Among the four ancient civilizations, on the continuity of history, Chinese civilization leads the way, but in terms of the longevity of history and the prosperity of civilization, ancient Egyptian civilization is second to none. Egypt has a 7,000-year history of civilization, two thousand years of civilization development, three thousand years of pharaonic rule, and two thousand years of war.
31 dynasties of ancient Egypt
Due to the lack of detailed historical data by historians, they can only directly mark the different dynasties of ancient Egypt with numbers. The 31 dynasties bear the history of the rise and fall of ancient Egypt: strong and unified; divided and divided; invaded by foreign races, north and south; briefly conquered, and quickly restored. As of the time when the Persians ruled Egypt, ancient Egypt existed for about 2700 years.
The wheat civilization in the Middle East, the millet civilization in China, the rice civilization in India and the corn civilization in South America, agriculture is the foundation of civilization. The Nile floods regularly, bringing valuable water and fertile land to the shores. Convenient transportation, developed agriculture, gave birth to ancient civilizations, and eventually formed the upper Nile Valley region and the Nile estuary delta region of upper Egypt and lower Egypt. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus said: Egypt is a gift from the Nile. In 3100 BC, King Menes of Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt and established the First Dynasty of a unified slave state, and Menes became the first pharaoh of ancient Egypt.
pyramid
Pharaoh was the person who represented the highest power in ancient Egyptian society, equivalent to the king of other countries, and was considered a half-human, half-god being, who ruled the land of Egypt and the people who lived on it in the human incarnation of the gods. But people can't escape life, old age, illness and death. The ancient Egyptian funerary custom was, at first, only to dig a circular pit in the sandy land, put some funerary goods and simply bury it. With the development of the times and the emergence of hierarchical society, the internal structure of tombs began to become complex. From 3400 BC onwards, people began to build houses made of mud bricks above the mausoleum, known to the Arabs as Mastaba, which means "bench".
By the Third Dynasty Pharaoh Djoser, the chancellor and architect Imhotep, had designed a special Mastaba tomb, the predecessor of the standard pyramid, the first stone stepped pyramid (about 140 meters long, about 118 meters wide and about 64 meters high). The pharaohs who succeeded to the throne, in order to prove that their deeds were better than those of their ancestors, the pyramids were built higher and bigger. By the time the Pharaoh Khufu of the Fourth Dynasty built the pyramids, the techniques were so mature that the spectacular Pyramid of Khufu, the Pyramid of His Son Khafra and the Pyramid of His Grandson Menkaura, which he sees today, were built. Egypt entered its heyday and became the center of civilization all over the world.
The Pyramid of Khufu is 147 meters high and was built with 2.3 million stones weighing two or three tons. Even now, mining and transporting boulders of this magnitude is a massive state project, not to mention the slave society of 2690 BC. It can also be seen from the side that Egypt's national strength at that time was strong, the pharaoh was able to mobilize so many national resources, and the social rule was relatively stable. More than a hundred pyramids of such sizes were later built, and it was not until after the Sixth Dynasty that Egypt no longer built such large pyramid mausoleums (national strength did not allow it), but to build sun temples with higher artistic value, and later simply built the pharaonic mausoleums into a more hidden valley (Valley of the Kings, where the pharaohs of the Eighteenth to Twentieth Dynasties are buried).
Two thousand years of war
After the decline of ancient Egypt, it was invaded and occupied by many peoples. Persians, Libyans, Assyrians, Jews, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and the "Crusaders" of Western Christendom were crushed back and forth, leaving only the majestic pyramids and the Nile river to guard the land.
To the north of the Greek states, there was a small city-state called Macedonia. The Macedonians were brave and warlike, and under the leadership of King Philip II, they conquered many city-states in the southern and northern wars. The son Alexander was even more capable, inheriting the famous greek philosopher Aristotle, conquering Egypt, conquering Persia, and expeditioning to India in just a dozen years, making Macedonia the largest country in the world at that time. The Persian governor of Egypt at the time, Machasis, was ruling Egypt and surrendered to Alexander on his own initiative. Alexander ordered the construction of a new city in Egypt, named after him, which was the capital of Egypt during the later Ptolemaic Egyptian period, Alexandria.
In Alexandria, the "Egyptian quarter" had become dilapidated and impoverished, while the architectural style of the rich region had been completely Hellenistic, and the Egyptians, although they still spoke Egyptian, hieroglyphs, and believed in the Egyptian gods, were on the verge of national extinction. Alexander died suddenly during the conquest, his young son was unable to convince the people, the Macedonian Empire was divided among Alexander's generals, and the governor of Egypt, Ptolemy, transformed himself and established his own dynasty, known as Ptolemy I.
