1.
Egypt
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Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, and across from the Sinai Peninsula lies Saudi Arabia, although Jordan and it is the worlds only contiguous Afrasian nation. Egypt has among the longest histories of any country, emerging as one of the worlds first nation states in the tenth millennium BC. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt experienced some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanisation, organised religion and central government. One of the earliest centres of Christianity, Egypt was Islamised in the century and remains a predominantly Muslim country. With over 92 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa and the Arab world, the third-most populous in Africa, and the fifteenth-most populous in the world. The great majority of its people live near the banks of the Nile River, an area of about 40,000 square kilometres, the large regions of the Sahara desert, which constitute most of Egypts territory, are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypts residents live in areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria. Modern Egypt is considered to be a regional and middle power, with significant cultural, political, and military influence in North Africa, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Egypts economy is one of the largest and most diversified in the Middle East, Egypt is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Arab League, African Union, and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Miṣr is the Classical Quranic Arabic and modern name of Egypt. The name is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew מִצְרַיִם, the oldest attestation of this name for Egypt is the Akkadian
2.
Governorates of Egypt
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Governorates are the first-level of the subdivisions. Egypt is divided, for administrative purposes, into twenty-seven governorates, egyptian governorates are the top tier of the countrys jurisdiction hierarchy. A governorate is administered by a governor, who is appointed by the President of Egypt, most governorates have a population density of more than one thousand per km², while the three largest have a population density of less than two per km². Governorates are either fully urban or else a mixture of urban, the official distinction between urban and rural is reflected in the lower tiers, i. e. fully urban governorates have no regions, as the markaz is, natively, a conglomeration of villages. Moreover, governorates may comprise just one city, as in the case of Cairo Governorate or Alexandria Governorate, hence, these one-city governorates are only divided into districts. Cairo Governorate consists of 41 districts, Alexandria Governorate consists of 7, two new governorates were created in April 2008, Helwan and 6th of October. In April 2011, however, the 6th of October and Helwan governorates were again incorporated into the Cairo and Giza Governorates, respectively. Luxor was created in December 2009, to be the 29th governorate of Egypt, but with the abolition of the 6th of October and Helwan governorates, before 1979, local government traditionally enjoyed limited power in Egypts highly centralized state. Under the central government, there were twenty-six governorates and these were subdivided into regions, each of which was further subdivided into towns or villages. At each level, there was a structure that combined representative councils and government-appointed executive organs headed by governors, district officers. Governors were appointed by the president, and they, in turn, the coercive backbone of the state apparatus ran downward from the Ministry of Interior through the governors executive organs to the district police station and the village headman. Before the 1952 revolution, state penetration of the areas was limited by the power of local notables. However, under Nasser, land reform reduced their socioeconomic dominance, the extension of officials into the countryside permitted the regime to bring development and services to the village. State penetration did not retreat under Sadat and Mubarak, the earlier effort to mobilize peasants and deliver services disappeared as the local party and cooperative withered, but administrative controls over the peasants remained intact. The local power of the old families and the headmen revived, the district police station balanced the notables, and the system of local government integrated them into the regime. Sadat took several measures to decentralize power to the provinces and towns, governors acquired more authority under Law Number 43 of 1979, which reduced the administrative and budgetary controls of the central government over the provinces. The elected councils acquired, at least formally, the right to approve or disapprove the local budget, in an effort to reduce local demands on the central treasury, local government was given wider powers to raise local taxes. Local representative councils became vehicles of pressure for government spending, under Mubarak decentralization and local autonomy became more of a reality, and local policies often reflected special local conditions
3.
Aswan Governorate
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Aswan Governorate is one of the governorates of Egypt. The southernmost governorate in Upper Egypt, its capital is Aswan, the Aswan Governorate borders Qena to the north, Red Sea Governorate to the east, New Valley Governorate to the west, and Sudans Northern state to the south. It has a population of 1,394,687 inhabitants, according to population estimates from 2015 the majority of residents in the governorate live in rural areas, with an urbanization rate of only 42. 3%. Out of an estimated 1,431,488 people residing in the governorate,826,543 people live in areas as opposed to only 604,945 in urban areas
4.
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
5.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
6.
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
7.
Stephanus of Byzantium
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Stephen of Byzantium, also known as Stephanus Byzantinus, was the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled Ethnica. Of the dictionary itself only meagre fragments survive, but we possess an epitome compiled by one Hermolaus, not otherwise identified. Nothing is known about the life of Stephanus, except that he was a grammarian at Constantinople, and lived after the time of Arcadius and Honorius, even as an epitome, the Ethnica is of enormous value for geographical, mythological, and religious information about ancient Greece. Nearly every article in the epitome contains a reference to some ancient writer, Stephanus cites Artemidorus, Polybius, Aelius Herodianus, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Strabo and other writers. The chief fragments remaining of the work are preserved by Constantine Porphyrogennetos, De administrando imperio, ch.23 and De thematibus. 10, the latter includes a passage from the comic poet Alexis on the Seven Largest Islands, another respectable fragment, from the article Δύμη to the end of Δ, exists in a manuscript of the Fonds Coislin, the library formed by Pierre Séguier. The first modern printed edition of the work was published by the Aldine Press in Venice,1502. The complete standard edition is still that of Augustus Meineke, and by convention, a new completely revised edition in German is in preparation, however, edited by B. Zubler, M. Billerbeck, J. F. Gaertner,2006 onwards, google Books Guilielmus Xylander,1568, Στέφανος. Google Books Claudius Salmasius and Abraham van Berkel,1688, Στεφάνου Βυζαντίου Ἐθνικὰ κατ ἐπιτομήν Περὶ πόλεων = Stephani Byzantini Gentilia per epitomen, google Books Lucas Holstenius,1692, Notae & castigationes in Stephanum Byzantium De urbibus. Google Books Thomas de Pinedo,1725, Stephanus de urbibus, google Books Karl Wilhelm Dindorf,1825, Stephanus Byzantinus. Incorporating notes by L. Holsteinius, A. Berkelius, and T. de Pinedo, google Books Anton Westermann,1839, Stephani Byzantii ethnikon quae supersunt. Google Books Augustus Meineke,1849, Stephani Byzantii ethnicorum quae supersunt, google Books Margarethe Billerbeck et al. Berlin/New York, Walter de Gruyter, This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. Smith, W. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, diller, Aubrey 1938, The tradition of Stephanus Byzantius, Transactions of the American Philological Association 69, 333-48. Bunbury,1883, History of Ancient Geography, vol. i, Holstenius, L.1684, Lucae Holstenii Notae et castigationes postumae in Stephani Byzantii Ethnika, quae vulgo Peri poleōn inscribuntur. 1873, De Stephani Byzantii auctoribus Johannes Geffcken,1886, De Stephano Byzantio Whitehead, D.1994, From political architecture to Stephanus Byzantius, sources for the ancient Greek polis
8.
Antonine Itinerary
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The Antonine Itinerary is a famous itinerarium, a register of the stations and distances along various roads. Seemingly based on documents, possibly from a survey carried out under Augustus. Owing to the scarcity of other extant records of this type, almost nothing is known of its date or author. The British section is known as the Iter Britanniarum, and can be described as the map of Roman Britain. There are 15 such itineraries in the document applying to different geographic areas, the itinerary measures distances in Roman miles, where 1,000 Roman paces equals one Roman mile. A Roman pace was two steps, left plus right, Roman paces were not everywhere the same, and conversion to modern units is imprecise, but 1 Roman mile approximately equals 4,690 feet, or 1430 m. Below is the original Latin ablative forms for sites along route 13, a transcriber omitted an entry, so that the total number of paces does not equal the sum of paces between locations. Below is the original Latin for route 14 followed by a translation with a name for the modern site. Its authenticity was not seriously challenged until 1845, and it was cited as an authoritative source until the late nineteenth century. While the document is no longer cited, since its authenticity became indefensible, its data has not been removed from past. Some authors, such as Thomas Reynolds, without challenging the authenticity of the forgery, took care to note its discrepancies and this was not always so, even after the forgery was debunked. The Antonine Itinerary, Iter Britanniarum - The British Section Analysis of the Itinerary Itinerarium Antonini Augusti at SOLTDM. COM Roman Roads in Britain
9.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
10.
