Sudan, Sudan was home to numerous ancient civilizations, such as the Kingdom of Kush, Kerma, Nobatia, Alodia, Makuria, Meroë and others, most of which flourished along the Nile. During the pre-dynastic period Nubia and Nagadan Upper Egypt were identical, by virtue of its proximity to Egypt, the Sudan participated in the wider history of the Near East inasmuch as it was Christianized by the 6th century, and Islamized in the 15th. As a result of Christianization, the Old Nubian language stands as the oldest recorded Nilo-Saharan language, Sudan was the largest country in Africa and the Arab world until 2011, when South Sudan separated into an independent country, following an independence referendum. Sudan is now the third largest country in Africa and also the third largest country in the Arab world and its capital is Khartoum, the political, cultural and commercial centre of the nation. It is a representative democratic federal republic. The politics of Sudan are regulated by an organization called the National Assembly. The Sudanese legal system is based on Islamic law, the countrys place name Sudan is a name given to a geographical region to the south of the Sahara, stretching from Western Africa to eastern Central Africa. The name derives from the Arabic bilād as-sūdān, or the lands of the Blacks, during the fifth millennium BC migrations from the drying Sahara brought neolithic people into the Nile Valley along with agriculture. The population that resulted from this cultural and genetic mixing developed social hierarchy over the centuries become the Kingdom of Kush at 1700 BC. The Kingdom of Kush was an ancient Nubian state centered on the confluences of the Blue Nile and White Nile, and the Atbarah River and it was established after the Bronze Age collapse and the disintegration of the New Kingdom of Egypt, centered at Napata in its early phase. After King Kashta invaded Egypt in the eighth century BC, the Kushite kings ruled as pharaohs of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt for a century before being defeated and driven out by the Assyrians. At the height of their glory, the Kushites conquered an empire that stretched from what is now known as South Kordofan all the way to the Sinai, pharaoh Piye attempted to expand the empire into the Near East, but was thwarted by the Assyrian king Sargon II. Sennacheribs successor Esarhaddon went further, and invaded Egypt itself, deposing Taharqa, Taharqa fled back to his homeland where he died two years later. Egypt became an Assyrian colony, however, king Tantamani, after succeeding Taharqa, Esarhaddon died while preparing to leave the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in order to eject him. However, his successor Ashurbanipal sent an army into southern Egypt and routed Tantamani. During Classical Antiquity, the Nubian capital was at Meroë, in ancient Greek geography, the Meroitic kingdom was known as Ethiopia
3.
River mouth
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A river mouth is the part of a river where the river flows into a larger river, a lake, a reservoir or an ocean. The water from a river can enter the body in a variety of different ways. The motion of the river mainly depends on the density of the river compared to the receiving water and any ambient motion in the receiving water. If the river water is denser than the surface of the receiving water, the river water will then either form an underflow or an interflow within the lake. Alongside these advective transports, inflowing water will also diffuse, at the mouth of a river, the change in flow condition can cause the river to drop any sediment it is carrying. This sediment deposition can generate a variety of landforms, such as deltas, sand bars, spits, many places in England take their names from their positions at the mouths of rivers, for example Plymouth, Sidmouth and Great Yarmouth. Confluence River delta Estuary Liman Aber and Inver
4.
Nile
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The Nile is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It is generally regarded as the longest river in the world, in particular, the Nile is the primary water source of Egypt and Sudan. The Nile has two tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile. The White Nile is considered to be the headwaters and primary stream of the Nile itself, the Blue Nile, however, is the source of most of the water and silt. The White Nile is longer and rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa and it flows north through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and South Sudan. The Blue Nile begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and flows into Sudan from the southeast, the two rivers meet just north of the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. The northern section of the river flows north almost entirely through the Sudanese desert to Egypt, then ends in a large delta, Egyptian civilization and Sudanese kingdoms have depended on the river since ancient times. Most of the population and cities of Egypt lie along those parts of the Nile valley north of Aswan, in the ancient Egyptian language, the Nile is called Ḥpī or Iteru, meaning river. In Coptic, the words piaro or phiaro meaning the river come from the ancient name. The English name Nile and the Arabic names en-Nîl and an-Nîl both derive from the Latin Nilus and the Ancient Greek Νεῖλος, beyond that, however, the etymology is disputed. One possible etymology derives it from a Semitic Nahal, meaning river, the standard English names White Nile and Blue Nile, to refer to the rivers source, derive from Arabic names formerly applied only to the Sudanese stretches which meet at Khartoum. Above Khartoum, the Nile is also known as the White Nile, at Khartoum the river is joined by the Blue Nile. The White Nile starts in equatorial East Africa, and the Blue Nile begins in Ethiopia, both branches are on the western flanks of the East African Rift. The drainage basin of the Nile covers 3,254,555 square kilometers, the source of the Nile is sometimes considered to be Lake Victoria, but the lake has feeder rivers of considerable size. It is either the Ruvyironza, which emerges in Bururi Province, Burundi, or the Nyabarongo, the two feeder rivers meet near Rusumo Falls on the Rwanda-Tanzania border. Gish Abay is reportedly the place where the water of the first drops of the Blue Nile develop. The Nile leaves Lake Nyanza at Ripon Falls near Jinja, Uganda and it flows north for some 130 kilometers, to Lake Kyoga. For the remaining part it flows westerly through the Murchison Falls until it reaches the very northern shores of Lake Albert where it forms a significant river delta
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
7.
Africa
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Africa is the worlds second-largest and second-most-populous continent. At about 30.3 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earths total surface area and 20.4 % of its land area. With 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the human population. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos and it contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states, nine territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition. Africas population is the youngest amongst all the continents, the age in 2012 was 19.7. Algeria is Africas largest country by area, and Nigeria by population, afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens found in Ethiopia being dated to circa 200,000 years ago. Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas, it is the continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. Africa hosts a diversity of ethnicities, cultures and languages. In the late 19th century European countries colonized most of Africa, Africa also varies greatly with regard to environments, economics, historical ties and government systems. However, most present states in Africa originate from a process of decolonization in the 20th century, afri was a Latin name used to refer to the inhabitants of Africa, which in its widest sense referred to all lands south of the Mediterranean. This name seems to have referred to a native Libyan tribe. The name is connected with Hebrew or Phoenician ʿafar dust. The same word may be found in the name of the Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania, under Roman rule, Carthage became the capital of the province of Africa Proconsularis, which also included the coastal part of modern Libya. The Latin suffix -ica can sometimes be used to denote a land, the later Muslim kingdom of Ifriqiya, modern-day Tunisia, also preserved a form of the name. According to the Romans, Africa lay to the west of Egypt, while Asia was used to refer to Anatolia, as Europeans came to understand the real extent of the continent, the idea of Africa expanded with their knowledge. 25,4, whose descendants, he claimed, had invaded Libya, isidore of Seville in Etymologiae XIV.5.2. Suggests Africa comes from the Latin aprica, meaning sunny, massey, in 1881, stated that Africa is derived from the Egyptian af-rui-ka, meaning to turn toward the opening of the Ka. The Ka is the double of every person and the opening of the Ka refers to a womb or birthplace
8.