In order to ensure the purity of the royal bloodline, the marriage of close relatives is actually the marriage of sisters and brothers, which is the inheritance of the Ptolemaic dynasty. By the time of Ptolemy XII, the entire dynasty was crumbling, with strong enemies on the outside and the sworn resistance of the Egyptian people on the inside. Before Ptolemy XII's death, he made a will ordering Ptolemy XIII to rule with his sister Cleopatra VII, also known as Cleopatra. Ptolemy XIII did not want to share power with others, so he deported his sister to Syria against his will. Cleopatra, seeing her life in vain, wrapped herself in a Persian blanket and dedicated it to Caesar, one of the first three giants of Rome. Caesar, who had benefited, helped Cleopatra return to Egypt and co-took charge of the country with Ptolemy XIII.
After Caesar's assassination, Cleopatra used her charm to conquer Antony, one of rome's new three giants, so that Egypt was not annexed by Rome, and exchanged 22 years of peace for Egypt. But the limit was reached, and Antony was defeated by Caesar's adopted son Octavian, who, fearing that he would not have enough concentration, refused to meet the Cleopatra, who knew that Egypt and her life would come to an end, so she ended her life with a poisonous snake. At this point, Egypt was completely destroyed and became a province of Rome.
Egypt, ruled by Rome, although it also spoke Egyptian, had changed its writing to the Roman Latin alphabet. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Arabs conquered and occupied Egypt in the 7th century AD, and Egyptian society was completely Islamized, and ancient Egyptian language disappeared into history along with polytheistic religions. The ancient Egyptian civilization with its glorious history has disappeared, and in the far East it is the tang dynasty. It was not until 1822, when the young French merchant Bollion successfully deciphered the spelling principles of the Egyptian script, that we had the opportunity to touch the tip of the iceberg of ancient Egyptian civilization.
Suez Canal
The Suez Isthmus in northeastern Egypt, as the dividing line between the two continents of Asia and Africa, connects the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, and its strategic location is very important. The history of the excavation of the Suez Canal may extend as far as the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt, when Pharaoh Senusret III (the source of the name "Suez") ordered the excavation of an "east-west" canal connecting the Red Sea with the Nile in order to trade directly with chocobo punts.
In the 18th century, the colonial rivalry between France and Britain was fierce. France hoped to open up water lines from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and seize the wealth of India and the Far East, thus breaking britain's monopoly on the Cape of Good Hope route and cutting off Britain's ties with the eastern colonies. In order to maintain control over the eastern colonies such as India, the British opposed the construction of canals and advocated the construction of railways to connect Africa and Asia. So the two countries began to compete.
In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte occupied Egypt and began planning to build a canal here. To this end, he commissioned scientific advisers to survey the area. As a result, these people came to the fallacy that the Surface of the Red Sea was several meters higher than the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, and that if the canal were opened, the entire Egyptian Delta would be submerged. In desperation, Napoleon had to give up.
In 1854 and 1856, Viscount Ferdinand de Reiseb, French consul in Egypt, was granted a charter by the Ottoman Governor of Egypt, Pasha Seid, to begin construction of canals in Egypt. According to the regulations, the canal is open to all countries, but France has to control and operate for 99 years. In 1858, the Suez Canal Company was established and the excavation of the canal officially began. Thanks to intense labor, poor food, and abuse by overseers, 120,000 laborers died of exhaustion on the construction site, costing 18.6 million pounds, and after 10 years, the Suez Canal was finally opened.
After the opening of the canal, Britain and France began to compete for control of the canal. Originally France had a 52 percent stake in the Canal Company, while Egypt had a 44 percent stake. In 1875, taking advantage of Egypt's financial constraints, britain bought cheap shares of all the canal companies held by Egypt for less than 4 million pounds, and in 1882 sent troops to seize the canal zone. The French were so busy digging canals that they vomited blood, and the result was that the British were cheap in vain.
In 1914, World War I broke out. Egypt was originally the domain of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, and Germany supported the Ottoman Empire in recovering Egypt, thereby breaking the British control of sea traffic routes. In order to continue to control the canal, the British directly recognized the independence of Egypt and let the Egyptian people contain the Ottoman Empire. The Suez Canal, of course, continued to be occupied by the British after the war. At the outbreak of World War II, Britain increased its presence in Egypt, making the Suez area britain's largest overseas military base.
