Abydos Dynasty
The Abydos Dynasty is hypothesized to have been a short-lived local dynasty ruling over parts of Middle and Upper Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period in Ancient Egypt. The Abydos Dynasty would have been contemporaneous with the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Dynasties, from 1650 to 1600 BC, it would have been based in or around Abydos and its royal necropolis might have been located at the foot of the Mountain of Anubis, a hill resembling a pyramid in the Abydene desert, close to a rock-cut tomb built for pharaoh Senusret III. The existence of an Abydos Dynasty was first proposed by Detlef Franke and elaborated on by Kim Ryholt in 1997. Ryholt observes that two attested kings of this period and Pantjeny, bore names in connection with Abydos: Wepwawet being an important Abydene god and Thinis being a prominent city, located a few miles north of Abydos. Additionally, Wepwawetemsaf and Snaaib, another king of the period, are each known from single stelae discovered in Abydos, which could be a sign that this was their seat of power.
Ryholt argues that the existence of an Abydos Dynasty would explain 16 entries of the Turin canon at the end of the 16th Dynasty. The Abydos Dynasty may have come into existence in the time lapse between the fall of the 13th Dynasty with the conquest of Memphis by the Hyksos and the southward progression of the Hyksos to Thebes; the existence of the dynasty may have been vindicated in January 2014, when the tomb of the unknown pharaoh Senebkay was discovered in the southern part of Abydos, an area called "Anubis Mountain" in ancient times. If Senebkay indeed belongs to the Abydos Dynasty, his tomb might signal the royal necropolis of this dynasty, adjacent to the tombs of the Middle Kingdom rulers. Since excavations have revealed no less than eight anonymous royal tombs dating to the Second Intermediate Period similar in style and size to Senebkay's burial, as well as two tombs pyramids, dating to the mid 13th-Dynasty, S9 and S10, which may belong to Neferhotep I and his brother Sobekhotep IV.
The existence of an Abydos Dynasty is not agreed by all scholars. For example, Marcel Marėe observes that a workshop operating from Abydos and producing stelae for two kings associated with the Abydos Dynasty and Wepwawetemsaf likely produced the stela of Rahotep of the 17th Dynasty, thus if the Abydos Dynasty did exist, this workshop would have been producing stelae for two enemy dynasties, something which he judges to be rather unlikely. It remains unclear, whether these two dynasties coexisted at any one time: for instance, in Ryholt's reconstruction of the Second Intermediate Period, they are separated by c. 20 years. Countering the argument in favor of the Abydos Dynasty based on the tomb of Senebkay, Alexander Ilin-Tomich argues that certain Middle Kingdom pharaohs, such as Senusret III and Sobekhotep IV have their tombs at Abydos, yet nobody places these kings into an Abydos-based dynasty. At the opposite, he wonders. If the Abydos Dynasty was indeed a dynasty, the seat of its power would have been either Abydos or Thinis.
A possible graffito of Wepwawetemsaf was discovered by Karl Richard Lepsius in the tomb BH2 of the 12th Dynasty nomarch Amenemhat at Beni Hasan, about 250 km North of Abydos, in Middle Egypt. If the attribution of this graffito is correct and if Wepwawetemsaf did belong to the Abydos Dynasty its territory might have extended that far north. Since the dynasty was contemporaneous with the 16th Dynasty, the territory under Abydene control could not have extended farther than Hu, 50 km south of Abydos; the following 16 entries of the Turin canon are attributed to the Abydos Dynasty by Kim Ryholt: Some of the above rulers may identify with the four attested kings tentatively attributable to the Abydos Dynasty, given here without regard for their chronological order
Fourth Dynasty of Egypt
The Fourth Dynasty of ancient Egypt is characterized as a "golden age" of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Dynasty IV lasted from c. 2613 to 2494 BC. It was a time of peace and prosperity as well as one during which trade with other countries is documented; the Fourth Dynasty heralded the height of the pyramid-building age. The relative peace of the Third Dynasty allowed the Dynasty IV rulers the leisure to explore more artistic and cultural pursuits. King Sneferu's building experiments led to the evolution from the mastaba styled step pyramids to the smooth sided “true” pyramids, such as those on the Giza Plateau. No other period in Egypt's history equaled Dynasty IV's architectural accomplishments; each of the rulers of this dynasty commissioned at least one pyramid to serve as a cenotaph. It was the second of four dynasties that made up the "Old Kingdom", it has been acknowledged as the most remarkable of all in that isolated period of Egyptian history. It was part of the golden age of Egyptian culture and took place between 2613 and 2494 B.
