Author Description

EGYPT has been called the Gift of the Nile. Once every year the river overflows its banks, depositing a layer of rich alluvial soil on the parched ground. Then it recedes and soon the whole countryside, as far as the eye can reach, is covered with Egyptologists. From the remotest times Egypt has been divided into two parts, Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. Lower Egypt is the part at the top of the map, so you have to travel south to find Upper Egypt. This seems perfectly all right to the inhabitants because the Nile rises in the south, and when you go up the river, naturally, you go south, finally arriving in Upper Egypt, with Lower Egypt away up north.