Lake Tana
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Lake Tana is the source of the Blue Nile and is the largest lake in Ethiopia. Lake Tana is fed by the Lesser Abay, Reb and Gumara rivers and its surface area ranges from 3,000 to 3,500 km, ² depending on season and rainfall. The lake level has been regulated since the construction of the control weir where the lake discharges into the Blue Nile and this controls the flow to the Blue Nile Falls and hydro-power station. Lake Tana was formed by volcanic activity, blocking the course of inflowing rivers in the early Pleistocene epoch, the lake was originally much larger than it is today. Seven large permanent rivers feed the lake as well as 40 small seasonal rivers, the main tributaries to the lake are Gilgel Abbay, and the Megech, Gumara, and Rib rivers. Lake Tana has a number of islands, whose number varies depending on the level of the lake and it has fallen about 6 feet in the last 400 years. According to Manoel de Almeida, there were 21 islands, seven to eight of which had monasteries on them formerly large, but now much diminished. When James Bruce visited the area in the later 18th century, he noted that the locals counted 45 inhabited islands, a 20th-century geographer named 37 islands, of which he believed 19 have or had monasteries or churches on them. Remains of ancient Ethiopian emperors and treasures of the Ethiopian Church are kept in the isolated island monasteries, on the island of Tana Qirqos is a rock shown to Paul B. Henze, on which he was told the Virgin Mary had rested on her back from Egypt, he was also told that Frumentius. The body of Yekuno Amlak is interred in the monastery of St. Stephen on Daga Island, emperors whose tombs are also on Daga include Dawit I, Zara Yaqob, Za Dengel, and Fasilides. Other important islands in Lake Tana include Dek, Mitraha, Gelila Zakarias, Halimun, the monasteries are believed to have been built over earlier religious sites. They include the fourteenth-century Debre Maryam, and the eighteenth-century Narga Selassie, Tana Qirqos, a ferry service links Bahir Dar with Gorgora via Dek Island and various lakeshore villages. There is also Zege Peninsula on the southwest portion of the lake, Zege is the site of the Azwa Maryam monastery. About 70% of the species in the lake are endemic. This includes one of two known cyprinid species flocks, which consists of fifteen relatively large, up to 1 m long. Eight of these are piscivorous and an important prey is the small Barbus tanapelagius, other noteworthy endemic species are Afronemacheilus abyssinicus, which is one of only two African stone loaches, and the tana subspecies of the Nile tilapia. Lake Tana supports a fishing industry, mainly based on the Labeobarbus barbs, Nile tilapia
9.
Gondar
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Gondar or Gonder is a city and separate woreda in Ethiopia. Located in the Semien Gondar Zone of the Amhara Region, Gondar is north of Tana Lake on the Lesser Angereb River and it has a latitude and longitude of 12°36′N 37°28′E with an elevation of 2133 meters above sea level. It is surrounded by the Gondar Zuria woreda, Gondar previously served as the capital of both the Ethiopian Empire and the subsequent Begemder Province. The city holds the remains of royal castles, including those in Fasil Ghebbi. One exception to rule was Debre Berhan, founded by Zara Yaqob in 1456. Beginning with Emperor Menas in 1559, the rulers of Ethiopia began spending the season near Lake Tana. These encampments, which flourished as cities for a time, include Emfraz, Ayba, Gorgora. Gondar was founded by Emperor Fasilides around the year 1635, and grew as an agricultural, there was a superstition at the time that the capitals name should begin with the letter Gʷa, which also contributed to Gorgoras growth in the centuries after 1600. Tradition also states that a buffalo led the Emperor Fasilides to a pool beside the Angereb, Fasilides had the pool filled in and built his castle on that same site. The emperor also built a total of seven churches, the first two, Fit Mikael and Fit Abbo, were built to end local epidemics, the five emperors who followed him also built their palaces in the town. In 1668, as a result of a council, the Emperor Yohannes I ruled that the inhabitants of Gondar are to be segregated by religion. This caused the Muslims to move into their own quarter, Islamge or Islam Bayt and this quarter came to be known as Addis Alem. During the seventeenth century, the population is estimated to have exceeded 60,000. Many of the buildings from this period survive, despite the turmoil of the eighteenth century, although Gondar was by any definition a city, it was not a melting pot of diverse traditions, nor Ethiopias window to the larger world, according to Donald Levine. It served rather as an agent for the development of the Amharas own culture. And thus it became a focus of national pride, not as a hotbed of alien custom and immorality, as they often regard Addis Ababa today, but as the most perfect embodiment of their traditional values. As Levine elaborates in a footnote, it was a pattern of development. Abdallahi ibn Muhammad sacked Gondar when he invaded Ethiopia June 1887, Gondar was ravaged again on 23 January in the next year, when Sudanese invaders set fire to almost every one of the citys churches
10.
Atbara
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Atbara is a city of 111,399 located in River Nile State in northeastern Sudan. It is located at the junction of the Nile and Atbara rivers and it is an important railway junction and railroad manufacturing centre, and most employment in Atbara is related to the rail lines. It is known as the Railway City, and The Sudanese National Railway Companys headquarters are located in Atbara, the confluence of the Nile and its most northern tributary, the Atbara was a strategic location for military operations. In the Battle of Atbara, fought on 8 April 1898 near Nakheila, on the bank of the river, Lord Kitcheners Anglo-Egyptian army defeated the Mahdist forces. Kitcheners strengthened position led to a victory at the Battle of Omdurman on 2 September 1898. The town was the centre of the Sudanese railway industry, few trains are made here now and rail traffic is much reduced. The original station and unusual dome-shaped houses of workers remain. The first trade union in Sudan formed in 1946 among railroad workers in Atbara, the city also is home to one of Sudans largest cement factories, the Atbara Cement Corporation. Perhaps because of the influence of the unions, Atbara is also considered by many to be the home of Sudanese communism. Atbara is made up of districts including Umbukole district which has the First Higher School in Atbara. Other districts include the district, Almurabaat, Alsawdana and Almatar. Umbukole was originally the name given to a city in a northern state in Kurti county. It is now remembered as the name of a small district in Atbara. A well-known resident is Mandour Elmahdi who wrote about the History of the Sudan, like Khartoum further upstream, Atbara is also at the confluence of two major rivers. Atbara has a hot desert climate, the annual mean temperature reaches over 30 °C and the average highs exceed 40 °C during 7 months of the year. The annual average rainfall is 60 mm, mostly from July, Atbara is sunny, averaging 3,545 hours of bright sunshine per year or 81% of possible sunshine. Another chart with different averages is shown below
11.
Tributary
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A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean, tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage basin of its surface water and groundwater, leading the water out into an ocean. A confluence, where two or more bodies of water together, usually refers to the joining of tributaries. The opposite to a tributary is a distributary, a river or stream that branches off from, distributaries are most often found in river deltas. Right tributary and left tributary are terms stating the orientation of the relative to the flow of the main stem river. These terms are defined from the perspective of looking downstream, where tributaries have the same name as the river into which they feed, they are called forks. These are typically designated by compass direction, for example, the American River receives flow from its North, Middle, and South forks. The Chicago Rivers North Branch has the East, West, and Middle Fork, the South Branch has its South Fork, forks are sometimes designated as right or left. Here, the handedness is from the point of view of an observer facing upstream, for instance, Steer Creek has a left tributary which is called Right Fork Steer Creek. Tributaries are sometimes listed starting with those nearest to the source of the river, the Strahler Stream Order examines the arrangement of tributaries in a hierarchy of first, second, third, and higher orders, with the first-order tributary being typically the least in size. For example, a second-order tributary would be the result of two or more first-order tributaries combining to form the second-order tributary, another method is to list tributaries from mouth to source, in the form of a tree structure, stored as a tree data structure
12.
