Universal History, Ancient and Modern, from the Earliest Records of Time, to the General Peace of 1801, Volume 1General Books LLC, 2009 - 188 pages This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1804. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAP. III. Tlie Ifislory of Egypt to the Time of Alexander the Great. EGYPT is situated between the forty-eighth and fifty-third degrees of longitude, and the twenty-fourth and thirty-third degrees of north latitude: its length, from north to south, is near six hundred miles; and the breadth of its coast on the Mediterranean, from east to west, is about three hundred miles; but it grows much narrower above the division of the Nile, so that in some places the mountainous chains which rise on each side of that river leave a plain between them of so small an extent as may be crossed with facility in less than one day. The boundaries of the country are, the kingdom of Sennar and the cataracts of the Nile on the south; the Mediterranean sea on the north; the Red sea and the isthmus of Suez on the east; and a region of Lybia, called Marmarica, on the west. To give a clear idea of ancient Egypt it will be necessary to divide it into three principal parts, distinguished by the appellations of the Upper Egypt, or Thebais; the Middle Egypt, or Heptanomis; and the Lower Egypt, which includes the Delta. Thebais, so named by the Greeks after its principal city Thebes, is the most southern part of Egypt, next to Ethiopia, and is almost equal in extent to all the rest, including the tracts of O 2 country country on each side the Nile down to the Heptanomis. Among the numerous famous cities that for'merly embellished this part of Egypt, we must enumerate, on the western side of the river, Lycopolis, or the city of the Wolves; Hypsele, now called Aboutig; Aphroditopolis, or the city of Venus; Ptolemais; Abydus, celebrated for the magnificent palace of Memnon; Little Diospolis, or the city of Jupiter; Tentyra; Latopolis; Great Apollinopolis and Elephantine: and on the opposite sk... |