C. King Sneferu, the first king of the fourth dynasty, held territory in ancient Libya to the Sinai Peninsula, Nubia in the south, it was a successful period and this era is known for its advancement and concentrated government, as seen in the organized building of pyramids and other monuments. Our understanding of the Old Kingdom comes from these structures and objects discovered in the desert cemeteries of Giza, it is not easy to measure the extent of change or explain the causes since there are not many records from the time. They did not have primitive customs or barbarous habits such as in other countries. An example of this would be. Religion and knowledge were where their aspirations lay, they had little aspiration for war and conquest, they were domestic, fond of art, social in their manners. Fourth Dynasty timeline King Sneferu, lauded as "Bringer of Beauty", "Master of All Justice", "Ruler of Lower and Upper Nile", was the first pharaoh of the fourth dynasty and single-handedly marked the climax of the Old Kingdom.
He descended from a family in the Middle Kingdom, that lived near the city Hermopolis and most he ascended to the throne by marrying a royal heiress. There still is debate as to who his father was, the credit being given to Huni, but this cannot be confirmed due to the break in dynasties, his mother, Meresanhk I was either a lesser wife or concubine of Huni which, if it was the latter, would technically not qualify him as having royal blood. Egypt in the third Millennium BC was, by all accounts, a land of plenty. Elites ate fattened ducks and geese and wore fine white linens—when they wore clothes at all. Snefru had a high opinion of himself, proving so when he floated in a boat down the Nile covered only with fishnets; until his reign, an Egyptian king was thought to be a worldly incarnation of Horus, obtaining total deification in death. Snefru was the first king proclaim that he was the embodiment of another sun deity. Khufu, would pursue his father's path, taking the name, Son of the Sun God.
Egypt, in general, was ruled by two schools of legal authority and traditional authority. Legal authority constituted the king governing, not the people directly, but viziers and nomarches, all posted at different positions. Snefru made use of this by having several posts for trade, military practices, slaveholders. Traditional authority was. At the heart of it, the fourth dynasty Egyptian government became organized so that only the king could direct traditional authority; the Bent Pyramid was Sneferu's first attempt at building a perfect structure, but it slopes and bends to a lower angle, giving the structure a squished look. His Red Pyramid is considered the first true pyramid and earned its name from the reddish tint in the limestone used; the Red Pyramid was considered the first pyramid 150 years after the structures built by King Djoser. The Red Pyramid was the first to be given a solid foundation so that it was stable enough for a taller building, he is said to be responsible for a series of pyramids built in Seila.
He commissioned a total of three pyramids. Although he did not construct any of the pyramids at Giza, he is known as the king who moved the most stone and brick. A lot of Sneferu's political expeditions were to other countries to secure two things: a substantial labor force and access to a large store of materials, he traveled to Libya for these things. His incursions in these areas allowed Sneferu to secure a large labor force, so large, in fact, that it caused huge devastation to the raided countries, he needed cattle and other food sources to provide to the people building his pyramids. By the end of his military efforts, he managed to capture 11,000 prisoners and 13,100 heads of cattle. Khufu, Sneferu's successor—though it is unclear whether he was the biological son of Sneferu—was a widely-known king, he is still known well in present-day media, being featured in movies and television shows. His fame stems from his pyramid on the northeastern plateau at Giza, his mortuary temple was built on the northern end of the pyramid, no longer accessible due to ravages by grave robbers.
Only three-dimensional reliefs have been recovered and have lasted into modern day, including many limestone busts and clay figurines. Khufu's activities in and out of Egypt are not well documented and was romanticized by the Ancient Greeks; these Greeks felt that Khufu was a wicked man who offended the deities an
Umayyad Caliphate
The Umayyad Caliphate spelt Omayyad, was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty; the third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, was a member of the Umayyad clan. The family established dynastic, hereditary rule with Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, long-time governor of Syria, who became the sixth Caliph after the end of the First Muslim Civil War in 661. After Mu'awiyah's death in 680, conflicts over the succession resulted in a Second Civil War and power fell into the hands of Marwan I from another branch of the clan. Syria remained the Umayyads' main power base thereafter, Damascus was their capital; the Umayyads continued the Muslim conquests, incorporating the Transoxiana, the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula into the Muslim world. At its greatest extent, the Umayyad Caliphate covered 11,100,000 km2 and 33 million people, making it one of the largest empires in history in both area and proportion of the world's population.