Confluence
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In geography, a confluence is the meeting of two or more bodies of water. The term is used to describe the meeting of tidal or other non-riverine bodies of water. A one-mile portion of the Industrial Canal in New Orleans accommodates the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada is at the confluence of the Niagara River and Lake Ontario. The junction of the Green River and Colorado River forms the heart of Canyonlands National Park in Utahs Canyon Country, the Sangam, near Allahabad, India, where the sacred rivers Ganges and Yamuna meet to create one of the holiest places in Hinduism. The Ohio River is formed by the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, located in Pittsburgh, the Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin Rivers in Three Forks, Montana form the confluence of the Missouri River, one of the longest rivers in the United States. Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, is at the confluence of the Gombak River and the Klang River. Passau known also as the Dreiflüssestadt, because the Danube River is joined there by the Inn River from the South, manaus, Brazil is on the Rio Negro near its confluence with the Amazon. It is the port and a hub for the regions extensive river system. Osijek, Croatia, is on the bank of the river Drava 25 km upstream of its confluence with the Danube. Belgrade, the capital of Serbia lies at the confluence of the Sava, the Hochelaga Archipelago, including the island and city of Montreal, is located at the confluence of the St. Lawrence River and Ottawa River in Quebec, Canada. Winnipeg, Canada, is at the confluence of the Red River, the area is referred to as The Forks by locals, and has been an important trade location for over 6000 years. The confluence of the rivers Danube and Morava in Devín on the border between Slovakia and Austria, triangle of Three Emperors, former tripoint in Europe. Cairo, Illinois, in the United States, where the Ohio River flows into the Mississippi River, St. Louis, Missouri, is built just south of the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Missouri River. Lyon, France is located on the confluence of the Saône and Rhone rivers, lytton, British Columbia, Canada, is located at the confluence of the muddy Fraser River and the clearer Thompson River. The confluence between the Franklin River and Gordon River in south-western Tasmania The confluence of the Snake and Columbia River at the Tri-Cities of Washington, the confluence of the rivers Pivka and Rak is one of the largest subterranean confluences in Europe. The confluence at Lokoja, Nigeria, where the Niger and Benue rivers merge, the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, located at the confluence of the White Nile and the Blue Nile. This merging point is the beginning of the Nile, columbus, Ohio, in the United States is at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers. Luang Prabang in Laos is at the confluence of the Mekong, River Kabul and River Swat at Attock, in Pakistan
13.
Mediterranean Sea
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The sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a separate body of water. The name Mediterranean is derived from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning inland or in the middle of land and it covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km2, but its connection to the Atlantic is only 14 km wide. The Strait of Gibraltar is a strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Gibraltar. In oceanography, it is called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere. The Mediterranean Sea has a depth of 1,500 m. The sea is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia and it is located between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west-east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, the seas average north-south length, from Croatia’s southern shore to Libya, is approximately 800 km. The Mediterranean Sea, including the Sea of Marmara, has an area of approximately 2,510,000 square km. The sea was an important route for merchants and travelers of ancient times that allowed for trade, the history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. In addition, the Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri, the term Mediterranean derives from the Latin word mediterraneus, meaning amid the earth or between land, as it is between the continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. The Ancient Greek name Mesogeios, is similarly from μέσο, between + γη, land, earth) and it can be compared with the Ancient Greek name Mesopotamia, meaning between rivers. The Mediterranean Sea has historically had several names, for example, the Carthaginians called it the Syrian Sea and latter Romans commonly called it Mare Nostrum, and occasionally Mare Internum. Another name was the Sea of the Philistines, from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites, the sea is also called the Great Sea in the General Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer. In Ottoman Turkish, it has also been called Bahr-i Sefid, in Modern Hebrew, it has been called HaYam HaTikhon, the Middle Sea, reflecting the Seas name in ancient Greek, Latin, and modern languages in both Europe and the Middle East. Similarly, in Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ, in Turkish, it is known as Akdeniz, the White Sea since among Turks the white colour represents the west. Several ancient civilisations were located around the Mediterranean shores, and were influenced by their proximity to the sea. It provided routes for trade, colonisation, and war, as well as food for numerous communities throughout the ages, due to the shared climate, geology, and access to the sea, cultures centered on the Mediterranean tended to have some extent of intertwined culture and history. Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilisations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states, later, when Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Romans referred to the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum
14.
Amhara Region
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Amhara is one of the nine ethnic divisions of Ethiopia, containing the homeland of the Amhara people. Previously known as Region 3, its capital is Bahir Dar, Ethiopias largest inland body of water, Lake Tana, which is the source of the Blue Nile river, is located within Amhara. The region also contains the Semien Mountains National Park, which includes Ras Dashan, during Ethiopias imperial era, Amhara included several provinces, most of which were ruled by native Ras or Negus. The Amhara Region then incorporated most of the provinces of Begemder, Dembiya, Angot, Bete Amhara, Gojjam. Especially, the re-designation of Wolkayit and Tsegede in Gondar as part of Tigray Region was rejected by its residents from the beginning, based on the 2007 census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia, the Amhara Region has a population of 17,221,976. 8,641,580 were men and 8,580,396 women, with an estimated area of 159,173.66 square kilometers, this region has an estimated density of 108.2 people per square kilometer. According to the CSA, as of 2004, 28% of the population had access to safe drinking water. At 91. 47% of the population, the region is predominantly inhabited by people from the Semitic-speaking Amhara ethnic group. Most other residents hail from other Afro-Asiatic language communities, including the Agaw/Awi, Oromo, Agaw/Kamyr, the Amhara Highlands receive 80% of the total rainfall of Ethiopia and is the most fertile and hospitable regions of Ethiopia. The The Amhara Region is the location of Laka Tana, the source of the Blue Nile, the flow of the Blue Nile reaches maximum volume in the rainy season, when it supplies about two-thirds of the water of the Nile proper. The Blue Nile, along with the Atbara River to the north and this supported the rise of ancient Egyptian civilization and Egyptian Mythology. With the completion in 1970 of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt, Lake Tana has a number of islands, whose numbers vary depending on the level of the lake, it has fallen about 2 metres in the last 400 years. According to Manoel de Almeida, there were 21 islands, seven to eight of which had monasteries on them formerly large, but now much diminished. When James Bruce visited the area in the later 18th century, he noted that the locals counted 45 inhabited islands, a mid-twentieth century account identified 37 islands, of which 19 were said to have or have had monasteries or churches on them. The lake islands were the home of ancient Ethiopian emperors, treasures of the Ethiopian Church are kept in the isolated island monasteries. The body of Yekuno Amlak is interred in the monastery of St. Stephen on Daga Island, other Emperors whose tombs are on Daga include Dawit I, Zara Yaqob, Za Dengel and Fasilides. Other important islands in Lake Tana include Dek, Mitraha, Gelila Zakarias, Halimun, in the late 20th century, the scholar Paul B. Henze reported being shown a rock on the island of Tana Qirqos and he was also told that Saint Frumentius, the bishop known for introducing Christianity to Ethiopia, was allegedly buried on Tana Cherqos
15.