Temple of Kom Ombo
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The Temple of Kom Ombo is an unusual double temple in the town of Kom Ombo in Aswan Governorate, Upper Egypt. It was constructed during the Ptolemaic dynasty, 180–47 BC, some additions to it were later made during the Roman period. The building is unique because its design meant that there were courts, halls, sanctuaries. The southern half of the temple was dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek, god of fertility and creator of the world with Hathor and Khonsu. Meanwhile, the part of the temple was dedicated to the falcon god Haroeris, also known as Horus the Elder, along with Tasenetnofret. The temple is atypical because everything is symmetrical along the main axis. The temple was started by Ptolemy VI Philometor at the beginning of his reign and added to by other Ptolemys, most notably Ptolemy XIII, who built the inner and outer hypostyle halls. The scene on the face of the rear wall of the temple is of particular interest. Much of the temple has been destroyed by the Nile, earthquakes, some of the reliefs inside were defaced by Copts who once used the temple as a church. All the temples buildings in the part of the plateau were cleared of debris. A few of the three hundred crocodile mummies discovered in the vicinity are displayed in The Crocodile Museum, fotopedia. com, Selected photos of the Temple of Kom Ombo
11.
Ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently, Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter and this Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture, the predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world and its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history, nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates, foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. The largest of these cultures in upper Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert, it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools. The Badari was followed by the Amratian and Gerzeh cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements, as early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan, establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the desert to the west. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the crown of Egypt. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia, the third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today
12.
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
13.
Aswan
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Aswan, formerly spelled Assuan, is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate. Aswan is a market and tourist centre located just north of the Aswan Dams on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract. The modern city has expanded and includes the separate community on the island of Elephantine. Aswan is the ancient city of Swenett, which in antiquity was the town of Ancient Egypt facing the south. Swenett is supposed to have derived its name from an Egyptian goddess with the same name, the ancient name of the city also is said to be derived from the Egyptian symbol for trade, or market. The city stood upon a peninsula on the bank of the Nile, immediately below the first cataract of the flowing waters. Navigation to the delta was possible from this location without encountering a barrier, the stone quarries of ancient Egypt located here were celebrated for their stone, and especially for the granitic rock called Syenite. They lie on either bank of the Nile, and a road,6.5 km in length, was cut beside them from Syene to Philae, Swenett was equally important as a military station as a place of traffic. Under every dynasty it was a town, and here tolls. Around 330, the legion stationed here received a bishop from Alexandria, the city is mentioned by numerous ancient writers, including Herodotus, Strabo, Stephanus of Byzantium, Ptolemy, Pliny the Elder, Vitruvius, and it appears on the Antonine Itinerary. It also is mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel and the Book of Isaiah, the latitude of the city that would become Aswan – located at 24° 5′ 23″ – was an object of great interest to the ancient geographers. They believed that it was seated immediately under the tropic, and that on the day of the summer solstice and they noted that the suns disc was reflected in a well at noon. However, Eratosthenes used this information together with measurements of the length on the solstice at Alexandria to perform the first known calculation of the circumference of the Earth. The Nile is nearly 650 m wide above Aswan, from this frontier town to the northern extremity of Egypt, the river flows for more than 1,200 km without bar or cataract. The voyage from Aswan to Alexandria usually took 21 to 28 days in favourable weather, Aswan has a hot desert climate like the rest of Egypt. Aswan and Luxor have the hottest summer days of any city in Egypt, Aswan is one of the hottest, sunniest and driest cities in the world. Averages high temperatures are consistently above 40 °C during summer while averages low temperatures remain above 25 °C, summers are long, prolonged and extremely hot. Averages high temperatures remain above 23 °C during the coldest month of the year while averages low temperatures remain above 8 °C, winters are short, brief and extremely warm
14.
Nubia
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Nubia is a region along the Nile river located in what is today northern Sudan and southern Egypt. It was the seat of one of the earliest civilizations of ancient Africa, with a history that can be traced from at least 2000 B. C. onward, and was home to one of the African empires. Nubia was again united within Ottoman Egypt in the 19th century, the name Nubia is derived from that of the Noba people, nomads who settled the area in the 4th century following the collapse of the kingdom of Meroë. The Noba spoke a Nilo-Saharan language, ancestral to Old Nubian, Old Nubian was mostly used in religious texts dating from the 8th and 15th centuries AD. Before the 4th century, and throughout classical antiquity, Nubia was known as Kush, or, in Classical Greek usage, until at least 1970, the Birgid language was spoken north of Nyala in Darfur, but is now extinct. Nubia was divided into two regions, Upper and Lower Nubia, so called because of their location in the Nile river valley. Early settlements sprouted in both Upper and Lower Nubia, Egyptians referred to Nubia as Ta-Seti, or The Land of the Bow, since the Nubians were known to be expert archers. Modern scholars typically refer to the people from this area as the “A-Group” culture, fertile farmland just south of the Third Cataract is known as the “pre-Kerma” culture in Upper Nubia, as they are the ancestors. The Neolithic people in the Nile Valley likely came from Sudan, as well as the Sahara, by the 5th millennium BC, the people who inhabited what is now called Nubia participated in the Neolithic revolution. Saharan rock reliefs depict scenes that have been thought to be suggestive of a cult, typical of those seen throughout parts of Eastern Africa. Megaliths discovered at Nabta Playa are early examples of what seems to be one of the worlds first astronomical devices, around 3500 BC, the second Nubian culture, termed the A-Group, arose. It was a contemporary of, and ethnically and culturally similar to. The A-Group people were engaged in trade with the Egyptians and this trade is testified archaeologically by large amounts of Egyptian commodities deposited in the graves of the A-Group people. The imports consisted of gold objects, copper tools, faience amulets and beads, seals, slate palettes, stone vessels, and a variety of pots. Around 3300 BC, there is evidence of a kingdom, as shown by the finds at Qustul. The Nubian culture may have contributed to the unification of the Nile Valley. The earliest known depiction of the crown is on a ceremonial incense burner from Cemetery at Qustul in Lower Nubia. New evidence from Abydos, however, particularly the excavation of Cemetery U, around the turn of the protodynastic period, Naqada, in its bid to conquer and unify the whole Nile Valley, seems to have conquered Ta-Seti and harmonized it with the Egyptian state
15.
Egyptian hieroglyphs
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Egyptian hieroglyphs were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt. It combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with a total of some 1,000 distinct characters, cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood. The later hieratic and demotic Egyptian scripts are derived from hieroglyphic writing, the writing system continued to be used throughout the Late Period, as well as the Persian and Ptolemaic periods. Late survivals of hieroglyphic use are found well into the Roman period, with the closing of pagan temples in the 5th century, knowledge of hieroglyphic writing was lost, and the script remained undeciphered throughout the medieval and early modern period. The decipherment of hieroglyphs would only be solved in the 1820s by Jean-François Champollion, the word hieroglyph comes from the Greek adjective ἱερογλυφικός, a compound of ἱερός and γλύφω, supposedly a calque of an Egyptian phrase mdw·w-nṯr gods words. The glyphs themselves were called τὰ ἱερογλυφικὰ γράμματα the sacred engraved letters, the word hieroglyph has become a noun in English, standing for an individual hieroglyphic character. As used in the sentence, the word hieroglyphic is an adjective. Hieroglyphs emerged from the artistic traditions of Egypt. For example, symbols on Gerzean pottery from c.4000 BC have been argued to resemble hieroglyphic writing, proto-hieroglyphic symbol systems develop in the second half of the 4th millennium BC, such as the clay labels of a Predynastic ruler called Scorpion I recovered at Abydos in 1998. The first full sentence written in hieroglyphs so far discovered was found on a seal found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen at Umm el-Qaab. There are around 800 hieroglyphs dating back to the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, by the Greco-Roman period, there are more than 5,000. However, given the lack of evidence, no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt. Since the 1990s, and discoveries such as the Abydos glyphs, as writing developed and became more widespread among the Egyptian people, simplified glyph forms developed, resulting in the hieratic and demotic scripts. These variants were more suited than hieroglyphs for use on papyrus. Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, eclipsed, but existed alongside the other forms, especially in monumental, the Rosetta Stone contains three parallel scripts – hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. Hieroglyphs continued to be used under Persian rule, and after Alexander the Greats conquest of Egypt, during the ensuing Ptolemaic and Roman periods. It appears that the quality of comments from Greek and Roman writers about hieroglyphs came about, at least in part. Some believed that hieroglyphs may have functioned as a way to distinguish true Egyptians from some of the foreign conquerors, another reason may be the refusal to tackle a foreign culture on its own terms, which characterized Greco-Roman approaches to Egyptian culture generally
16.