The dynasty was overthrown by a rebellion led by the Abbasids in 750. Survivors of the dynasty established themselves in Cordoba in the form of an Emirate and a Caliphate, lasting until 1031; the Umayyad Caliphs were considered too secular by some of their Muslim subjects. Christians, who still constituted a majority of the Caliphate's population, Jews were allowed to practice their own religion but had to pay a head tax from which Muslims were exempt. There was, the Muslim-only zakat tax, earmarked explicitly for various welfare progammes. Muawiya's wife Maysum was a Christian. Relations between the caliphate's Muslim and Christian subjects were stable in this time; the Umayyads were involved in frequent battles with the Christian Byzantines without being concerned with protecting themselves in Syria, which had remained Christian like many other parts of the empire. Prominent positions were held by Christians, some of whom belonged to families that had served in Byzantine governments; the employment of Christians was part of a broader policy of religious accommodation, necessitated by the presence of large Christian populations in the conquered provinces, as in Syria.
This policy boosted Muawiya's popularity and solidified Syria as his power base. According to tradition, the Umayyad family and Muhammad both descended from a common ancestor, Abd Manaf ibn Qusai, they came from the city of Mecca in the Hijaz. Muhammad descended from Abd Manāf via his son Hashim, while the Umayyads descended from Abd Manaf via a different son, Abd-Shams, whose son was Umayya; the two families are therefore considered to be different clans of the same tribe. While the Umayyads felt deep animosity towards the Hashimites before Muhammad, their animosity deepened after the Battle of Badr of 624; the battle saw. This fueled the opposition of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, the grandson of Umayya, to Muhammad, his family, Islam as a whole. Abu Sufyan sought to exterminate the adherents of the new religion by waging another battle against the Medina-based Muslims only a year after the Battle of Badr, he did this to avenge the defeat at Badr. Scholars regard the Battle of Uhud as the first defeat for the Muslims, since they incurred greater losses than the Meccans.
After the battle, Abu Sufyan's wife Hind, the daughter of Utba ibn Rabi'ah, is reported to have cut open the corpse of Hamza, taking out his liver which she attempted to eat. In 629, within five years of the defeat in the Battle of Uhud, Muhammad took control of Mecca and announced a general amnesty for all. Abu Sufyan and his wife Hind embraced Islam on the eve of the conquest of Mecca; the Umayyad's ascendancy began when Uthman ibn Affan, an early companion, second cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad became the third Caliph. Uthman placed some members of his clan at positions of power. Most notably, he appointed his first cousin, Marwan ibn al-Hakam, as his top advisor, which created a stir among the Hashimite companions of Muhammad, as Marwan had been permanently exiled from Medina by Muhammad. Uthman appointed his half-brother, Walid ibn Uqba, whom Hashimites accused of leading prayer while under the influence of alcohol, governor of Kufa and appointed his foster-brother Abdullah ibn Saad as the Governor of Egypt, replacing Amr ibn al-As.
Most notably, Uthman consolidated Muawiyah's governorship of Syria by granting him control over a larger area. Muawiyah proved a successful governor, he built up a loyal and disciplined army composed of Syrian Arabs and befriended Amr ibn al-As, the ousted governor of Egypt. In 639 Muawiyah was appointed as the governor of Syria after the previous governor Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah died in a plague along with 25,000 other people. In 649 Muawiyah set up a navy manned by Monophysite Christian and Jacobite Syrian Christian sailors and Muslim troops, who defeated the Byzantine navy at the Battle of the Masts in 655, opening up the Mediterranean. Uthman's rule saw the relaxing of restrictions instituted by the second Caliph Umar ibn Al-Khatt
History of Egypt under the Muhammad Ali dynasty
The history of Egypt under the Muhammad Ali dynasty spanned the period of Ottoman Egypt, the Khedivate of Egypt under British patronage, the nominally independent Sultanate of Egypt and Kingdom of Egypt, ending with the Revolution of 1952 and the formation of the Republic of Egypt. The process of Muhammad Ali's seizure of power was a long three way civil war between the Ottoman Turks, Egyptian Mamluks, Albanian mercenaries, it lasted from 1803 to 1807 with the Albanian Muhammad Ali Pasha taking control of Egypt in 1805, when the Ottoman Sultan acknowledged his position. Thereafter, Muhammad Ali was the undisputed master of Egypt, his efforts henceforth were directed to the maintenance of his practical independence. Ottoman-Saudi war in 1811–18 was fought between Egypt under the reign of Muhammad Ali and the Wahabbis of Najd who had conquered Hejaz from the Ottomans; when Wahabis captured Mecca in 1802, the Ottoman sultan ordered Muhammad Ali of Egypt to start moving against Wahabbis to re-conquer Mecca and return the honour of the Ottoman Empire.