Strabo
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Strabo was a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian who lived in Asia Minor during the transitional period of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus, Strabos life was characterized by extensive travels. He journeyed to Egypt and Kush, as far west as coastal Tuscany and as far south as Ethiopia in addition to his travels in Asia Minor and the time he spent in Rome. Travel throughout the Mediterranean and Near East, especially for scholarly purposes, was popular during this era and was facilitated by the relative peace enjoyed throughout the reign of Augustus. He moved to Rome in 44 BC, and stayed there, studying and writing, in 29 BC, on his way to Corinth, he visited the island of Gyaros in the Aegean Sea. Around 25 BC, he sailed up the Nile until reaching Philae and it is not known precisely when Strabos Geography was written, though comments within the work itself place the finished version within the reign of Emperor Tiberius. Some place its first drafts around 7 BC, others around 17 or 18 AD, the latest passage to which a date can be assigned is his reference to the death in AD23 of Juba II, king of Maurousia, who is said to have died just recently. He probably worked on the Geography for many years and revised it steadily, on the presumption that recently means within a year, Strabo stopped writing that year or the next, when he died. The first of Strabos major works, Historical Sketches, written while he was in Rome, is completely lost. Strabo studied under several prominent teachers of various specialties throughout his life at different stops along his Mediterranean travels. His first chapter of education took place in Nysa under the master of rhetoric Aristodemus, Strabo was an admirer of Homers poetry, perhaps a consequence of his time spent in Nysa with Aristodemus. At around the age of 21, Strabo moved to Rome, where he studied philosophy with the Peripatetic Xenarchus, despite Xenarchuss Aristotelian leanings, Strabo later gives evidence to have formed his own Stoic inclinations. In Rome, he learned grammar under the rich and famous scholar Tyrannion of Amisus. Although Tyrannion was also a Peripatetic, he was more relevantly a respected authority on geography, the final noteworthy mentor to Strabo was Athenodorus Cananites, a philosopher who had spent his life since 44 BC in Rome forging relationships with the Roman elite. Athenodorus endowed to Strabo three important items, his philosophy, his knowledge, and his contacts, moreover, from his own first-hand experience, Athenodorus provided Strabo with information about regions of the empire which he would not otherwise have known. Strabo is most notable for his work Geographica, which presented a history of people. Although the Geographica was rarely utilized in its antiquity, a multitude of copies survived throughout the Byzantine Empire. It first appeared in Western Europe in Rome as a Latin translation issued around 1469, the first Greek edition was published in 1516 in Venice
16.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
17.
Ptolemy
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Claudius Ptolemy was a Greek writer, known as a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in the city of Alexandria in the Roman province of Egypt, wrote in Koine Greek, beyond that, few reliable details of his life are known. His birthplace has been given as Ptolemais Hermiou in the Thebaid in a statement by the 14th-century astronomer Theodore Meliteniotes. This is a very late attestation, however, and there is no reason to suppose that he ever lived elsewhere than Alexandria. Ptolemy wrote several treatises, three of which were of importance to later Byzantine, Islamic and European science. The first is the astronomical treatise now known as the Almagest, although it was entitled the Mathematical Treatise. The second is the Geography, which is a discussion of the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world. The third is the treatise in which he attempted to adapt horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day. This is sometimes known as the Apotelesmatika but more known as the Tetrabiblos from the Greek meaning Four Books or by the Latin Quadripartitum. The name Claudius is a Roman nomen, the fact that Ptolemy bore it indicates he lived under the Roman rule of Egypt with the privileges and political rights of Roman citizenship. It would have suited custom if the first of Ptolemys family to become a citizen took the nomen from a Roman called Claudius who was responsible for granting citizenship, if, as was common, this was the emperor, citizenship would have been granted between AD41 and 68. The astronomer would also have had a praenomen, which remains unknown and it occurs once in Greek mythology, and is of Homeric form. All the kings after him, until Egypt became a Roman province in 30 BC, were also Ptolemies, abu Mashar recorded a belief that a different member of this royal line composed the book on astrology and attributed it to Ptolemy. The correct answer is not known”, Ptolemy wrote in Greek and can be shown to have utilized Babylonian astronomical data. He was a Roman citizen, but most scholars conclude that Ptolemy was ethnically Greek and he was often known in later Arabic sources as the Upper Egyptian, suggesting he may have had origins in southern Egypt. Later Arabic astronomers, geographers and physicists referred to him by his name in Arabic, Ptolemys Almagest is the only surviving comprehensive ancient treatise on astronomy. Ptolemy presented his models in convenient tables, which could be used to compute the future or past position of the planets. The Almagest also contains a catalogue, which is a version of a catalogue created by Hipparchus
18.
Geography (Ptolemy)
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Its translation into Arabic in the 9th century and Latin in 1406 was highly influential on the geographical knowledge and cartographic traditions of the medieval Caliphate and Renaissance Europe. Versions of Ptolemys work in antiquity were probably proper atlases with attached maps, no Greek manuscript of the Geography survives from earlier than the 13th century. In Europe, maps were sometimes made using the coordinates provided by the text. Later scribes and publishers could then copy these new maps, as Athanasius did for the emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus, the three earliest surviving texts with maps are those from Constantinople based on Planudess work. The first Latin translation of texts was made in 1406 or 1407 by Jacobus Angelus in Florence, Italy. It is not thought that his edition had maps, although Manuel Chrysoloras had given Palla Strozzi a Greek copy of Planudess maps in Florence in 1397, the Geography consists of three sections, divided among 8 books. Book I is a treatise on cartography, describing the methods used to assemble, from Book II through the beginning of Book VII, a gazetteer provides longitude and latitude values for the world known to the ancient Romans. The rest of Book VII provides details on three projections to be used for the construction of a map of the world, varying in complexity and fidelity, Book VIII constitutes an atlas of regional maps. The maps include a recapitulation of some of the values given earlier in the work, Maps based on scientific principles had been made in Europe since the time of Eratosthenes in the 3rd century BC. Ptolemy improved the treatment of map projections and he provided instructions on how to create his maps in the first section of the work. The gazetteer section of Ptolemys work provided latitude and longitude coördinates for all the places and his Prime Meridian ran through the Fortunate Isles, the westernmost land recorded, at around the position of El Hierro in the Canary Islands. The maps spanned 180 degrees of longitude from the Fortunate Isles in the Atlantic to China, Ptolemy was aware that Europe knew only about a quarter of the globe. Ptolemys work included a large and less detailed world map and then separate. As early as the 1420s, these maps were complemented by extra-Ptolemaic regional maps depicting. The original treatise by Marinus of Tyre that formed the basis of Ptolemys Geography has been completely lost, a world map based on Ptolemy was displayed in Augustodunum in late Roman times. Pappus, writing at Alexandria in the 4th century, produced a commentary on Ptolemys Geography, for instance, Grant Parker argues that it would be highly implausible for them to have constructed the Bay of Bengal as precisely as they did without the accounts of sailors. Muslim cartographers were using copies of Ptolemys Almagest and Geography by the 9th century, a 1037 copy of these are the earliest extant maps from Islamic lands. Nallino suggests that the work was not based on Ptolemy but on a world map
19.