Thebaid
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The Thebaid or Thebais was a region of ancient Egypt, which comprised the thirteen southernmost nomes of Upper Egypt, from Abydos to Aswan. The Thebaid acquired its name from its proximity to the ancient Egyptian capital of Thebes, during the Ancient Egyptian dynasties this region was dominated by Thebes and its priesthood at the temple of Amun at Karnak. In Ptolemaic Egypt, the Thebaid formed an administrative district under the Epistrategos of Thebes, who was also responsible for overseeing navigation in the Red Sea. The capital of Ptolemaic Thebaid was Ptolemais Hermiou, a Hellenistic colony on the Nile which served as the center of royal political, during the Roman Empire, Diocletian created the province of Thebais, guarded by the legions I Maximiana Thebanorum and II Flavia Constantia. This was later divided into Upper, comprising the southern half with its capital at Thebes, around the 5th century, since it was a desert, the Thebaid became a place of retreat of a number of Christian hermits, and was the birthplace of Pachomius. In Christian art, the Thebaid was represented as a place with numerous monks, london and New York, Frederick Warne. Bagnall, R. J. Drinkwater, A. Esmonde-Cleary, W. Harris, R. Knapp, S. Mitchell, S. Parker, C. Wells, J. Wilkes, R. Talbert, M. E. Downs, M. Joann McDaniel, B. Z. Lund, T. Elliott, cS1 maint, Multiple names, authors list
17.
Nome (Egypt)
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A nome was a subnational administrative division of Ancient Egypt. Todays use of the Greek νομή, nomé rather than the Egyptian term sepat came about during the Ptolemaic period, the availability of Greek records on Egypt influenced the adoption of Greek terms by later historians. The division of ancient Egypt into nomes can be traced back to the Predynastic Period and these nomes originally existed as autonomous city-states, but later began to unify. According to ancient tradition, the ruler Menes completed the final unification, not only did the division into nomes remain in place for more than three millennia, the areas of the individual nomes and their ordering remained remarkably stable. Some, like Xois in the Delta or Khent in Upper Egypt, were first mentioned on the Palermo stone, the names of a few, like the nome of Bubastis, appeared no earlier than the New Kingdom. Under the system that prevailed for most of pharaonic Egypts history, lower Egypt, from the Old Kingdom capital Memphis to the Mediterranean Sea, comprised 20 nomes. The first was based around Memphis, Saqqara, and Giza, the nomes were numbered in a more or less orderly fashion south to north through the Nile delta, first covering the territory on the west before continuing with the higher numbers to the east. Thus, Alexandria was in the Third Nome, Bubastis was in the Eighteenth, Upper Egypt was divided into 22 nomes. The first of these was centered on Elephantine close to Egypts border with Nubia at the First Cataract – the area of modern-day Aswan, from there the numbering progressed downriver in an orderly fashion along the narrow fertile strip of land that was the Nile valley. Waset was in the Fourth Nome, Amarna in the Fourteenth, some nomes were added or renamed during the Graeco-Roman occupation of Egypt. For example, the Ptolemies renamed the Crocodilopolitan nome to Arsinoe, hadrian created a new nome, Antinoopolites, for which Antinoopolis was the capital. The nomes survived into Roman times, under Roman rule, individual nomes minted their own coinage, the so-called nome coins, which still reflect individual local associations and traditions. The nomes of Egypt retained their importance as administrative units until the fundamental rearrangement of the bureaucracy during the reigns of Diocletian. From AD 307/8, their place was taken by units called pagi. Eventually powerful local officials arose who were called pagarchs, through whom all patronage flowed, the pagarchs essential role was as an organizer of tax-collection. Later the pagarch assumed some military functions as well, the pagarchs were often wealthy landowners who reigned over the pagi from which they originated. For most of the history, each nome was headed by a nomarch, the position of the nomarch was at times hereditary, while at others they were appointed by the pharaoh. Generally, when the government was stronger, nomarchs were the kings appointed governors
18.
Ptolemaic Kingdom
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The Ptolemaic Kingdom was a Hellenistic kingdom based in Egypt. Alexandria became the city and a major center of Greek culture. To gain recognition by the native Egyptian populace, they named themselves the successors to the Pharaohs, the later Ptolemies took on Egyptian traditions by marrying their siblings, had themselves portrayed on public monuments in Egyptian style and dress, and participated in Egyptian religious life. The Ptolemies had to fight native rebellions and were involved in foreign and civil wars led to the decline of the kingdom. Hellenistic culture continued to thrive in Egypt throughout the Roman and Byzantine periods until the Muslim conquest. The era of Ptolemaic reign in Egypt is one of the most well documented periods of the Hellenistic Era. In 332 BC, Alexander the Great, King of Macedon invaded the Achaemenid satrapy of Egypt and he visited Memphis, and traveled to the oracle of Amun at the Oasis of Siwa. The oracle declared him to be the son of Amun, the wealth of Egypt could now be harnessed for Alexanders conquest of the rest of the Persian Empire. Early in 331 BC he was ready to depart, and led his forces away to Phoenicia and he left Cleomenes as the ruling nomarch to control Egypt in his absence. Following Alexanders death in Babylon in 323 BC, a crisis erupted among his generals. Perdiccas appointed Ptolemy, one of Alexanders closest companions, to be satrap of Egypt, Ptolemy ruled Egypt from 323 BC, nominally in the name of the joint kings Philip III and Alexander IV. However, as Alexander the Greats empire disintegrated, Ptolemy soon established himself as ruler in his own right, Ptolemy successfully defended Egypt against an invasion by Perdiccas in 321 BC, and consolidated his position in Egypt and the surrounding areas during the Wars of the Diadochi. In 305 BC, Ptolemy took the title of King, as Ptolemy I Soter, he founded the Ptolemaic dynasty that was to rule Egypt for nearly 300 years. All the male rulers of the dynasty took the name Ptolemy, while princesses and queens preferred the names Cleopatra, Arsinoe and Berenice. Because the Ptolemaic kings adopted the Egyptian custom of marrying their sisters, many of the kings ruled jointly with their spouses and this custom made Ptolemaic politics confusingly incestuous, and the later Ptolemies were increasingly feeble. The only Ptolemaic Queens to officially rule on their own were Berenice III, Cleopatra V did co-rule, but it was with another female, Berenice IV. Cleopatra VII officially co-ruled with Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator, Ptolemy XIV, and Ptolemy XV, upper Egypt, farthest from the centre of government, was less immediately affected, even though Ptolemy I established the Greek colony of Ptolemais Hermiou to be its capital. But within a century Greek influence had spread through the country, nevertheless, the Greeks always remained a privileged minority in Ptolemaic Egypt
19.
Egypt (Roman province)
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The province encompassed most of modern-day Egypt except for the Sinai Peninsula. Aegyptus was bordered by the provinces of Creta et Cyrenaica to the West, the province came to serve as a major producer of grain for the empire and had a highly developed urban economy. Aegyptus was by far the wealthiest Eastern Roman province, in Alexandria, its capital, it possessed the largest port, and the second largest city, of the Roman Empire. As a province, Egypt was ruled by a uniquely styled Augustal prefect, the prefect was a man of equestrian rank and was appointed by the Emperor. The second prefect, Aelius Gallus, made an expedition to conquer Arabia Petraea. The Red Sea coast of Aegyptus was not brought under Roman control until the reign of Claudius, the third prefect, Gaius Petronius, cleared the neglected canals for irrigation, stimulating a revival of agriculture. Petronius even led a campaign into present-day central Sudan against the Kingdom of Kush at Meroe, failing to acquire permanent gains, in 22 BC he razed the city of Napata to the ground and retreated to the north. From the reign of Nero onward, Aegyptus enjoyed an era of prosperity which lasted a century, under Trajan a Jewish revolt occurred, resulting in the suppression of the Jews of Alexandria and the loss of all their privileges, although they soon returned. Hadrian, who twice visited Aegyptus, founded Antinoöpolis in memory of his drowned lover Antinous, from his reign onward buildings in the Greco-Roman style were erected throughout the country. Under Antoninus Pius oppressive taxation led to a revolt in 139, of the native Egyptians and this Bucolic War, led by one Isidorus, caused great damage to the economy and marked the beginning of Egypts economic decline. Avidius Cassius, who led the Roman forces in the war, declared emperor in 175. On the approach of Marcus Aurelius, Cassius was deposed and killed, a similar revolt broke out in 193, when Pescennius Niger was proclaimed emperor on the death of Pertinax. The Emperor Septimius Severus gave a constitution to Alexandria and the capitals in 202. There was a series of revolts, both military and civilian, through the 3rd century, under Decius, in 250, the Christians again suffered from persecution, but their religion continued to spread. This warrior queen claimed that Egypt was a home of hers through a familial tie to Cleopatra VII. She was well educated and familiar with the culture of Egypt, its religion, two generals based in Aegyptus, Probus and Domitius Domitianus, led successful revolts and made themselves emperors. Diocletian captured Alexandria from Domitius in 298 and reorganised the whole province and his edict of 303 against the Christians began a new era of persecution. This was the last serious attempt to stem the growth of Christianity in Egypt
20.