Egypt has been trying to regain control of the canal since independence. Grinding, negotiation and intimidation, it was not until 1954 that britain began to withdraw from Egypt. In the end, Egypt could not hold back. In 1956, the two countries fought an Anglo-Egyptian war for the Suez Canal, and the British were completely driven away, and Egypt finally regained control of the canal. By 1967, the Sinai Peninsula was occupied by Israel and Egypt was forced to close the canal. In 1973, Egypt recognized Israel's status and agreed that Israeli ships would pass through the canal, Israel would return the Sinai Peninsula, and the Fourth Middle East War would end. It was not until 1975 that the Suez Canal reopened.
The Suez Canal has been continuously dredged, renovated and expanded, and Egypt has been bloodied. In 1981, the Suez Canal officially opened an electronic control system. In order to meet the growing needs of international shipping and earn more foreign exchange, Egypt began the second phase of the expansion of the canal in 1994, the river surface of the canal was widened from 265 meters to 415 meters, and the draft depth was increased to 23.8 meters, allowing 250,000-ton tankers to pass smoothly. In 2014, construction of the new Suez Canal began, turning the canal into a two-way waterway. South Africa's Cape of Good Hope, can only drink soup.
According to statistics, about 18,000 ships from more than 100 countries and regions in the world pass through the canal every year. 70% of the oil exported from the Middle East to Western Europe is transported through the Suez Canal, which accounts for 14% of the world's maritime trade each year. The Suez Canal is the "lifeline" and "cash cow" of Egypt's economy. The current canal receives $2 million in foreign exchange for the Egyptian government every day. Ships crossing the canal pay tolls according to tonnage, and also pay fees such as water diversion fees and navigation markers. The Suez Canal earns about $5 billion a year, and when the new channel opens, the revenue will double.
Nile
Historically, thanks to the nile's good irrigation conditions, Egypt has long been known as the "granary of North Africa". However, Egypt's own conditions are not good, 96% of the land is covered by desert, only more than 30,000 square kilometers, can barely be used for agricultural production, but more than 95% of the Egyptian population is concentrated.
At the end of World War II, Egypt became independent, and Egyptians could finally live and work in peace. So Egypt took the whole country to build a dam, the Aswan Dam, on the upper Nile. It can store the runoff of the Nile for an entire year, and since then, the Egyptian people have no need to worry about floods or droughts.
With the aswan Dam in place, the Egyptian government began large-scale land reclamation. Egypt's population entered a period of rapid growth. Egypt's population was 43 million in 1980, exceeded 70 million in 2001, and exceeded 100 million in 2020, becoming the fourteenth country in the world and the third country in Africa with a population of more than 100 million. Egypt has since fallen into the abyss of population explosion.
Why? In 1970, the Aswan Dam was completed. After three defeats in the war with Israel, the new Egyptian government reviewed that israel has become a brother in the Middle East economically and militarily less than 20 years after its establishment, which fully demonstrates the superiority of the Western system. As a result, Egypt unilaterally terminated the "Soviet-Egyptian Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation" and completely turned to the Western world. Western capital and products immediately poured into Egypt, instantly disintegrating Egypt's not-so-strong industrial system.
The Nile floods are becoming less and less frequent, and the fertility of the land is declining, resulting in reduced agricultural productivity. Egypt's current land supports only half of its population, and its annual food needs are as high as 15 million tons. Egypt currently has three pillar industries, the Suez Canal and trade, petroleum resources to form a corresponding industry, with foreign tourists as the main body of tourism. Since Egypt gave up maintaining its food self-sufficiency rate, the foreign exchange earned from the annual sale of resources and river fees has not been enough to spend, and there is no excess money invested in industry and modernization. For example, when international food prices rose in 2014, Egypt spent as much as $15 billion on importing food, while Egypt's entire foreign exchange reserves were only $40 billion.
In addition to the food crisis, the surging population is also poverty and unemployment. When most of a country's finances can only be used to ensure the basic survival of the people, then its investment in education, science and technology, innovation and other future-related investments will be sharply reduced, and what else can be used to develop, and the development of social production can only stagnate, which in turn increases unemployment.
In addition, Egypt has been de facto under the rule of the military clique since the free officers' organization overthrew the king in 1952, from Nasser to Sadat to Mubarak, who was overthrown in the Arab Spring movement, and the Egyptian military is at the heart of the state political system. In Egypt, even government positions, from presidents to ministers, are mostly in the hands of the military, and power in the local provinces is in the hands of officials of military origin, which also exacerbates political instability.
As the world's longest river, the Nile runs from the Burundi plateau in northeast Africa through Rwanda, Kenya, Sudan, Egypt and other African countries, bringing vitality and civilization to the arid African land. I wonder if countries can use diplomatic mediation and peace negotiations to distribute water and share the benefits of the Nile? Or is it a repetition of the thousands-year-old tradition of human beings solving problems with strength and force? Only please wait and see.
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