Pliny the Elder
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In the latter number will be my uncle, by virtue of his own and of your compositions. Pliny is referring to the fact that Tacitus relied on his uncles now missing work on the History of the German Wars. The wind caused by the sixth and largest pyroclastic surge of the eruption would not allow his ship to leave the shore, and Pliny probably died during this event. Plinys dates are pinned to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79 and a statement of his nephew that he died in his 56th year, Pliny was the son of an equestrian, Gaius Plinius Celer, and his wife, Marcella. Neither the younger nor the elder Pliny mention the names and their ultimate source is a fragmentary inscription found in a field in Verona and recorded by the 16th century Augustinian monk Onofrio Panvinio at Verona. The reading of the inscription depends on the reconstruction, but in all cases the names come through, whether he was an augur and whether she was named Grania Marcella are less certain. Jean Hardouin presents a statement from a source that he claims was ancient, that Pliny was from Verona. Hardouin also cites the conterraneity of Catullus, additional efforts to connect Celer and Marcella with other gentes are highly speculative. Hardouin is the scholar to use his unknown source. He kept statues of his ancestors there, a statue of Pliny on the facade of the Duomo of Como celebrates him as a native son. He had a sister, Plinia, who married into the Caecilii and was the mother of his nephew, Pliny the Younger, whose letters describe his work and study regimen in detail. In one of his letters to Tacitus, Pliny the Younger details how his uncles breakfasts would be light and simple following the customs of our forefathers. This shows that Pliny the Younger wanted it to be conveyed that Pliny the Elder was a good Roman and this statement would have pleased Tacitus. Two inscriptions identifying the hometown of Pliny the Younger as Como take precedence over the Verona theory, one commemorates the youngers career as imperial magistrate and details his considerable charitable and municipal expenses on behalf of the people of Como. Another identifies his father Lucius village as Fecchio near Como and it is likely therefore that Plinia was a local girl and Pliny the Elder, her brother, was from Como. Gaius was a member of the Plinii gens and he did not take his fathers cognomen, Celer, but assumed his own, Secundus. As his adopted son took the same cognomen, Pliny founded a branch, no earlier instances of the Plinii are known. In 59 BC, only about 82 years before Plinys birth, Julius Caesar founded Novum Comum as a colonia to secure the region against the Alpine tribes, whom he had been unable to defeat
20.
Natural History (Pliny)
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The Natural History is an early encyclopedia in Latin by Pliny the Elder, a Roman author and naval commander who died in 79 AD. It is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the works subject area is thus not limited to what is today understood by natural history, Pliny himself defines his scope as the natural world, or life. The work is divided into 37 books, organised into ten volumes, the Natural History became a model for later encyclopedias and scholarly works as a result of its breadth of subject matter, its referencing of original authors, and its index. The work is dedicated to the emperor Titus, son of Plinys close friend and it is the only work by Pliny to have survived and the last that he published. He began it in 77, and had not made a revision at the time of his death during the AD79 eruption of Vesuvius. Plinys Natural History was written alongside other substantial works, Pliny combined his scholarly activities with a busy career as an imperial administrator for the emperor Vespasian. Pliny claims to be the only Roman ever to have such a work, in his prayer for the blessing of the universal mother, Hail to thee, Nature. And do thou deign to show thy favour unto me, who, alone of all the citizens of Rome, have, in thy every department, the Natural History is encyclopaedic in scope, but its format is unlike a modern encyclopaedia. However, it does have structure, Pliny uses Aristotles division of nature to recreate the world in literary form. The work is unified but varied, My subject is the world of nature, or in other words, life, he tells Titus. Nature for Pliny was divine, a concept inspired by the Stoic philosophy which underlies much of his thought. But the deity in question was a goddess whose main purpose was to serve the human race, nature, that is life is human life in a natural landscape. After an initial survey of cosmology and geography, Pliny starts his treatment of animals with the human race and this teleological view of nature was common in antiquity and is crucial to the understanding of the Natural History. The components of nature are not just described in and for themselves, Pliny devotes a number of the books to plants, with a focus on their medicinal value, the books on minerals include descriptions of their uses in architecture, sculpture, painting and jewellery. Plinys premise is distinct from modern ecological theories, reflecting the sentiment of his time. Pliny repeated Aristotles maxim that Africa was always producing something new, natures variety and versatility were claimed to be infinite, When I have observed nature she has always induced me to deem no statement about her incredible. This led Pliny to recount rumours of strange peoples on the edges of the world and these monstrous races – the Cynocephali or Dog-Heads, the Sciapodae, whose single foot could act as a sunshade, the mouthless Astomi, who lived on scents – were not strictly new. They had been mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus in the 5th century BC, Pliny had gone to investigate the strange cloud – shaped like an umbrella pine, according to his nephew – rising from the mountain
21.
Battle of Atbara
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The Battle of Atbara took place during the Second Sudan War. Anglo-Egyptian forces defeated 15,000 Sudanese rebels, called Mahdists or Dervishes, the battle proved to be the turning point in the conquest of Sudan by a British and Egyptian coalition. By 1898, the combined British and Egyptian army was advancing down the Nile river into Sudan, after a brief artillery bombardment of the Mahdist camp, the combined British and Egyptian brigades attacked. Soon, the British and Egyptian troops were in the Mahdist camp, the Victorians at War, 1815–1914, An Encyclopedia of British Military History
22.
Anglo-Egyptian invasion of Sudan
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The Anglo-Egyptian invasion of Sudan in 1896–1899 was a reconquest of territory lost by the Khedives of Egypt in 1884 and 1885 during the Mahdist War. The British had failed to organise a withdrawal of Egyptian forces from Sudan. The invasion of 1896-99 defeated and destroyed the Mahdist state and re-established Anglo-Egyptian rule, there was a considerable body of opinion in Britain in favour of retaking Sudan after 1885, largely to avenge Gordon. However Lord Cromer, the British Consul-General in Egypt, had been the architect of the British withdrawal after the Mahdist uprising and he remained sure that Egypt needed to recover its financial position before any invasion could be contemplated. Sudan is worth a good deal to Egypt he said, but it is not worth bankruptcy, as late as 15 November 1895 he had been assured by the British government that it had no plans to invade Sudan. The French government had in fact just dispatched Jean-Baptiste Marchand up the Congo with the aim of reaching Fashoda on the White Nile. This encouraged the British to attempt the full-scale defeat of the Mahdist state, Lord Salisbury then ordered the Sirdar, Brigadier Herbert Kitchener to make preparations for an advance up the Nile. As Governor-General of Suakin from 1886–88, Kitchener had held off the Mahdist forces under Osman Digna from the Red Sea coast, Kitchener took a methodical, unhurried approach to recovering Sudan. In the first year his objective was to recover Dongola, in the second, to construct a new railway from Wadi Halfa to Abu Hamad, in the third, to retake Khartoum. All the soldiers were Sudanese or Egyptian, with the exception of a few hundred men from the North Staffordshire Regiment and some Maxim gunners. The Egyptian army in the 1880s was consciously trying to distance itself from the times of Muhammad Ali, nevertheless on the eve of the 1896 invasion the manumission status and precise recruitment conditions of many Sudanese soldiers in the Egyptian army was unclear. Egyptian conscripts were required to serve six years in the army, whereas Sudanese soldiers enlisted before 1903 were signed up for life, Kitchener placed great importance on transport and communications. Reliance on river transport, and the vagaries of the Nile flooding, had reduced Garnet Wolseleys Nile Expedition to failure in 1885 and this required the building of new railways to support his invasion forces. The first phase of railway building followed the campaign up the Nile to the supply base at Akasha. This bypassed the second cataract of the Nile and thereby ensured that supplies could reach Dongola all year round, the railway extended as far as Akasha on 26 June and as far as Kosheh on 4 August 1896. A dockyard was constructed and three new gunboats, larger than the Egyptian river boats already deployed, were brought in sections by rail. Each carried one 12-pounder forward-firing gun, two 6-pounders midships and four Maxim guns, at the end of August 1896 storms washed away a 12-mile section of the railway as preparations were being made to advance on Dongola. Kitchener personally supervised 5,000 men who worked night and day to ensure it was rebuilt in a week, after Dongola was taken, this line was extended south to Kermah
23.