Dendera
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Dendera is a small town and former bishopric in Egypt situated on the west bank of the Nile, about 5 kilometres south of Qena, on the opposite side of the river. It is located approximately 60 kilometres north of Luxor and remains a Latin Catholic titular see, the modern Arab town is built on the ancient site of Ta-ynt-netert, which means She of the Divine Pillar. In the Greek era, the town was known as Tentyra and it was once the -modest- capital of the 6th Nome of Upper Egypt, and was also called Nikentori or Nitentori, which means willow wood or willow earth. Some scholars believe the name derives from the sky and fertility goddess Hathor, also associated with the Greek Aphrodite, the official deity of the city was a crocodile. Crocodiles were also venerated as deities in other Egyptian cities, which rise to many quarrels. After Egypt became a Roman possession, the city of Tentyris was part of the Late Roman province of Thebais Secunda and its bishopric was a suffragan of Ptolemais Hermiou, the capital and metropolitan see of the province. Pachomius, whose diocese boasted the celebrated convent of Tabennisi, the town was given its present Arabic name of Denderah during the late Ottoman Empire and ruled 6000 inhabitants in Qena district. M. I. André van den Bronk, Society of African Missions Teodoro Bensch Jean-Rosière-Eugène Arnau], the Dendera Temple complex, which contains the Temple of Hathor, is one of the best-preserved temples, if not the best-preserved one, in all of Upper Egypt. The whole complex covers some 40,000 square meters and is surrounded by a hefty mud brick wall and it was once home to the celebrated Dendera zodiac, which is now displayed in the Louvre Museum in Paris. There are also Roman and pharaonic Mammisi, ruins of a Coptic church, the area around the temple has been extensively landscaped and now has a modern visitor centre, bazaar and small cafeteria. This area has an amount of sunshine year round due to its stable descending air. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Dendera has a hot desert climate, Dendera light Dendera Herbermann, Charles, ed. Tentyris. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Herbermann, Charles. GigaCatholic, listing the titular bishops Media related to Dendera at Wikimedia Commons
21.
Sobek
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Sobek, in Greek, Suchos and from Latin Suchus, was an ancient Egyptian deity with a complex and fluid nature. He is associated with the Nile crocodile and is represented in its form or as a human with a crocodile head. Sobek enjoyed a longstanding presence in the ancient Egyptian pantheon, from the Old Kingdom through the Roman period and he is first known from several different Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom, particularly from spell PT317. Unis has appeared as Sobek, Neiths son, Unis will eat with his mouth, Unis will urinate and Unis will copulate with his penis. Unis is lord of semen, who takes women from their husbands to the place Unis likes according to his hearts fancy. The origin of his name, Sbk in ancient Egyptian, is debated among scholars, though Sobek was worshipped in the Old Kingdom, he truly gained prominence in the Middle Kingdom, most notably under the Twelfth Dynasty king, Amenemhat III. Amenemhat III had taken a particular interest in the Faiyum region of Egypt, Amenemhat and many of his dynastic contemporaries engaged in building projects to promote Sobek – projects that were often executed in the Faiyum. In this period, Sobek also underwent an important change, he was fused with the falcon-headed god of divine kingship. This brought Sobek even closer with the kings of Egypt, thereby giving him a place of prominence in the Egyptian pantheon. The fusion added a level of complexity to the god’s nature, as he was adopted into the divine triad of Horus. Sobek-Horus persisted as a figure in the New Kingdom, but it was not until the last dynasties of Egypt that Sobek-Ra gained prominence and this understanding of the god was maintained after the fall of Egypts last native dynasty in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. The entire Faiyum region – the Land of the Lake in Egyptian – served as a center of Sobek. Most Faiyum towns developed their own localized versions of the god, such as Soknebtunis at Tebtunis, Sokonnokonni at Bacchias, at Karanis, two forms of the god were worshipped, Pnepheros and Petsuchos. There, mummified crocodiles were employed as cult images of Petsuchos, Sobek Shedety, the patron of the Faiyums centrally located capital, Crocodilopolis, was the most prominent form of the god. Extensive building programs honoring Sobek were realized in Shedet, as it was the capital of the entire Arsinoite nome and it is thought that the effort to expand Sobeks main temple was initially driven by Ptolemy II. Outside the Faiyum, Kom Ombo, in southern Egypt, was the biggest cultic center of Sobek, particularly during the Ptolemaic, located about 30 miles north of Aswan and was built during the Graeco-Roman period. The temple at this site was called the Per-Sobek, meaning the house of Sobek, Sobek is, above all else, an aggressive and animalistic deity who lives up to the vicious reputation of his patron animal, the large and violent Nile crocodile. Some of his common epithets betray this nature succinctly, the most notable of which being, he who loves robbery, he who eats while he also mates, however, he also displays grand benevolence in more than one celebrated myth
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Horus
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Horus is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the Ptolemaic Kingdom, different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists. He was most often depicted as a falcon, most likely a falcon or peregrine falcon. In another tradition Hathor is regarded as his mother and sometimes as his wife, Horus served many functions, most notably being a god of the sky, war and hunting. Horus is recorded in Egyptian hieroglyphs as ḥr. w Falcon, additional meanings are thought to have been the distant one or one who is above, over. As the language changed over time, it appeared in Coptic dialects variously as hoːɾ or ħoːɾ and was adopted into ancient Greek as Ὧρος Hōros and it also survives in Late Egyptian and Coptic theophoric names such as Har-si-ese Horus, Son of Isis. Nekheny may have been another falcon god worshipped at Nekhen, city of the falcon, Horus may be shown as a falcon on the Narmer Palette, dating from about the 31st century BC. In early Egypt, Horus was the brother of Isis, Osiris, Set, as different cults formed, he became the son of Isis and Osiris. Isis remained the sister of Osiris, Set and Nephthys, the Pyramid Texts describe the nature of the pharaoh in different characters as both Horus and Osiris. The pharaoh as Horus in life became the pharaoh as Osiris in death, New incarnations of Horus succeeded the deceased pharaoh on earth in the form of new pharaohs. The lineage of Horus, the product of unions between the children of Atum, may have been a means to explain and justify pharaonic power. The gods produced by Atum were all representative of cosmic and terrestrial forces in Egyptian life, the notion of Horus as the pharaoh seems to have been superseded by the concept of the pharaoh as the son of Ra during the Fifth Dynasty. Once Isis knew she was pregnant with Horus, she fled to the Nile Delta marshlands to hide from her brother Set, who jealously killed Osiris, there Isis bore a divine son, Horus. Since Horus was said to be the sky, he was considered to contain the sun. It became said that the sun was his eye and the moon his left, and that they traversed the sky when he. Later, the reason that the moon was not as bright as the sun was explained by a tale, known as the The Contendings of Horus and Seth. As Horus was the victor he became known as ḥr. w wr Horus the Great. In the struggle, Set had lost a testicle, explaining why the desert, Horus left eye had also been gouged out, then a new eye was created by part of Khonsu, the moon god, and was replaced
23.