Acknowledging the sovereignty of the Ottoman Sultan, at the commands of the Ottoman Porte, in 1811 Muhammad Ali dispatched an army of 20,000 men under the command of his son Tusun, a youth of sixteen, against the Saudis in the Ottoman–Saudi War. After a successful advance this force met with a serious repulse at the Battle of Al-Safra, retreated to Yanbu. In the end of the year Tusun, having received reinforcements, again assumed the offensive and captured Medina after a prolonged siege, he next took Mecca, defeating the Saudi beyond the latter and capturing their general. But some mishaps followed, Muhammad Ali, who had determined to conduct the war in person, left Egypt in the summer of 1813—leaving his other son Ibrahim in charge of the country, he encountered serious obstacles in Arabia, predominantly stemming from the nature of the country and the harassing mode of warfare adopted by his adversaries, but on the whole his forces proved superior to those of the enemy. He deposed and exiled the Sharif of Mecca and after the death of the Saudi leader Saud he concluded a treaty with Saud's son and successor, Abdullah I in 1815.
Following reports that the Turks, whose cause he was upholding in Arabia, were treacherously planning an invasion of Egypt, hearing of the escape of Napoleon from Elba and fearing danger to Egypt from France or Britain, Muhammad Ali returned to Cairo by way of Kosseir and Kena, reaching the capital on the day of the Battle of Waterloo. Tusun returned to Egypt on hearing of the military revolt at Cairo, but died in 1816 at the early age of twenty. Muhammad Ali, dissatisfied with the treaty concluded with the Saudis, with the non-fulfillment of certain of its clauses, determined to send another army to Arabia, to include in it the soldiers who had proved unruly; this expedition, under his eldest son Ibrahim Pasha, left in the autumn of 1816. The war was arduous but in 1818 Ibrahim captured the Saudi capital of Diriyah. Abdullah I, their chief, was made prisoner and with his treasurer and secretary was sent to Istanbul, where, in spite of Ibrahim's promise of safety and of Muhammad Ali's intercession in their favor, they were put to death.
At the close of the year 1819 Ibrahim returned having subdued all opposition in Arabia. While the process had begun in 1808, Muhammad Ali's representative at Cairo had completed the confiscation of all the lands belonging to private individuals, while he was absent in Arabia; the former owners were forced to accept inadequate pensions instead. By this revolutionary method of land nationalization Muhammad Ali became proprietor of nearly all the soil of Egypt. During Ibrahim's engagement in the second Arabian campaign, the pasha turned his attention to further strengthening the Egyptian economy, his control over it, he created state monopolies for the chief products of the country, created a number of factories. In 1819 he began digging the new Mahmoudiyah Canal to Alexandria, named after the reigning Sultan of Turkey; the old canal had long fallen into decay, the necessity of providing a safe channel between Alexandria and the Nile was much felt. The conclusion of the commercial Treaty of Balta Liman in 1838 between Turkey and Britain, negotiated by Sir Henry Bulwer, struck the death knell to the system of monopolies, though its application regarding Egypt was delayed for some years, included foreign intervention.
Another notable addition to the economic progress of the country was the development of cotton cultivation in the Nile Delta starting in 1822. The cotton seed for the new crop had been brought from the Sudan by Maho Bey, with the organization of the new irrigation and industry, Muhammad Ali was able to extract considerable revenue in a few years time. Other domestic efforts were made to promote the study of medicine. Muhammad Ali showed much favor, to European merchants, on whom he was dependent for the sale of his monopoly exports, under his influence the port of Alexandria again rose into importance, it was under Muhammad Ali's encouragement that the overland transit of goods from Europe to India via Egypt was resumed. The Pasha attempted to reorganize his troops along European lines, but this led to a formidable mutiny in Cairo. Muhammad Ali's life was endangered, he sought refuge by night in the citadel, while the soldiers committed many acts of plunder; the effects of the revolt were reduced by gifts to the insurgent's leaders.
