Worl Literature: EGYPT

3. Mosque of Ibn Tulun
Built between 876 and
879 AD, the Mosque of
Ibn Tulun is one of the
oldest mosques in Cairo.

4. Siwa Oasis
It is one of Egypt’s isolated
settlements, with 23,000 people,
mostly ethnic Berbers. Located on an
old date trade route, Siwa was an
oasis vital to the trade route, as the
natural springs and shade giving palm
trees gave travelers respite from the
desert.

5. Egyptian Museum
Home to at least 120,000 items
of ancient Egyptian antiquities,
and one of Cairo’s top attraction.
On the ground floor there is an
extensive collection of
papyrus and coins used in
by the ancient Egyptians.
On the first floor there are
artifacts from the final two
dynasty. Highlights include the
objects from the Tomb and
27 royal mummies from
pharaonic times.

6. Abu Simbel
It is an archaeological
site comprising two massive
rock-cut temples in
Southern Egypt and
on the western bank of
Lake Nasser. The twin
Temples were originally
carved out of the
mountainside during
the reign of Pharaoh
Ramesses The Great
in the 13th century BC,
as a lasting monument
to himself and his
queen Nefertari.

7. River Nile Cruise
The Nile River has been Egypt’s lifeline since ancient times
and there is no better way to trace the passage of Egypt’s
history than to follow the course of the Nile.

8. Red Sea Reef
One of the most beautiful places in
the world to go diving.

9. Karnak
It is the largest
ancient
religious
site ever built,
and represents
the combined
achievement
of many
generations
of Egyptian
builders.

10. Pyramids of Giza
Situated in the immediate vicinity of the
southwestern suburbs of Cairo are the
undisputable top attractions in Egypt.

11. Great Sphinx
Located at the Giza Plateau,
The Great Sphinx is one of
the largest and oldest
monuments in the world,
but basic facts about it, such as
who was the model for the face,
when it was built, and by whom,
are still debated. It is the
largest monolith statue in the
world although it is considerably
smaller than the Pyramids
around it.

12. Most Impressive Ancient
Egyptian Temples

14. Egyptian hieroglyphs
were a formal writing system used by the ancient
Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic
elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious
literature on papyrus and wood.

15. Historical Background
Egypt and the Nile are of course an important
foundation of Western civilization, were in they have
done some work on Ancient Egypt Period.
Mesopotamian civilization seems to predate Egyptian
civilization, but the two developed in contact.
The earliest known written date comes from an
Egyptian calendar -4241 BC. Ancient Egyptians is
divided into 30 dynasties, organized into the Old,
Middle, and New Kingdoms (3400-332 BC)

16. Egypt's Old Kingdom was one of the most
dynamic periods in the development of Egyptian art.
During this period, artists learned to express their
culture's worldview, creating for the first time images
and forms that endured for generations. Architects
and masons mastered the techniques necessary to
build monumental structures in stone. Sculptors
created the earliest portraits of individuals and the
first life-size statues in wood, copper, and stone. They
perfected the art of carving through keen observation
of the natural world, produced detailed images of
animals, plants, and even landscapes, recording the
essential elements of their world for eternity in
scenes painted and carved on the walls of temples
and tombs.

17. These images and structures had
two principal functions: to ensure
an ordered existence and to defeat
death by preserving life into the
next world.
Although much of their artistic
effort was centered on preserving
life after death, Egyptians also
surrounded themselves with
beautiful objects to enhance their
lives in this world, producing
elegant jewelry, finely carved and
inlaid furniture, and cosmetic
vessels and implements in a wide
variety of materials.

18. A mummy is a deceased human or
animal whose skin and organs have
been preserved by either
intentional or accidental exposure
to chemicals, extreme cold, very
low humidity or lack of air, so that
the recovered body will not decay
further if kept in cool and dry
conditions.

19. Egypt's Middle Kingdom began when
Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II reunited Upper
and Lower Egypt, setting the stage for a
second great flowering of Egyptian culture.
Thebes came into prominence for the first
time, serving as capital and artistic center
during Dynasty 11. The masterful design, representing a
perfect union of architecture and landscape unique for
its time (royal statues) , included painted reliefs of
ceremonial scenes and hieroglyphic texts.

20. Egypt’s New Kingdom was he time of
great prosperity. There was an explosion of
creativity, wealth and power in Egypt that
would make it the envy of the world. After
defeating the Hyksos invaders,
successive Pharaohs expanded and
maintained their Empire through both force
and diplomacy. In the process, they won
Egypt vast amounts of gold, influence and
respect.
To the south, in the deserts of Nubia, gold
mines gave Egypt the unimaginable wealth
that formed the real power behind the
throne. The same gold also saw the start of
a golden age for Egyptian art and
architecture, as Pharaohs built magnificent
temples and tombs for themselves and
their families.

21. CONSTRUCTION OF SUEZ CANAL

22. The construction of the Suez Canal by a British-French group made Egypt of
great strategic importance to the Europeans. Egypt had been fought over by
the British and French in the Napoleonic Wars even before the construction
of the Canal. After construction, Suez would figure in both world wars and
be the prize in the post-War Suez War (1956). A joint stock company
(England, France, and Egypt) completed the Canal (1869). This provided a
direct route for British shipping to India, their major colony. The Egyptian
ruler, Ismail Pasha, owned the Egyptian shares personally. He owned 44
percent of the shares in the Canal. Due to escalating debt, he was forced to
sell. The British Government during the Conservative government of
Benjamin Disraeli bought Ismail's
shares for £4 million (1875).
This gave Britain control the
strategic waterway. After having
Difficulty working with the khedive,
the British occupied the country
when a nationalist uprising threatened
to Suez control (1882).