Isis
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Isis is a goddess from the polytheistic pantheon of Egypt. She was first worshiped in ancient Egyptian religion, and later her worship spread throughout the Roman Empire, Isis was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the patroness of nature and magic. She was the friend of slaves, sinners, artisans and the downtrodden, Isis is often depicted as the mother of Horus, the falcon-headed deity associated with king and kingship. Isis is also known as protector of the dead and goddess of children, as the personification of the throne, she was an important representation of the pharaohs power. The pharaoh was depicted as her child, who sat on the throne she provided. Her cult was popular throughout Egypt, but her most important temples were at Behbeit El Hagar in the Nile delta, and, beginning in the reign with Nectanebo I, on the island of Philae in Upper Egypt. In the typical form of her myth, Isis was the first daughter of Geb, god of the Earth, and Nut, goddess of the Sky and she married her brother, Osiris, and she conceived Horus with him. Isis was instrumental in the resurrection of Osiris when he was murdered by Set, using her magical skills, she restored his body to life after having gathered the body parts that had been strewn about the earth by Set. This myth became very important during the Greco-Roman period, for example, it was believed that the Nile River flooded every year because of the tears of sorrow which Isis wept for Osiris. Osiriss death and rebirth was relived each year through rituals, the worship of Isis eventually spread throughout the Greco-Roman world, continuing until the suppression of paganism in the Christian era. The popular motif of Isis suckling her son Horus, however, the Greek name version of Isis is close to her original, Egyptian name spelling. Isis name was written with the signs of a throne seat. The grammar, spelling and used signs of Isis name never changed during time in any way, however, the symbolic and metaphoric meaning of Isis name remains unclear. The throne seat sign in her name might point to a role as a goddess of kingship. Thus, her name could mean she of the kings throne, but all other Egyptian deities have names that point to clear cosmological or nature elemental roles, thus the name of Isis shouldnt be connected to the king himself. The throne seat symbol might alternatively point to a meaning as throne-mother of the gods and this in turn would supply a very old existence of Isis, long before her first mentioning during the late Old Kingdom, but this hypothesis remains unproven. A third possible meaning might be hidden in the egg-symbol, that was used in Isis name. The egg-symbol always represented motherhood, implying a role of Isis
24.
Thutmose III
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Thutmose III was the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. During the first 22 years of Thutmoses reign he was co-regent with his stepmother and aunt, Hatshepsut, while he was shown first on surviving monuments, both were assigned the usual royal names and insignia and neither is given any obvious seniority over the other. He served as the head of her armies, during the final 2 years of his reign, he appointed his son and successor, Amenhotep II, as his junior co-regent. His firstborn son and heir to the throne, Amenemhat, predeceased Thutmose III, when Thutmose III died, he was buried in the Valley of the Kings as were the rest of the kings from this period in Egypt. Thutmose III was the son of Thutmose II by a secondary wife and his fathers great royal wife was Queen Hatshepsut. Her daughter Neferure was Thutmoses half-sister, Thutmosis III had little power over the empire while Hatshepsut exercised the formal titulary of kingship. Her rule was quite prosperous and marked by great advancements, when he reached a suitable age and demonstrated the capability, she appointed him to head her armies. Thutmosis III had several wives, Satiah, She may have been the mother of his firstborn son, an alternative theory is that the boy was the son of Neferure. Thutmoses successor, the prince and future king Amenhotep II, was the son of Merytre-Hatshepsut. Additional children include Menkheperre and daughters named Nebetiunet, Meryetamun, Meryetamun, Merytre-Hatshepsut was the daughter of the divine adoratrice Huy. Nebtu, she is depicted on a pillar in Thutmose IIIs tomb, menwi, Merti, Menhet three foreign wives. Neferure, Thutmose III may have married his half-sister, but there is no evidence for this marriage. It has been suggested that Neferure, instead of Satiah, may have been the mother of Amenemhat, Thutmose III reigned from 1479 BC to 1425 BC according to the Low Chronology of Ancient Egypt. This has been the conventional Egyptian chronology in academic circles since the 1960s and this document has no note of the place of observation, but it can safely be assumed that it was taken in either a Delta city such as Memphis or Heliopolis, or in Thebes. These two latitudes give dates 20 years apart, the High and Low chronologies, respectively, the length of Thutmose IIIs reign is known to the day thanks to information found in the tomb of the military commander Amenemheb-Mahu. Amenemheb-Mahu records Thutmose IIIs death to his masters 54th regnal year, widely considered a military genius by historians, Thutmose III made 16 raids in 20 years. He was an active expansionist ruler, sometimes called Egypts greatest conqueror or the Napoleon of Egypt and he is recorded to have captured 350 cities during his rule and conquered much of the Near East from the Euphrates to Nubia during seventeen known military campaigns. He was the first Pharaoh after Thutmose I to cross the Euphrates and his campaign records were transcribed onto the walls of the temple of Amun at Karnak, and are now transcribed into Urkunden IV
25.
Ptolemy VI Philometor
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Ptolemy VI Philometor was a king of Egypt from the Ptolemaic period. He reigned from 180 to 145 BC, in 173 BC he married his sister, Cleopatra II, as it was customary for Pharaohs, for the Ptolemaic Greek kings had adopted many customs of the Pharaohs. He had at least four children with her, Ptolemy Eupator, Ptolemy Neos, Cleopatra Thea and Cleopatra III, the outbreak of the Sixth Syrian War in 170 BC saw Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra II becoming co-rulers. A period of reconciliation followed, but the invasion of Egypt in 168 created further unrest. In 164 Ptolemy VI was driven out by his brother and went to Rome to seek support, the Romans partitioned the Ptolemaic land, granting Ptolemy VI Cyprus and Egypt, and Ptolemy VIII Euergetes Cyrenaica. Around 150 BC he recognized Alexander Balas as the Seleucid king by marrying his daughter Cleopatra Thea to him in a ceremony at Ptolemais Akko and he remarried his daughter to Alexanders rival Demetrius II, and went to Antioch, where he crowned himself King of Asia. Alexander was defeated by Ptolemy when he returned from Cilicia with his army and fled to Arabia, for the first time since the death of Alexander the Great, Egypt and Syria were united. However, Ptolemy died three days later, in unknown circumstances, Ptolemy Philometor at LacusCurtius — Ptolemy VI — Ptolemy VI Philometor entry in historical sourcebook by Mahlon H. Smith
26.
Cleopatra II of Egypt
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Cleopatra II was a queen of Ptolemaic Egypt. Cleopatra II was the daughter of Ptolemy V and likely Cleopatra I and she was the sister of Ptolemy VI and Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II Tryphon. She would eventually both of her brothers. Her first marriage was with her brother Ptolemy VI in ca.175 BC and they had at least four children, Ptolemy Eupator, born in 166 BC. Became co-regent with his father for a time, but died at a young age in c.152 BC. Cleopatra Thea born in c.164 BC and she married Alexander Balas, Demetrius II Nicator and Antiochus VII Sidetes. Murdered by her son in c.120 BC, born between 163 and 160 BC. Cleopatra III, born between 160 and 155 BC, married to her uncle Ptolemy VIII. Murdered in 130 BC by Ptolemy VIII Cleopatra II married her brother Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II Physcon in c.145 BC and they had at least one son, Ptolemy Memphites. Born between 144 and 142 BC, murdered by his own father in 130 BC. Ptolemy Memphites may be identical to Ptolemy VII Neos Philopator, following the death of her mother, she was married to her brother Ptolemy VI Philometor in c.175 BC. Cleopatra II, Ptolemy VI and their brother, Ptolemy VIII, were co-rulers of Egypt from c.171 BC to 164 BC, in c.169 BC, Antiochus IV of Syria invaded Egypt. Ptolemy VI Philometor joined Antiochus IV outside Alexandria, Ptolemy VI was crowned in Memphis and ruled with Cleopatra II. In 164 BC Cleopatra II and her husband were temporarily deposed by their brother Ptolemy VIII, Cleopatra II married her other brother, Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II in 145 BC. In 142 BC Ptolemy VIII took Cleopatras younger daughter, his niece, Cleopatra III, Cleopatra II led a rebellion against Ptolemy VIII in 131 BC, and drove him and Cleopatra III out of Egypt. At this time Ptolemy VIII murdered both his stepson Ptolemy and his own son Ptolemy Memphites, Ptolemy VIII is said to have had his son dismembered and his head, hands and feet sent to Cleopatra II in Alexandria as a birthday present. Cleopatra II ruled Egypt from 130 BC to 127 BC when she was forced to flee to Syria, a public reconciliation of Cleopatra and Ptolemy VIII was declared in 124 BC. After this she ruled jointly with her brother and daughter until 116 BC when Ptolemy died, Cleopatra II herself died shortly after
27.