The conscription portion of the Nizam-ı Cedid (New
Old Kingdom of Egypt
In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning c. 2686–2181 BC. It is known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid builders of the Fourth Dynasty—King Sneferu perfected the art of pyramid-building and the pyramids of Giza were constructed under the kings Khufu and Menkaure. Egypt attained its first sustained peak of civilization—the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley; the term itself was coined by 18th-century historians, the distinction between the Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom is not one which would have been recognized by Ancient Egyptians. Not only was the last king of the Early Dynastic Period related to the first two kings of the Old Kingdom, but the "capital"—the royal residence—remained at Ineb-Hedg, the Ancient Egyptian name for Memphis; the basic justification for a separation between the two periods is the revolutionary change in architecture accompanied by the effects on Egyptian society and economy of large-scale building projects.
The Old Kingdom is most regarded as the period from the Third Dynasty through the Sixth Dynasty. Information from the Fourth through Sixth Dynasties of Egypt is scarce, historians regard the history of the era as "written in stone" and architectural in that it is through the monuments and their inscriptions that scholars have been able to construct a history. Egyptologists include the Memphite Seventh and Eighth Dynasties in the Old Kingdom as a continuation of the administration centralized at Memphis. While the Old Kingdom was a period of internal security and prosperity, it was followed by a period of disunity and relative cultural decline referred to by Egyptologists as the First Intermediate Period. During the Old Kingdom, the king of Egypt became a living god who ruled and could demand the services and wealth of his subjects. Under King Djoser, the first king of the Third Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, the royal capital of Egypt was moved to Memphis, where Djoser established his court. A new era of building was initiated at Saqqara under his reign.
King Djoser's architect, Imhotep, is credited with the development of building with stone and with the conception of the new architectural form—the step pyramid. The Old Kingdom is best known for the large number of pyramids constructed at this time as burial places for Egypt's kings; the first King of the Old Kingdom was Djoser of the Third Dynasty, who ordered the construction of a pyramid in Memphis' necropolis, Saqqara. An important person during the reign of Djoser was his vizier, Imhotep, it was in this era that independent ancient Egyptian states became known as nomes, under the rule of the king. The former rulers were forced to assume the role of governors or otherwise work in tax collection. Egyptians in this era worshiped their Pharaoh as a god, believing that he ensured the annual flooding of the Nile, necessary for their crops. Egyptian views on the nature of time during this period held that the universe worked in cycles, the Pharaoh on earth worked to ensure the stability of those cycles.
They perceived themselves as a specially selected people. The Old Kingdom and its royal power reached a zenith under the Fourth Dynasty, which began with Sneferu. After Djoser, Pharaoh Snefru was the next great pyramid builder. Snefru commissioned the building of three pyramids; the first is called the Meidum pyramid, named for its location in Egypt. Snefru abandoned it; the Meidum pyramid was the first to have an above-ground burial chamber. Using more stones than any other Pharaoh, he built the three pyramids: a now collapsed pyramid in Meidum, the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur, the Red Pyramid, at North Dahshur. However, the full development of the pyramid style of building was reached not at Saqqara, but during the building of'The Great Pyramids' at Giza. Sneferu was succeeded by his son, who built the Great Pyramid of Giza. After Khufu's death, his sons Djedefra and Khafra may have quarrelled; the latter built the Sphinx in Giza. Recent reexamination of evidence has led Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev to propose that the Sphinx had been built by Djedefra as a monument to his father Khufu.