Mahdist Sudan
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Mahdist Sudan was an unrecognized state that attempted unsuccessfully to break Egyptian rule in the Sudan. Developments in Sudan during the late 19th century were influenced by the British position in Egypt. In 1869, the Suez Canal opened and quickly became Britains economic lifeline to India, to defend this waterway, Britain sought a greater role in Egyptian affairs. In 1873, the British government therefore supported a programme whereby an Anglo-French debt commission assumed responsibility for managing Egypts fiscal affairs and this commission eventually forced khedive Ismail to abdicate in favor of his more politically acceptable son, Tawfiq. After the removal in 1877 of Ismail, who had appointed him to the post and his successors lacked direction from Cairo and feared the political turmoil that had engulfed Egypt. As a result, they failed to continue the policies Gordon had put in place, the illegal slave trade revived, although not enough to satisfy the merchants whom Gordon had put out of business. The Sudanese army suffered from a lack of resources, and unemployed soldiers from disbanded units troubled garrison towns, the son of a Dongola boatbuilder, Muhammad Ahmad had become the disciple of Muhammad ash Sharif, the head of the Sammaniyah order. Later, as a sheikh of the order, Muhammad Ahmad spent several years in seclusion and gained a reputation as a mystic, in 1880, he became a Sammaniyah. In 1881, Muhammad Ahmad proclaimed himself the Mahdi or expected one, some of his most dedicated followers regarded him as directly inspired by Allah. He wanted Muslims to reclaim the Quran and hadith as the sources of Islam. Specifically relating to Sudan, he claimed its poverty was a virtue and denounced worldly wealth, for Muhammad Ahmad, Egypt was an example of wealth leading to impious behavior. Even after the Mahdi proclaimed a jihad, or holy war, against the Turkiyah, the Egyptian government paid more attention when his religious zeal turned to denunciation of tax collectors. To avoid arrest, the Mahdi and a party of his followers, the Ansar, made a march to Kurdufan. From a refuge in the area, he appeals to the sheikhs of the religious orders. Merchants and Arab tribes that had depended on the slave trade responded as well, along with the Hadendoa Beja, who were rallied to the Mahdi by an Ansar captain, Osman Digna. Early in 1882, the Ansar, armed with spears and swords, overwhelmed a British-led 7, 000-man Egyptian force not far from Al Ubayyid and seized their rifles, field guns and ammunition. The Mahdi followed up victory by laying siege to Al Ubayyid. The Ansar,30,000 men strong, then defeated an 8, next the Mahdi captured Darfur and imprisoned Rudolf Carl von Slatin, an Austrian in the khedives service, who later became the first Egyptian-appointed governor of Darfur Province
24.
Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
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His term as Commander-in-Chief of the Army in India saw him quarrel with another eminent proconsul, the Viceroy Lord Curzon, who eventually resigned. Kitchener then returned to Egypt as British Agent and Consul-General, in 1914, at the start of the First World War, Kitchener became Secretary of State for War, a Cabinet Minister. Kitchener died on 5 June 1916 when HMS Hampshire sank west of the Orkney Islands and he was making his way to Russia in order to attend negotiations when the ship struck a German mine. He was one of more than 600 killed on board the ship, Kitchener was born in Ballylongford near Listowel, County Kerry, in Ireland, son of army officer Henry Horatio Kitchener and Frances Anne Chevallier. His father had recently bought land in Ireland under a scheme to encourage the purchase of land after selling his commission. They then moved to Switzerland where the young Kitchener was educated at Montreux, then at the Royal Military Academy, pro-French and eager to see action, he joined a French field ambulance unit in the Franco-Prussian War. His father took him back to England after he caught pneumonia after ascending in a balloon to see the French Army of the Loire in action. Commissioned into the Royal Engineers on 4 January 1871, his service in France had violated British neutrality, and he was reprimanded by the Duke of Cambridge, the commander-in-chief. He served in Palestine, Egypt, and Cyprus as a surveyor, learned Arabic, Sir Walter Kitchener, had also entered the army, and was Governor of Bermuda from 1908 to 1912. In 1874, at age 24, Kitchener was assigned by the Palestine Exploration Fund to a mapping-survey of the Holy Land, replacing Charles Tyrwhitt-Drake, who had died of malaria. Conder and Kitchener’s expedition became known as the Survey of Western Palestine because it was confined to the area west of the Jordan River. The survey collected data on the topography and toponymy of the area, as well as local flora, the results of the survey were published in an eight-volume series, with Kitchener’s contribution in the first three tomes. This survey has had an effect on the Middle East for several reasons, The ordnance survey serves as the basis for the grid system used in the modern maps of Israel. The collection of data compiled by Conder and Kitchener are still consulted by archaeologists, the survey itself effectively delineated and defined the political borders of the southern Levant. For instance, the border between Israel and Lebanon is established at the point in upper Galilee where Conder and Kitchener’s survey stopped. In 1878 having completed the survey of Western Palestine, Kitchener was sent to Cyprus to undertake a survey of newly acquired British protectorate. Then in 1879 he became vice-consul in Anatolia, in 1883 Kitchener became a Freemason. On 4 January 1883 Kitchener was promoted to captain, given the Turkish rank bimbashi, Egypt had recently become a British puppet state, its army led by British officers, although still nominally under the sovereignty of the Khedive and his nominal overlord the Sultan of Turkey
25.
Khashm el-Girba Dam
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The Khashm el-Girba Dam is a gravity and embankment composite dam on the Atbarah River about 4 km south of Khashm El Girba in Eastern Sudan. The primary purpose of the dam is irrigation, the dam is equipped with canal headworks, located on its left bank, which divert water into a canal. When water levels in the reservoir are low, three pumps move water into the canal, the main portion of the dam is an earthen embankment, the spillway and irrigation headworks sections are concrete gravity. The dam has a hydroelectric power station, which was upgraded during the period 2002-04 to its current installed capacity of 10 megawatts. Upper Atbara and Setit Dam Complex
26.