Surgery
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An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical procedure, operation, or simply surgery. In this context, the verb means to perform surgery. The adjective surgical means pertaining to surgery, e. g. surgical instruments or surgical nurse, the patient or subject on which the surgery is performed can be a person or an animal. A surgeon is a person who practices surgery and an assistant is a person who practices surgical assistance. A surgical team is made up of surgeon, surgeons assistant, anesthesia provider, circulating nurse, Surgery usually spans minutes to hours, but it is typically not an ongoing or periodic type of treatment. The term surgery can also refer to the place where surgery is performed, or simply the office of a physician, dentist, Surgery is a technology consisting of a physical intervention on tissues. As a general rule, a procedure is considered surgical when it involves cutting of a patients tissues or closure of a previously sustained wound, surgical procedures are commonly categorized by urgency, type of procedure, body system involved, degree of invasiveness, and special instrumentation. Based on timing, Elective surgery is done to correct a condition, and is carried out at the patients request, subject to the surgeons. A semi-elective surgery is one that must be done to avoid permanent disability or death, emergency surgery is surgery which must be done promptly to save life, limb, or functional capacity. Based on purpose, Exploratory surgery is performed to aid or confirm a diagnosis, therapeutic surgery treats a previously diagnosed condition. Cosmetic surgery is done to improve the appearance of an otherwise normal structure. By type of procedure, Amputation involves cutting off a part, usually a limb or digit. Resection is the removal of all or part of an organ or part of the body. Replantation involves reattaching a severed body part, reconstructive surgery involves reconstruction of an injured, mutilated, or deformed part of the body. Excision is the cutting out or removal of an organ, tissue, transplant surgery is the replacement of an organ or body part by insertion of another from different human into the patient. Removing an organ or body part from a human or animal for use in transplant is also a type of surgery. By body part, When surgery is performed on one system or structure. Examples include cardiac surgery, gastrointestinal surgery, and orthopedic surgery, by contrast, an open surgical procedure such as a laparotomy requires a large incision to access the area of interest
28.
Scalpel
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A scalpel, or lancet, is a small and extremely sharp bladed instrument used for surgery, anatomical dissection, and various arts and crafts. Scalpels may be disposable or re-usable. Re-usable scalpels can have permanently attached blades that can be sharpened or, more commonly, disposable scalpels usually have a plastic handle with an extensible blade and are used once, then the entire instrument is discarded. Scalpel blades are usually packed in sterile pouches but are also offered non-sterile. Double-edged scalpels are referred to as lancets, scalpel blades are usually made of hardened and tempered steel, stainless steel, or high carbon steel, in addition, titanium, ceramic, diamond and even obsidian knives are not uncommon. For example, when performing surgery under MRI guidance, steel blades are unusable, historically, the preferred material for surgical scalpels was silver, on account of its antimicrobial properties. Scalpel blades are also offered by manufacturers with a zirconium nitride-coated edge to improve sharpness. Others manufacture blades that are coated to enhance lubricity during a cut. Alternatives to scalpels in surgical applications include electrocautery and lasers, Surgical scalpels consist of two parts, a blade and a handle. The handles are often reusable, with the blades being replaceable, in medical applications, each blade is only used once. The handle is known as a B. P. handle, named after Charles Russell Bard and Morgan Parker. The handle of medical scalpels come in two basic types, the first is a flat handle used in the #3 and #4 handles. The #7 handle is more like a writing pen, rounded at the front. A #4 handle is larger than a #3, blades are manufactured with a corresponding fitment size so that they fit on only one size handle. The following table of blades is incomplete and some blades listed may work with handles not specified here, also called the dinner knife grip. This grip is best for initial incisions and larger cuts, best used for more accurate cuts with smaller blades and the #7 handle. The scalpel is held with the tips of the first and second fingers, care should be taken not to allow the handle to rest too far along the index finger as this promotes an unstable grip and cramped fingers. Graphical and model-making scalpels tend to have handles, with textured grips
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Curette
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A curette is a surgical instrument designed for scraping or debriding biological tissue or debris in a biopsy, excision, or cleaning procedure. In form, the curette is a hand tool, often similar in shape to a stylus, at the tip of the curette is a small scoop, hook. The verb to curette means to scrape with a curette, some examples of medical use of a curette include, the removal of impacted ear wax. Dilation and curettage of the uterus, a gynecologic procedure, excision of the adenoids by an otolaryngologist. to scrape tartar deposits from tooth enamel with a periodontal curette. Ear pick Curette images from the Waring Historical Library at the Medical University of South Carolina
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Forceps
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Forceps are a handheld, hinged instrument used for grasping and holding objects. Forceps are used when fingers are too large to small objects or when many objects need to be held at one time while the hands are used to perform a task. The term forceps is used almost exclusively within the medical field, outside medicine, people usually refer to forceps as tweezers, tongs, pliers, clips or clamps. Forceps can be used as both the singular and plural form of the word, also, it is not referred to as a pair as one refers to a pair of scissors. Etymologically, the word derives from the Latin forca, meaning a snare or trap, mechanically, forceps employ the principle of the lever to grasp and apply pressure. Surgical forceps are commonly made of carbon steel, which ensures they can withstand repeated sterilization in high-temperature autoclaves. Lower quality steel is used in forceps made for other uses, some forceps, intended to be used once and then discarded, are made of plastic. The invention of surgical forceps is attributed to Stephen Hales, there are two basic types of forceps, non-locking and locking, though these two types come in dozens of specialized forms for various uses. Non-locking forceps also come in two forms, hinged at one end, away from the grasping end and hinged in the middle. Locking forceps are almost always hinged in the middle, though some place the hinge very close to the grasping end. Locking forceps use various means to lock the grasping surfaces in a position to facilitate manipulation or to independently clamp. Thumb forceps are commonly held between the thumb and two or three fingers of one hand, with the top end resting on the first dorsal interosseous muscle at the base of the thumb, spring tension at one end holds the grasping ends apart until pressure is applied. This allows one to quickly and easily grasp small objects or tissue to move and release it or to grasp, thumb forceps can have smooth tips, cross-hatched tips or serrated tips. Common arrangements of teeth are 1×2, 7×7 and 9×9, serrated forceps are used on tissue, counter-intuitively, teeth will damage tissue less than a smooth surface because one can grasp with less overall pressure. Smooth or cross-hatched forceps are used to move dressings, remove sutures, locking forceps, sometimes called clamps, are used to grasp and hold objects or tissue. When they are used to compress an artery to forestall bleeding they are called hemostats, another form of locking forceps is the needle holder, used to guide a suturing needle through tissue. Many locking forceps use finger loops to facilitate handling, the finger loops are usually grasped by the thumb and middle or ring fingers, while the index finger helps guide the instrument. The most common locking mechanism is a series of interlocking teeth located near the finger loops, as the forceps are closed, the teeth engage and keep the instruments grasping surfaces from separating
31.
Scissors
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They consist of a pair of metal blades pivoted so that the sharpened edges slide against each other when the handles opposite to the pivot are closed. Scissors are used for cutting various materials, such as paper, cardboard, metal foil, cloth, rope. A large variety of scissors and shears all exist for specialized purposes, hair-cutting shears and kitchen shears are functionally equivalent to scissors, but the larger implements tend to be called shears. Hair-cutting shears have specific blade angles ideal for cutting hair, using the incorrect scissors to cut hair will result in increased damage or split ends, or both, by breaking the hair. Kitchen shears, also known as scissors, are intended for cutting and trimming foods such as meats. Modern scissors are often designed ergonomically with composite thermoplastic and rubber handles which enable the user to either a power grip or a precision grip. The noun scissors is treated as a noun, and therefore takes a plural verb. Alternatively, it is referred to as a pair of scissors. In American English, a pair is singular and therefore takes a singular verb, in other forms of English, a pair does not take the singular. The word shears is used to similar instruments that are larger in size. Opinions vary geographically as to the size at which scissors become shears and it is most likely that scissors were invented around 1500 BC in ancient Egypt. The earliest known scissors appeared in Mesopotamia 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, spring scissors continued to be used in Europe until the 16th century. They entered common use in not only ancient Rome, but also China, Japan, and Korea, during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, spring scissors were made by heating a bar of iron or steel, then flattening and shaping its ends into blades on an anvil. The center of the bar was heated, bent to form the spring, the Hangzhou Zhang Xiaoquan Company in Hangzhou, China, has been manufacturing scissors since 1663. William Whiteley & Sons Ltd. was producing scissors by 1760, the first trade-mark,332, was granted in 1791. The company is still manufacturing today, and is the oldest company in the West to do so. Pivoted scissors were not manufactured in large numbers until 1761, when Robert Hinchliffe produced the first pair of modern-day scissors made of hardened and polished cast steel. He lived in Cheney Square, London, and was reputed to be the first person who put out a signboard proclaiming himself fine scissor manufacturer, during the 19th century, scissors were hand-forged with elaborately decorated handles
32.