24. Ancient Egyptian literature was written in
the Egyptian language from Ancient Egypt's pharaonic
period until the end of Roman domination.
It represents the oldest corpus of Egyptian literature,
along with Sumerian literature, it is considered the
world's earliest literature.
both hieroglyphic and hieratic—first appeared in the late
4th millennium BC during the late phase of pre-dynasty
in Egypt. By the Old Kingdom , literary works included
funerary text, epistles and letters, hymns and poems,
and commemorative autobiographical texts recounting
the careers of prominent administrative officials.

25. How early the Egyptians began to cut and press the
stalks of the papyrus plant in order to make a material
for the use of the scribe, it is impossible to say. But we
know that material to have been already employed for
literary purposes in the time of the Third Dynasty, that
is to say, some three thousand eight hundred years
before the Christian era.
When we speak of the literature of a nation, we are not
thinking of inscriptions graven on obelisks and
triumphal arches. We mean such literature as may be
stored in a library and possessed by individuals. In a
word, we mean books –books, whether in the form of
clay cylinders, of papyrus rolls, or any other portable
material.

26. The Egyptians were the first people of the ancient world
who had a literature of this kind: who wrote books, and
read books; who possessed books, and loved them. And
their literature, which grew, and flourished, and decayed
with the language in which it was written, was of the
most varied character, scientific, secular, and religious.
It comprised moral and educational treatises; state-
papers; works on geometry, medicine, astronomy, and
magic; travels, tales, fables, heroic poems, love-songs,
and essays in the form of letters; hymns, dirges, rituals;
and last, not least, that extraordinary collection of
prayers, invocations, and religious formula known
as The Book of the Dead.

27. Some of these writings are older than the pyramids; some
are as recent as the time when Egypt had fallen from her
high estate and become a Roman province. Between these
two extremes lie more than five thousand years.
The two most important subjects in the literature of a
nation are, undoubtedly,: its history and its religion; and up
to the present time nothing in the shape of an Egyptian
history of Egypt has been found.
We have historical tablets, historical poems, chronicles of
campaigns, lists of conquered cities, and records of public
works sculptured on stelæ, written on papyrus, and carved
on the walls of temples and tombs. But these are the
materials of history–the bricks and blocks and beams with
which the historian builds up his structure.

28. Islamic Egyptian literature
By the eighth century Egypt had been conquered by
the Muslim Arabs. Literature, and especially libraries,
thrived under the new Egypt brought about by the
Muslim conquerors. Several important changes occurred
during this time which affected Egyptian writers.
Papyrus was replaced by cloth paper,
and calligraphy was introduced as a writing system. Also,
the focus of writing shifted almost entirely to Islam. The
earliest novel written in Egypt was Ibn al-
Nafis' Theologus Autodidactus, the earliest example of
a science fictionand theological novel.

29. The concept of a "brief statement praising a literary
product", now known as a blurb, also dates back to
medieval Egyptian literature from the 14th century, and
was known as taqriz in medieval Arabic literature.[8]
Many tales of the One Thousand and One Nights
(Arabian Nights) can be traced to medieval
Egyptian storytelling traditions.
These tales were probably in circulation before they were
collected and codified into a single collection.
Medieval Egyptian folklore was one of three distinct layers
of storytelling which were incorporated into the Nights by
the 15th century, the other two being
ancient Indian andPersian folklore, and stories
from Abbasid-era Baghdad.[9]

30. The Story of Sinuhe, written in Middle Egyptian, might be
the classic of Egyptian literature. Also written at this time
was the Westcar Papyrus, a set of stories told to Khufu by
his sons relating the marvels performed by priests. The
Instruction of Amenemope is considered a masterpiece of
near-eastern literature. Towards the end of the New
Kingdom, the vernacular language was more often
employed to write popular pieces like the Story of
Wenamun and the Instruction of Any. From about 700 BC,
narrative stories and instructions, such as the popular
Instructions of Onchsheshonqy, as well as personal and
business documents were written in the demotic script and
phase of Egyptian. Many stories written in demotic during
the Graeco-Roman period were set in previous historical
eras, when Egypt was an independent nation ruled by great
pharaohs such as Ramesses II.

31. Modern Egyptian literature
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
the Arab world experienced al-Nahda, a Renaissance-
esque movement which touched nearly
all areas of life, including literature.
One of the most important figures from this time
was Naguib Mahfouz, the first Egyptian to win
the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1914 Muhammad
Husayn Haykal wrote Zaynab, considered the first
modern Egyptian as well as Islamic novel.

32. Naguib Mahfouz(11 December 1911 – 30 August 2006)
was an Egyptian writer who won
the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature.
He is regarded as one of the first
contemporary writers of
Arabic literature, along with
Tawfiq el-Hakim, to explore themes
of existentialism.
He published 34 novels, over 350
short stories, dozens of movie scripts,
and five plays over a 70-year career.
Many of his works have been made
into Egyptian and foreign films.