Alternatively, the Sphinx has been proposed to Khufu himself. There were military expeditions into Canaan and Nubia, with Egyptian influence reaching up the Nile into what is today the Sudan; the kings of the Fourth Dynasty were king Menkaure, who built the smallest pyramid in Giza and Djedefptah. The Fifth Dynasty began with Userkaf and was marked by the growing importance of the cult of sun god Ra. Fewer efforts were devoted to the construction of pyramid complexes than during the Fourth Dynasty and more to the construction of sun temples in Abusir. Userkaf was succeeded by his son Sahure. Sahure was in turn succeeded by Neferirkare Kakai, Sahure's son. Neferirkare introduced the prenomen in the royal titulary, he was followed by two short-lived kings, his son Neferefre and Shepseskare, the latter of uncertain parentage. Shepseskare may have been deposed by Neferefre's brother Nyuserre Ini, a long lived pharaoh who built extensively in Abusir and rest
History of Egypt under the British
The history of Egypt under the British lasts from 1882, when it was occupied by British forces during the Anglo-Egyptian War, until 1956, when the last British forces withdrew in accordance with the Anglo-Egyptian agreement of 1954 after the Suez Crisis. The first period of British rule is called the "veiled protectorate". During this time the Khedivate of Egypt remained an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire, the British occupation had no legal basis but constituted a de facto protectorate over the country; this state of affairs lasted until the Ottoman Empire joined the First World War on the side of the Central Powers in November 1914 and Britain unilaterally declared a protectorate over Egypt. The ruling khedive was deposed and his successor, Hussein Kamel, compelled to declare himself Sultan of Egypt independent of the Ottomans in December 1914; the formal protectorate over Egypt did not long outlast the war. It was brought to an end by the Unilateral Declaration of Egyptian Independence on 28 February 1922.
Shortly afterwards, Sultan Fuad I declared himself King of Egypt, but the British occupation continued, in accordance with several reserve clauses in the declaration of independence. The situation was normalised in the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936, which granted Britain the right to station troops in Egypt for the defence of the Suez Canal, its link with the Indian Empire. Britain continued to control the training of the Egyptian Army. During the Second World War, Egypt came under attack from Italian Libya on account of the British presence there, although Egypt itself remained neutral until late in the war. After the war Egypt sought to modify the treaty, but it was abrogated in its entirety by an anti-British government in October 1951. After the 1952 coup d'état, the British agreed to withdraw their troops and by June 1956 had done so. Britain went to war against Egypt over the Suez Canal in late 1956, but with insufficient international support was forced to back down. Throughout the 19th century, the ruling dynasty of Egypt had spent vast sums of money on infrastructural development of Egypt.
However, in keeping with its own military and foreign origin, the dynasty's economic development was wholly oriented toward military dual use goals. Despite vast sums of European and other foreign capital, actual economic production and resulting revenues was insufficient toward repaying the loans; the country teetered toward economic dissolution and implosion. In turn and foreign finances took control of the treasury of Egypt, forgave debt in return for taking control of the Suez Canal, reoriented economic development toward capital gain. However, by 1882 Islamic and Arabic Nationalist opposition to European influence and settlement in the Middle East led to growing tension amongst notable natives in Egypt which as now was the most powerful and influential of Arab countries; the most dangerous opposition during this period was coming from the Egyptian army which saw the reorientation of economic development away from their control as a threat to their privileges. A large military demonstration in September 1881 forced the Khedive Tewfiq to dismiss his Prime Minister and rule by decree.
Many of the Europeans retreated to specially designed quarters suited for defence or European settled cities such as Alexandria. In April 1882 France and Great Britain sent warships to Alexandria to bolster the Khedive amidst a turbulent climate and protect European lives and property. In turn, Egyptian nationalists spread fear of invasion throughout the country to bolster Islamic and Arabian revolutionary action. Tawfiq moved to Alexandria for fear of his own safety as army officers led by Ahmed Urabi began to take control of the government. By June, Egypt was in the hands of nationalists opposed to European domination of the country and the new revolutionary government began nationalizing all assets in Egypt. Anti-European violence broke out in Alexandria. Fearing the intervention of outside powers or the seizure of the canal by the Egyptians, in conjunction with an Islamic revolution in the Empire of India, the British led an Anglo-Indian expeditionary force at both ends of the Suez Canal in August 1882.
French forces landed in Alexandria and the northern end of the canal. Both manoeuvred to meet the Egyptian army; the combined Anglo-French-Indian army defeated the Egyptian Army at Tel El Kebir in September and took control of the country putting Tawfiq back in control. The purpose of the invasion had been to restore political stability to Egypt under a government of the Khedive and international controls which were in place to streamline Egyptian financing since 1876, it is unlikely. Cromer took the view that political stability needed financial stability, embarked on a programme of long term investment in Egypt's agricultural revenue sources, largest of which, cotton. To accomplish this, Cromer worked to improve the Nile's irrigation system through multiple large projects such as, the construction of the Aswan Dam, the Nile Barrage, an increase of canals available to agricultural focused lands. In 1906 the Denshawai Incident provoked a questioning of British rule in Egypt; this was exploited in turn by the German Empire which began re-organizing and expanding anti-British revolutionary nationalist movements.