Nilometer
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A nilometer was a structure for measuring the Nile Rivers clarity and water level during the annual flood season. It was a structure that measured how high the flood would be. If it was low, there would be famine, if it was too high, it would be destructive. There was a mark that indicated how high the flood should be if the fields were to get good soil. Between July and November, the reaches of the Nile running through Egypt would burst their banks, when the waters receded, around September or October, they left behind a rich alluvial deposit of exceptionally fertile black silt over the croplands. The akhet, or Season of the Inundation, was one of the three seasons into which the Ancient Egyptians divided their years and it would be difficult to overstate the importance of the annual flood to Egyptian civilization. Records from Pharaonic times indicate that on average, one out of every five saw an inundation that was either over-abundant or fell short of expectations. The ability to predict the volume of the inundation was part of the mystique of the Ancient Egyptian priesthood. The same skill also played a political and administrative role, since the quality of the flood was used to determine the levels of tax to be paid. This is where the nilometer came into play, with monitoring the day-to-day level of the river. The simplest nilometer design is a vertical column submerged in the waters of the river, one that follows this simple design, albeit housed in an elaborate and ornate stone structure, can still be seen on the island of Rhoda in central Cairo. While this nilometer dates only as far back as AD861 and it was built on a site occupied by an earlier specimen which was seen by the Syrian Orthodox patriarch Dionysius of Tel Mahre in 830. The second nilometer design comprises a flight of stairs leading down into the water, the best known example of this kind can be seen on the island of Elephantine in Aswan. The most elaborate design involved a channel or culvert that led from the riverbank – often running for a considerable distance – and then fed a well, tank, or cistern. These nilometer wells were most frequently located within the confines of temples, a particularly fine example, with a deep, cylindrical well and a culvert opening in the surrounding wall, can be seen at the Temple of Kom Ombo to the north of Aswan. While nilometers originated in Pharaonic times, they continued to be used by the civilizations that held sway in Egypt. In the 20th century, the Niles annual inundation was first greatly reduced, while the Aswan High Dams impact on Egypt and its agriculture has been controversial for other, more complex reasons, it has also had the additional effect of rendering the nilometer obsolete. Abbeloos, Jean Baptiste, Lamy, Thomas Joseph, eds
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Diocese
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The word diocese is derived from the Greek term διοίκησις meaning administration. When now used in a sense, it refers to a territorial unit of administration. This structure of governance is known as episcopal polity. The word diocesan means relating or pertaining to a diocese and it can also be used as a noun meaning the bishop who has the principal supervision of a diocese. An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese, an archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or have had importance due to size or historical significance. The archbishop may have authority over any other suffragan bishops. In the Latter Day Saint movement, the bishopric is used to describe the bishop himself. Especially in the Middle Ages, some bishops held political as well as religious authority within their dioceses, in the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated in a larger unit, the diocese. With the adoption of Christianity as the Empires official religion in the 4th century, a formal church hierarchy was set up, parallel to the civil administration, whose areas of responsibility often coincided. With the collapse of the Western Empire in the 5th century, a similar, though less pronounced, development occurred in the East, where the Roman administrative apparatus was largely retained by the Byzantine Empire. In modern times, many dioceses, though later subdivided, have preserved the boundaries of a long-vanished Roman administrative division, modern usage of diocese tends to refer to the sphere of a bishops jurisdiction. As of January 2015, in the Catholic Church there are 2,851 regular dioceses,1 papal see,641 archdioceses and 2,209 dioceses in the world, in the Eastern rites in communion with the Pope, the equivalent unit is called an eparchy. Eastern Orthodoxy calls dioceses metropoleis in the Greek tradition or eparchies in the Slavic tradition, after the Reformation, the Church of England retained the existing diocesan structure which remains throughout the Anglican Communion. The one change is that the areas administered under the Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop of York are properly referred to as provinces and this usage is relatively common in the Anglican Communion. Certain Lutheran denominations such as the Church of Sweden do have individual dioceses similar to Roman Catholics and these dioceses and archdioceses are under the government of a bishop. Other Lutheran bodies and synods that have dioceses and bishops include the Church of Denmark, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Evangelical Church in Germany, rather, it is divided into a middle judicatory. The Lutheran Church-International, based in Springfield, Illinois, presently uses a traditional diocesan structure and its current president is Archbishop Robert W. Hotes. The Church of God in Christ has dioceses throughout the United States, in the COGIC, each state is divided up into at least three dioceses that are all led by a bishop, but some states as many as seven dioceses
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Muslim
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A Muslim is someone who follows or practices Islam, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion. Muslims consider the Quran, their book, to be the verbatim word of God as revealed to the Islamic prophet. They also follow the teachings and practices of Muhammad as recorded in traditional accounts, Muslim is an Arabic word meaning one who submits. Most Muslims will accept anyone who has publicly pronounced Shahadah as a Muslim, the shahadah states, There is no god but the God and Muhammad is the last messenger of the God. The testimony authorized by God in the Quran that can found in Surah 3,18 states, There is no god except God, which in Arabic, is the exact testimony which God Himself utters, as well as the angels and those who possess knowledge utter. The word muslim is the active participle of the verb of which islām is a verbal noun, based on the triliteral S-L-M to be whole. A female adherent is a muslima, the plural form in Arabic is muslimūn or muslimīn, and its feminine equivalent is muslimāt. The Arabic form muslimun is the stem IV participle of the triliteral S-L-M, the ordinary word in English is Muslim. It is sometimes transliterated as Moslem, which is an older spelling, the word Mosalman is a common equivalent for Muslim used in Central Asia. Until at least the mid-1960s, many English-language writers used the term Mohammedans or Mahometans, although such terms were not necessarily intended to be pejorative, Muslims argue that the terms are offensive because they allegedly imply that Muslims worship Muhammad rather than God. Other obsolete terms include Muslimite and Muslimist, musulmán/Mosalmán is a synonym for Muslim and is modified from Arabic. In English it was sometimes spelled Mussulman and has become archaic in usage, the Muslim philosopher Ibn Arabi said, A Muslim is a person who has dedicated his worship exclusively to God. Islam means making ones religion and faith Gods alone. The Quran states that men were Muslims because they submitted to God, preached His message and upheld His values. Thus, in Surah 3,52 of the Quran, Jesus disciples tell him, We believe in God, and you be our witness that we are Muslims. In Muslim belief, before the Quran, God had given the Tawrat to Moses, the Zabur to David and the Injil to Jesus, who are all considered important Muslim prophets. The most populous Muslim-majority country is Indonesia, home to 12. 7% of the worlds Muslims, followed by Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Egypt. About 20% of the worlds Muslims lives in the Middle East and North Africa, Sizable minorities are found in India, China, Russia, Ethiopia. The country with the highest proportion of self-described Muslims as a proportion of its population is Morocco
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Pope John Paul II
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Pope Saint John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, was Pope from 1978 to 2005. He is called by some Catholics Saint John Paul the Great and he was elected by the second Papal conclave of 1978, which was called after Pope John Paul I, who had been elected in August after the death of Pope Paul VI, died after thirty-three days. Cardinal Wojtyła was elected on the day of the conclave. John Paul II is recognised as helping to end Communist rule in his native Poland, John Paul II significantly improved the Catholic Churchs relations with Judaism, Islam, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. He upheld the Churchs teachings on such matters as artificial contraception and the ordination of women and he was one of the most travelled world leaders in history, visiting 129 countries during his pontificate. By the time of his death, he had named most of the College of Cardinals, consecrated or co-consecrated a large number of the worlds bishops, a key goal of his papacy was to transform and reposition the Catholic Church. His wish was to place his Church at the heart of a new alliance that would bring together Jews, Muslims. He was the second longest-serving pope in history after Pope Pius IX. Born in Poland, John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope since the Dutch Pope Adrian VI, John Paul IIs cause for canonisation commenced in 2005 one month after his death with the traditional five-year waiting period waived. A second miracle attributed to John Paul IIs intercession was approved on 2 July 2013, John Paul II was canonised on 27 April 2014, together with Pope John XXIII. On 11 September 2014, Pope Francis added John Paul IIs optional memorial feast day to the worldwide General Roman Calendar of saints, in response to worldwide requests. It is traditional to celebrate saints feast days on the anniversary of their deaths, Karol Józef Wojtyła was born in the Polish town of Wadowice. He was the youngest of three born to Karol Wojtyła, an ethnic Pole, and Emilia Kaczorowska, whose mothers maiden surname was Scholz. Emilia, who was a schoolteacher, died in childbirth in 1929 when Wojtyła was eight years old and his elder sister Olga had died before his birth, but he was close to his brother Edmund, nicknamed Mundek, who was 13 years his senior. Edmunds work as a physician led to his death from scarlet fever. As a boy, Wojtyła was athletic, often playing football as goalkeeper, during his childhood, Wojtyła had contact with Wadowices large Jewish community. School football games were organised between teams of Jews and Catholics, and Wojtyła often played on the Jewish side. I remember that at least a third of my classmates at school in Wadowice were Jews