Kassala
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Kassala is the capital of the state of Kassala in eastern Sudan. Its 2008 population was recorded to be 419,030, built on the banks of the Gash River, it is a market town and is famous for its fruit gardens. Many of its inhabitants are from the Hadendoa group, with others being of Rashaida origin. It was formerly a hub, however, as of 2006 there was no operational railway station in Kassala and much of the track leading to. Kassalas location along the main Khartoum-Port Sudan highway makes it an important trade center, the city was originally created as a military camp for the Ottoman soldiers of Egyptian viceroy Muhammad Ali in 1840 during his military offensive into Sudan. In 1885, Kassala was subsequently captured by the Mahdists, in 1894, after the Battle of Kassala the Italians captured the city. In 1897, the Kingdom of Italy returned Kassala to the Kingdom of Egypt, in 1899, Kassala fell under the purview of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan until Sudanese independence in 1956. In July 1940, during the East African Campaign, Italian forces advancing from Italian East Africa forced a small British garrison to withdraw from Kassala, the Italians then occupied the city with a brigade-sized unit. In mid-January 1941, the Italians withdrew from the city and a British garrison returned, in 1956, the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan became the Republic of the Sudan. Since the 1960s, the city has been the destination of large numbers of Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees fleeing conflict and war. Since the beginning of the Second Sudanese Civil War in the 1980s, it has also been refuge of internally displaced Sudanese fleeing conflicts in the Nuba Mountains, about 160,000 of these IDPs settled on the outskirts of the town. The Kassala region now has a mortality rate twice that of the Darfur region. The city is home to Kassala University, a university established in 1990 to replace the East University. Asmara, Eritrea Keren, Eritrea 2007 Sudan floods Railway stations in Sudan Kassala program, Ockenden International
27.
Aswan Dam
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The Aswan Dam, or more specifically since the 1960s, the Aswan High Dam, is an embankment dam built across the Nile in Aswan, Egypt between 1960 and 1970. Its significance largely eclipsed the previous Aswan Low Dam initially completed in 1902 downstream, like the earlier implementation, the High Dam has had a significant effect on the economy and culture of Egypt. Since this natural flooding varied however, high-water years could destroy the crop, while low-water years could create widespread drought. Both these events had continued to occur periodically, with the greatly increased reservoir storage provided by the High Aswan Dam, the floods could be controlled and the water could be stored for later release over multiple years. His field work convinced him of the impracticality of this scheme, the British began construction of the first dam across the Nile in 1898. Construction lasted until 1902, and the dam was opened on 10 December 1902, the project was designed by Sir William Willcocks and involved several eminent engineers, including Sir Benjamin Baker and Sir John Aird, whose firm, John Aird & Co. was the main contractor. In 1912, the Greek-Egyptian engineer Adrian Daninos began to develop the plan of the new Aswan Dam, although the Low Dam was almost overtopped in 1946, the Egyptian government of King Farouk showed no interest in Daninoss plans. Instead the Nile Valley Plan by the British hydrologist Harold Edwin Hurst to store water in Sudan and Ethiopia, the Egyptian position changed completely with the overthrow of the monarchy, led by the Free Officers Movement including Gamal Abdel Nasser. The Free Officers were convinced that the Nile Waters had to be stored in Egypt for political reasons, and within two months, the plan of Daninos was accepted. Initially, both the U. S. A. and the USSR were interested in helping the development of the dam, but this movement happened in the midst of the Cold War, as well as of growing intra-Arab rivalries. At that time the U. S. feared that communism would spread to the Middle East, america and Britain offered to help finance construction of the High Dam, with a loan of $270 million, in return for Nassers leadership in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. While opposed both to communism, capitalism, and imperialism, Nasser presented himself as a tactical neutralist, in addition to his development plans, he looked to quickly modernize his military, and he turned first to the U. S. Nasser did not accept these conditions, but then he looked to the USSR for support, on 27 September 1955, Nasser announced an arms deal, with Czechoslovakia acting as a middleman for the Soviet support. Instead of attacking Nasser for turning to the Soviets, Dulles sought to improve relations with him and this explains the later offer of December 1955, in which the U. S. and Britain pledged $56 and $14 million respectively towards the construction of the dam. Though the Czech arms deal actually increased the American willingness to invest at Aswan, what angered Dulles much more was Nassers diplomatic recognition of China, which was in direct conflict with Dulless policy of containment. There are several reasons why the U. S. decided to withdraw its offer of funding. Dulles believed that the USSR would not fulfill its commitment to help the Egyptians and he was also irritated by Nassers neutrality and attempts to play both sides of the Cold War. At the time, other western allies in the Middle East, including Turkey and Iraq, were irritated and jealous that Egypt, in June 1956, the Soviets offered Nasser $1.12 billion at 2% interest for the construction of the dam
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University of Texas at Austin
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Founded in 1881 as The University of Texas, its campus is in Austin, Texas—approximately 1 mile from the Texas State Capitol. The institution has the nations seventh-largest single-campus enrollment, with over 50,000 undergraduate and graduate students and over 24,000 faculty, UT Austin was inducted into the American Association of Universities in 1929, becoming only the third university in the American South to be elected. It is a center for academic research, with research expenditures exceeding $550 million for the 2014–2015 school year. J. Pickle Research Campus and the McDonald Observatory, among university faculty are recipients of the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, the Wolf Prize, the Emmy Award, the Turing Award, and the National Medal of Science, as well as many other awards. UT Austin student athletes compete as the Texas Longhorns and are members of the Big 12 Conference and its Longhorn Network is the only sports network featuring the college sports of a single university. The first mention of a university in Texas can be traced to the 1827 constitution for the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. Although Title 6, Article 217 of the Constitution promised to establish education in the arts and sciences. On April 18,1838, An Act to Establish the University of Texas was referred to a committee of the Texas Congress. On January 26,1839, the Texas Congress agreed to set aside fifty leagues of land towards the establishment of a publicly funded university, in addition,40 acres in the new capital of Austin were reserved and designated College Hill. In 1845, Texas was annexed into the United States, interestingly, the states Constitution of 1845 failed to mention higher education. On February 11,1858, the Seventh Texas Legislature approved O. B,102, an act to establish the University of Texas, which set aside $100,000 in United States bonds toward construction of the states first publicly funded university. The legislature also designated land reserved for the encouragement of railroad construction toward the universitys endowment, Texas secession from the Union and the American Civil War delayed repayment of the borrowed monies. At the end of the Civil War in 1865, The University of Texas endowment was just over $16,000 in warrants, the more valuable lands reverted to the fund to support general education in the state. The legislature additionally appropriated $256,272.57 to repay the funds taken from the university in 1860 to pay for frontier defense, the 1883 grant of land increased the land in the Permanent University Fund to almost 2.2 million acres. Under the Act of 1858, the university was entitled to just over 1,000 acres of land for every mile of railroad built in the state. On March 30,1881, the legislature set forth the structure and organization. By popular election on September 6,1881, Austin was chosen as the site, galveston, having come in second in the election was designated the location of the medical department. On November 17,1882, on the original College Hill, smite the earth, smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth
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Awash River
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The Awash, Somali, Webiga Dir, is a major river of Ethiopia. It is the stream of an endorheic drainage basin covering parts of the Amhara, Oromia and Somali Regions. According to Huntingford, in the 16th century the Awash river was called the great Dir river, the Awash rises south of Mount Warqe, west of Addis Ababa in the woreda of Dandi, close to the town of Ginchi, West Shewa Zone, Oromia. Then, the Awash flows south to loop around Mount Zuqualla in an easterly then northeasterly direction, according to materials published by the Ethiopian Central Statistical Agency, the Awash River is 1200 kilometers long. Other tributaries of the Awash include, the Logiya, Mille, Borkana, Ataye, Hawadi, Kabenna, towns and cities along its course include Metehara, Awash, Gewane and Asaita. Humans have lived in the valley of the Awash almost since the beginning of the species, the Middle Awash has been where numerous pre-human hominid remains have been found. The valley of the Awash from about 9° N downstream is the home of the Afar people. The valley of the Awash have been included as part of the territories of the provinces or kingdoms of Dawaro, Fatagar, Ifat. Except for Shewa, these provinces disappeared with the arrival of groups of the Oromo in the 16th century, in 1960, the Koka Dam was completed across the Awash River at a point around 75 kilometers from Addis Ababa. With its opening, it became a source of hydroelectric power in the area. The resulting freshwater lake, Lake Gelila, has an area of about 180 square kilometers, both lake and dam are threatened by increasing sedimentation. The Awash International Bank is named for the Awash River, the lower Awash valley is one of the last wildlife preserves for the African wild ass. The mammal is now extinct in Yangudi Rassa National Park, other large animals native to the area include Beisa Oryx, Soemmerings gazelle, Dorcas gazelle, gerenuk and Grevys zebra. Abstract This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
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Baro River
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The Baro River is a river in southwestern Ethiopia, which defines part of Ethiopias border with South Sudan. From its source in the Ethiopian Highlands it flows west for 306 kilometres to join the Pibor River, the Baro-Pibor confluence marks the beginning of the Sobat River, a tributary of the White Nile. The Baro and its tributaries drain a watershed 41,400 km2 in size, the rivers mean annual discharge at its mouth is 241 m³/s. The Baro river is created by the confluence of the Birbir and Gebba Rivers and it then flows west through the Gambela Region to join with the Pibor River, both of them creating the Sobat. Other notable tributaries of the Baro include the Alwero and Jikawo Rivers, of the Sobat Rivers tributaries, the Baro River is by far the largest, contributing 83% of the total water flowing into the Sobat. During the rainy season, between June and October, the Baro River alone contributes about 10% of the Niles water at Aswan, in contrast, these rivers have very low flow during the dry season. The boundary between Sudan and Ethiopia was defined for the region near the Baro River in 1899 by Major H. H. Austin and they had no knowledge of the land, its inhabitants, or their languages, and were short on supplies. This boundary was consummated in the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1902, resulting in an area in Ethiopian Gambela Region called the Baro Salient and this area is more closely connected to South Sudan than Ethiopia, both in terms of natural features and people. The Baro Salient was used as a sanctuary by Sudanese insurgents during the long civil wars. Vittorio Bottego, who explored the area in the later 1890s, the Italian L. Usoni unsuccessfully prospected for gold in the Baro river valley, and published his findings in 1952. The second-longest bridge in Ethiopia crosses the Baro, connecting two parts of the Gambela Region and this bridge is 305 meters long. List of rivers of Ethiopia List of rivers of South Sudan
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Blue Nile
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The Blue Nile is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. With the White Nile, the river one of the two major tributaries of the Nile. The upper course of the river is called the Abbay in Ethiopia, some Ethiopians have long identified the Blue Nile as the River Gihon mentioned as flowing out of the Garden of Eden, in Genesis 2 and encircling the entire land of Cush. In the local Sudanese language, the word for black is used for the colour blue. The distance of the river from its source to its confluence has been reported as being between 1,460 kilometres and 1,600 kilometres. According to materials published by the Central Statistical Agency, the Blue Nile has a length of 1,450 kilometres. The Blue Nile flows generally south from Lake Tana and then west across Ethiopia, within 30 km of its source at Lake Tana, the river enters a canyon about 400 km long. This gorge is an obstacle for travel and communication from the north half of Ethiopia to the southern half. The power of the Blue Nile may best be appreciated at the Blue Nile Falls and this stream, known as the Lesser Abay River, flows north into Lake Tana. Other affluents of this include, in clockwise order from Gorgora, the Magech River, the Northern Gumara, the Reb River, the southern Gumara River. Lake Tanas outflow then flows some 30 kilometres before plunging over the Blue Nile Falls, the river then loops across northwest Ethiopia through a series of deep valleys and canyons into Sudan, by which point it is only known as the Blue Nile. There are numerous tributaries of the Abay between Lake Tana and the Sudanese border. Those on the side, also in downstream order, include the Handassa, Tul, Abaya, Sade, Tammi, Cha, Shita, Suha, Muga, Gulla, Temcha, Bachat, Katlan, Jiba, Chamoga, Weter. The flow of the Blue Nile reaches maximum volume in the rainy season, the Blue Nile was a major source of the flooding of the Nile that contributed to the fertility of the Nile Valley and the consequent rise of Ancient Egypt and Egyptian mythology. With the completion in 1970 of the Aswan Dam in Egypt, the Blue Nile is vital to the livelihood of Egypt. The Blue Nile, the most significant tributary of the Nile, though shorter than the White Nile, 59% of the water that reaches Egypt originates from the Blue Nile branch of the great river. The river is also an important resource for Sudan, where the Roseires Dam and these dams also help irrigate the Gezira Scheme, which is most famous for its high quality cotton. The region also produces wheat and animal feed crops, in November 2012, Ethiopia began a six-year project for the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a 6000-megawatt hydroelectric dam on the river
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Dawa River
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The Dawa River is a perennial river in southeastern Ethiopia. Rising in the mountains east of Aleta Wendo, the Dawa flows south, the river forms part of the Ethiopia–Somalia border and part of the Ethiopia–Kenya border. The river valley is wide, with gently sloping sides of exposed bedrock. The lower part flows through a valley which would be classed as a relatively young erosion cycle, prospectors have found gold along the Dawa between the Awata and Kojowa tributaries. The titanium minerals rutile and ilmenite were found by working for the Texas Africa Exploration Company in 1958
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Ganale Doria River
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The Ganale Doria River is a perennial river in southeastern Ethiopia. Rising in the mountains east of Aleta Wendo, the Ganale flows south, tributaries include the Welmel, Weyib, Dumale, Doya, Hawas and the Hambala. The Del Verme Falls is a feature of its middle course. According to materials published by the Ethiopian Central Statistical Agency, the Ganale has a length of 858 km. The catchment area is estimated as having the potential to irrigate 1,070 km2, the river Ganale was renamed Ganale Doria by the Italian explorer Vittorio Bottego after the Italian biologist Giacomo Doria. The Genale Doria is historically important because it served as the boundary between Sidamo and Bale Provinces, the Battle of Genale Doria was fought to the south of its course