For the first quarter of the 20th century, Britain's main goal in Egypt was penetrating these groups, neutralizing them, attempting to f
Anno Domini
The terms anno Domini and before Christ are used to label or number years in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The term anno Domini is Medieval Latin and means "in the year of the Lord", but is presented using "our Lord" instead of "the Lord", taken from the full original phrase "anno Domini nostri Jesu Christi", which translates to "in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ"; this calendar era is based on the traditionally reckoned year of the conception or birth of Jesus of Nazareth, with AD counting years from the start of this epoch, BC denoting years before the start of the era. There is no year zero in this scheme, so the year AD 1 follows the year 1 BC; this dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus of Scythia Minor, but was not used until after 800. The Gregorian calendar is the most used calendar in the world today. For decades, it has been the unofficial global standard, adopted in the pragmatic interests of international communication and commercial integration, recognized by international institutions such as the United Nations.
Traditionally, English followed Latin usage by placing the "AD" abbreviation before the year number. However, BC is placed after the year number, which preserves syntactic order; the abbreviation is widely used after the number of a century or millennium, as in "fourth century AD" or "second millennium AD". Because BC is the English abbreviation for Before Christ, it is sometimes incorrectly concluded that AD means After Death, i.e. after the death of Jesus. However, this would mean that the approximate 33 years associated with the life of Jesus would neither be included in the BC nor the AD time scales. Terminology, viewed by some as being more neutral and inclusive of non-Christian people is to call this the Current or Common Era, with the preceding years referred to as Before the Common or Current Era. Astronomical year numbering and ISO 8601 avoid words or abbreviations related to Christianity, but use the same numbers for AD years; the Anno Domini dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus to enumerate the years in his Easter table.
His system was to replace the Diocletian era, used in an old Easter table because he did not wish to continue the memory of a tyrant who persecuted Christians. The last year of the old table, Diocletian 247, was followed by the first year of his table, AD 532; when he devised his table, Julian calendar years were identified by naming the consuls who held office that year—he himself stated that the "present year" was "the consulship of Probus Junior", 525 years "since the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ". Thus Dionysius implied that Jesus' incarnation occurred 525 years earlier, without stating the specific year during which his birth or conception occurred. "However, nowhere in his exposition of his table does Dionysius relate his epoch to any other dating system, whether consulate, year of the world, or regnal year of Augustus. Among the sources of confusion are: In modern times, incarnation is synonymous with the conception, but some ancient writers, such as Bede, considered incarnation to be synonymous with the Nativity.
The civil or consular year began on 1 January but the Diocletian year began on 29 August. There were inaccuracies in the lists of consuls. There were confused summations of emperors' regnal years, it is not known. Two major theories are that Dionysius based his calculation on the Gospel of Luke, which states that Jesus was "about thirty years old" shortly after "the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar", hence subtracted thirty years from that date, or that Dionysius counted back 532 years from the first year of his new table, it has been speculated by Georges Declercq that Dionysius' desire to replace Diocletian years with a calendar based on the incarnation of Christ was intended to prevent people from believing the imminent end of the world. At the time, it was believed by some that the resurrection of the dead and end of the world would occur 500 years after the birth of Jesus; the old Anno Mundi calendar theoretically commenced with the creation of the world based on information in the Old Testament.
It was believed that, based on the Anno Mundi calendar, Jesus was born in the year 5500 with the year 6000 of the Anno Mundi calendar marking the end of the world. Anno Mundi 6000 was thus equated with the resurrection and the end of the world but this date had passed in the time of Dionysius; the Anglo-Saxon historian the Venerable Bede, familiar with the work of Dionysius Exiguus, used Anno Domini dating in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731. In this same history, he used another Latin term, ante vero incarnationis dominicae tempus anno sexagesimo, equivalent to the English "before Christ", to identify years before the first year of this era. Both Dionysius and Bede regarded Anno Domini as beginning at the incarnation of Jesus, but "the distinction between Incarnation and Nativity was not drawn until the late 9th century, when in some places the Incarnation epoch was identified with Christ's conception, i.e. the Annunciation on March 25". On the continent of Europe, Anno
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