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Desert climate
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An area that features this climate usually experiences from 25 to 200 mm per year of precipitation and in some years may experience no precipitation at all. Averages may be even less such as in Arica, Chile, there are usually two or three variations of a desert climate, a hot desert climate, a cold desert climate and, sometimes, a mild desert climate. To determine whether a location has a climate, the precipitation threshold is determined. If the areas precipitation is less than half the threshold. Hot desert climates are found under the subtropical ridge where there is largely unbroken sunshine for the whole year due to the stable descending air. These areas are located between 30 degrees south and 30 degrees north latitude, under the subtropical latitudes called the horse latitudes, hot desert climates are generally hot, sunny and dry year-round. Hot desert climates also reach similar latitudes in the Middle East, North Africa, hot desert climates usually feature hot, sometimes exceptionally hot, periods of the year. In many locations featuring a hot climate, maximum temperatures of over 40 °C are not uncommon in summer. The world absolute heat records, over 50 °C, are generally in the hot deserts, some desert locations consistently experience very high temperatures all year long, even during wintertime. These locations feature some of the highest annual average temperatures recorded on Earth and this last feature is seen in some parts of deserts of Africa and Arabia. During colder periods of the year, night-time temperatures can drop to freezing or below due to the radiation loss under the clear skies. However, very rarely do temperatures drop far below freezing, only one region in Europe has a hot desert climate, Province of Almeria, Province of Alicante and Province of Murcia in South Eastern Spain. Cold desert climates usually feature warm and dry summers, though summers typically are not quite as hot as summers in hot desert climates, unlike hot desert climates, cold desert climates tend to feature cold winters with rare snow. Cold desert climates are found at higher altitudes than hot desert climates. A cold desert climate is found in temperate zones, usually in the rain shadow of high mountains. A classic example of this is the Patagonian Desert in Argentina bounded by the Andes to its west, in the case of Central Asia, mountains restrict precipitation from the monsoon. The Gobi desert in Mongolia is an example of this. Though hot in summer, it shares the cold winters of the rest of Central Asia
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Precipitation
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In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, graupel, Precipitation occurs when a portion of the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor, so that the water condenses and precipitates. Thus, fog and mist are not precipitation but suspensions, because the vapor does not condense sufficiently to precipitate. Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated, Precipitation forms as smaller droplets coalesce via collision with other rain drops or ice crystals within a cloud. Short, intense periods of rain in scattered locations are called showers, moisture that is lifted or otherwise forced to rise over a layer of sub-freezing air at the surface may be condensed into clouds and rain. This process is active when freezing rain is occurring. A stationary front is often present near the area of freezing rain, provided necessary and sufficient atmospheric moisture content, the moisture within the rising air will condense into clouds, namely stratus and cumulonimbus. Eventually, the droplets will grow large enough to form raindrops. Lake-effect snowfall can be locally heavy, thundersnow is possible within a cyclones comma head and within lake effect precipitation bands. In mountainous areas, heavy precipitation is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation, on the leeward side of mountains, desert climates can exist due to the dry air caused by compressional heating. The movement of the trough, or intertropical convergence zone. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 cubic kilometres of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 cubic kilometres of it over the oceans and 107,000 cubic kilometres over land. Given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres, Climate classification systems such as the Köppen climate classification system use average annual rainfall to help differentiate between differing climate regimes. Precipitation may occur on celestial bodies, e. g. when it gets cold, Mars has precipitation which most likely takes the form of frost. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 km3 of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 km3 of it over the oceans, given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres. Mechanisms of producing precipitation include convective, stratiform, and orographic rainfall, Precipitation can be divided into three categories, based on whether it falls as liquid water, liquid water that freezes on contact with the surface, or ice
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Sugarcane
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It has stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in the sugar sucrose, which accumulates in the stalk internodes. The plant is two to six meters tall, all sugar cane species interbreed and the major commercial cultivars are complex hybrids. Sugarcane belongs to the grass family Poaceae, an important seed plant family that includes maize, wheat, rice, and sorghum. Sucrose, extracted and purified in specialized factories, is used as raw material in the food industry or is fermented to produce ethanol. Ethanol is produced on a large scale by the Brazilian sugarcane industry, sugarcane is the worlds largest crop by production quantity. In 2012, The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates it was cultivated on about 26×106 hectares, in more than 90 countries, Brazil was the largest producer of sugar cane in the world. The next five major producers, in decreasing amounts of production, were India, China, Thailand, Pakistan, the world demand for sugar is the primary driver of sugarcane agriculture. Cane accounts for 80% of sugar produced, most of the rest is made from sugar beets, sugarcane predominantly grows in the tropical and subtropical regions. Other than sugar, products derived from sugarcane include falernum, molasses, rum, cachaça, bagasse, in some regions, people use sugarcane reeds to make pens, mats, screens, and thatch. The young, unexpanded inflorescence of tebu telor is eaten raw, steamed, or toasted, the Persians, followed by the Greeks, discovered the famous reeds that produce honey without bees in India between the 6th and 4th centuries BC. They adopted and then spread sugarcane agriculture, merchants began to trade in sugar from India, which was considered a luxury and an expensive spice. Sugarcane is a tropical, perennial grass that forms lateral shoots at the base to produce multiple stems, the stems grow into cane stalk, which when mature constitutes around 75% of the entire plant. A mature stalk is composed of 11–16% fiber, 12–16% soluble sugars, 2–3% nonsugars. A sugarcane crop is sensitive to the climate, soil type, irrigation, fertilizers, insects, disease control, varieties, the average yield of cane stalk is 60–70 tonnes per hectare per year. However, this figure can vary between 30 and 180 tonnes per hectare depending on knowledge and crop management approach used in sugarcane cultivation, sugarcane is a cash crop, but it is also used as livestock fodder. Sugarcane is indigenous to tropical South and Southeast Asia, different species likely originated in different locations, with Saccharum barberi originating in India and S. edule and S. officinarum in New Guinea. It is theorized that sugarcane was first domesticated as a crop in New Guinea around 6000 BC, New Guinean farmers and other early cultivators of sugarcane chewed the plant for its sweet juice. The exact date of the first cane sugar production is unclear, the earliest evidence of sugar production comes from ancient Sanskrit and Pali texts
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Cereal
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A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain, composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grains are grown in quantities and provide more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop and are therefore staple crops. Edible grains from plant families, such as buckwheat, quinoa. In their natural form, cereals are a source of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, oils. When refined by the removal of the bran and germ, the endosperm is mostly carbohydrate. In some developing nations, grain in the form of rice, wheat, millet, in developed nations, cereal consumption is moderate and varied but still substantial. The word cereal is derived from Ceres, the Roman goddess of harvest, agriculture allowed for the support of an increased population, leading to larger societies and eventually the development of cities. It also created the need for organization of political power, as decisions had to be made regarding labor and harvest allocation and access rights to water. Agriculture bred immobility, as populations settled down for long periods of time, early Neolithic villages show evidence of the development of processing grain. The Levant is the ancient home of the ancestors of wheat, barley and peas, there is evidence of the cultivation of figs in the Jordan Valley as long as 11,300 years ago, and cereal production in Syria approximately 9,000 years ago. During the same period, farmers in China began to farm rice and millet, using man-made floods, fiber crops were domesticated as early as food crops, with China domesticating hemp, cotton being developed independently in Africa and South America, and Western Asia domesticating flax. The first cereal grains were domesticated by early primitive humans, about 8,000 years ago, they were domesticated by ancient farming communities in the Fertile Crescent region. Emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley were three of the so-called Neolithic founder crops in the development of agriculture, around the same time, millets and rices were starting to become domesticated in East Asia. Sorghum and millets were also being domesticated in sub-Saharan West Africa, while each individual species has its own peculiarities, the cultivation of all cereal crops is similar. Most are annual plants, consequently one planting yields one harvest, wheat, rye, triticale, oats, barley, and spelt are the cool-season cereals. These are hardy plants grow well in moderate weather and cease to grow in hot weather. The warm-season cereals are tender and prefer hot weather, barley and rye are the hardiest cereals, able to overwinter in the subarctic and Siberia. Many cool-season cereals are grown in the tropics, however, some are only grown in cooler highlands, where it may be possible to grow multiple crops per year
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Kom Ombo". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.
