Let's be honest: Egypt is a solid desert. KKPP. Kilometers and Kilometers of the Cursed Desert. In this whole desert there are (very, very few) Bedouins, camels and camel thorns. Nothing more, scorched earth. Great Arabian Desert. The borders of Egypt are drawn rather conditionally: “Well, somewhere out there, in the sands. We will apply a ruler to the map and draw a straight line. Nobody cares how many cubic kilometers of sand there will go to this or that state, because there is nothing else there, and this sand is even heaps of heaps.
And through this desert, the Nile stretches like a thin thread, the longest river in the world, except for the Amazon, and even then this is controversial data. Maybe the longest river in the world. "The Search for the Source of the Nile" is a separate large chapter in the history of African exploration. As a result, no source of the Nile was discovered; it begins somewhere in the swamps of Rwanda, in the very center of the Black Continent. It collects a bunch of lakes, rivulets, rivers, and across half the continent, through several countries, carries its abundant waters to Egypt, to the Mediterranean Sea.
I write so much about Neil because it's important! Desert. There is no rain. There are no rivers. There are no lakes. No water at all! And here you are: the largest river majestically rolls its fresh waters, in which crocodiles play and frolic in merry flocks. Egypt is the Nile. The Nile gave these lands Egypt. This river and everything connected with it was considered divine, for the Nile gave Life to this land.
But he gave not only fresh water and sacred crocodiles so convenient for sacrifices. The reed papyrus is understandable. But in the summer, during the solstice, the Nile overflows and abundantly fertilizes the surrounding lands with tons of black silt. So fertile that crops can be harvested there several times a year, and these lands are considered the most fertile in the world. Well, like "earth". The Nile does not flood widely, only three kilometers. And these three fertile kilometers, stretching for a thousand kilometers in length, is Egypt. And around there are sands..
In addition, the Nile, like any normal river, is a posh trade route. Gems, wood, slaves. And of course - ivory! All this was transported along the Nile from Africa. And when it flows into the Mediterranean Sea, the Nile widely spills into many channels with the same fertile land among the sands, forming a separate phenomenon: the Nile Delta. The size is one and a half hundred kilometers by two hundred. It is quite enough for the formation of a separate, very rich state.
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And it was so. The kingdom of Lower Egypt, the Nile Delta, was inhabited by peaceful, hardworking Lower Egyptians. And the kingdom of Upper Egypt, a three-kilometer gut with a length of a thousand kilometers, was inhabited by no less hardworking and peaceful Upper Egyptians. That is, there was no difference between them, except for kings and gods. In the Upper Kingdom, the falcon-headed goddess Nekhebet was worshiped. And in the Lower Kingdom, the goddess with the head of a cobra, Ejo, was revered. Well … This alone was a sufficient reason, and the Upper and Lower kingdoms periodically engaged in the favorite entertainment of Homo sapiens: war.
Ejo and Nekhebet.
It ended when in Upper Egypt ascended the throne "King of Scorpions", King Menes. Around 3000 BC. He united both kingdoms into one double, like the Austro-Hungarian empire. And Ejo and Nekhebet immediately became the symbols of the new country, one with a red crown, the other with a white one. At the same time, the Scorpion King declared himself a divine pharaoh, although the matter there is dark. But since then the official history of the country of Egypt has existed.
The Scorpion King, Menes.
Tombs were built for kings and pharaohs. First, rectangular mastabs, then various pyramids (although it is not clear why the Egyptians were suddenly inspired by the pyramidal idea, more complicated and less convenient). But after half a thousand years, the Egyptians were finally covered, and they planted a miracle: the pyramid of Cheops, with a height of 20 --- a storey building. And along with the Sphinx. Moreover, having deployed it not to the north or south, not towards one of the kingdoms, but to the east. Well, why not? L - Logic. It is clear that now I am setting out the official version.
Having built three Great Pyramids and the Sphinx almost at the same time, a couple more monsters in Dashur and the surrounding area, the Egyptians wondered if it was worth it? They decided that it was not worth it, and they did not build it again. Well, why not? They got sick. L - Logic. And the pharaohs somehow shredded, became more modest and did not order such "tombs".
And what happened next - I told in another article.
