Egypt History - From Gold to Dust
Egypt history is as fascinating as it is long. The official name of modern Egypt is the Arab Republic of Egypt. But before becoming an independent state in 1953, Egyptians had to endure centuries of invasions and occupations, including Arabs and Turks from the Near East and Europeans too. These military campaigns brought so much wealth to the country that pharaohs began a monument building program unparalled in history, the remains of which we tour today. Egypt is actually an open air museum, with ancient monuments scattered along the east and west banks of the Nile, from the Pyramids of Giza at the North to the Great Temple of Abu Simbel near the present day border of Sudan.
Who has controlled the Middle East over the course of history? Pretty much everyone. Egyptians, Turks, Jews, Romans, Arabs, Persians, Europeans...the list goes on. Who will control the Middle East today? That is a much bigger question. Like all empires, Egypt entered a slow but inevitable descent that gave way, first to the Persian conquest, and then to the next world power, the empire of Alexander the Great. The Great Conqueror was so seduced by the wonders of Egypt that he instead became conquered. Alexander established a dynasty of Greek rulers, the Ptolemies, ending with Cleopatra. After the Greeks, came the Romans and then, a long period where the glories of Egypt faded into oblivion. Its monuments were covered in the Saharan sands and its language forgotten. Then came the Arab conquest and Islam. For centuries, Ancient Egypt was a distant civilization lying dormant below the desert sand, until the invasion of French troops in the last decade of the 18th century under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte. Nothing was known about Egypt history except that it was very ancient. It was Napoleon who told his soldiers "40 centuries contemplate us" when looking at the Pyramids. Napoleon brought to his military expedition an elite of French scholars who took to the task of compiling the most comprehensive information about Egypt. Among these scholars was a young gentleman named Francois Champollion, an expert in ancient languages who could speak the Coptic language. This language is a direct descendant of Ancient Egyptian. When the stella now known as the Rosetta Stone was unearthed, Champollion set to the task of successfully deciphering the hieroglyphic and demotic inscriptions that accompanied the greek writing which he could easily read. A language that died with the last priests of the Temple of Philae, was finally reborn, generating a widespread interest in Egyptian history.
|
