Volume 1

A dictionary of Greek and Roman geography / by various writers ; edited by William Smith.

Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dictionary of Greek and Roman geography / by various writers ; edited by William Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    59/1140 (page 37)
    ronventional. The common lotus (Nymphaea), rising out of a clod of earth, represented the Upper coimtry; the root of the papyrus, upon a clod, the Lower. Sebena was the goddess of the Upper, Neith of the Lower country. A white crown denoted the former, a red crown the latter; white and red crowns united composed the diadem of the king of all the land. The Upper country, however, was generally subdivided into two portions, (1) Upper Egypt Proper, or the Thebaid (Jj 07j§o'ts, ol &vea roVot), which extended from Syene to Hermopolis Magna, in lat. 28° N.: and (2) Middle Egypt, also called Heptanomis, or the Seven Cantons (j] fiera^v : ’ETTTavofjLis), which reached from the neighbour- hood of Hermopolis to the apex of the Delta. This threefold partition has been adopted by the Arabs, who denominated Upper, Middle, and Lower Egypt respectively. Said, Wustdni, and EURif. The traveller who ascends the Nile from its mouths to Syene passes through seven degrees of latitude, and virtually surveys two distinct regions. Lower Egypt is an immense plain: Upper Egypt, a narrowing valley. The former, in the main, re- sembles the neighbouring coastland of Africa; the latter is more akin to Nubia, and its climate, its Fauna and its Flora, indicate the approaching tropic. The line of demarcation commences about the 27 th degree of N. latitude. Pain rarely falls in the The- baid: the sycamore and the acacia almost disappear; the river plants and mollusca assume new types: the Theban or Dhoum palm, with its divaricated branches, grows beside the date palm: the crocodile, the jackal, the river-horse, and hyena become more numerous. We must now return to the general boundaries of Egypt which affected, in various degrees, the cli- mate, the population, and the social and political character of the Nile-valley. 1. The Eastern boundary. In this region lay the principal mineral wealth of Egypt, including the quarries, which furnished materials for this land of monuments. Beginning with the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile, and along the frontier of Stony Arabia, we find the barren and level region of Casiotis, whose only elevation is the ridge or table land of Mt. Ca- sius (6 Katrtos, Strab. pp. 38, 50, 55, 58, &c.; Mela, i. 10; Plin. v. 11, xii. 13; Lucan, viii. 539, X. 433). The Egyptian Casius (^El Kas or El Katish) is, according to Strabo (xvi. 2), a round sandstone ridge (x6(pos ^ivddiqs'). It contained the grave of Cn. Pompeius Magnus, and a temple of Zeus Casius. At a very early period the Egyptians established colonies upon the Idumaean and Ara- bian border. Copper, mixed with iron ore, and heaps of scoriae from Egyptian smelting-houses, are still found on the western flank of Mt. Sinai, and ir.scriptions at Wady-Magara in this district, and hierogl\'phics and fragments of pottery at Surahit- El-Kadim, on the modem road from Suez to Sinai, attest the existence of settlements coeval with at least the 18th dynasty of kings. Ascending from the head of the Delta, and about 50 miles from the Arabian Sea, we come upon a range of tertiary limestone hiUs (TpwiKov Xidov Spos, PtoL; aAa- Suarpivov opos, id.) parallel with the Heptanomis, running north and south, and sloping westward to the Nile, and eastward to the Bed Sea (opr\ ra ’ApaSiKti, Herod, ii. 8). A region of basalt and porphyry begins in the parallel of Antaeopolis, and extends to that of Tentyra or Coptos (UopcpvpiTov opos, id.). This is again succeeded by limestone at Aias or Aeas (Atas, id.; Plin. vi. 29. § 33), and at Acabe Ptol.), where, nearly oppo- site Latopolis, are vast quarries of white marble. From Mt. Smaragdus, which next follows, the Egyp- tians obtained the fine green breccia (^Verde dd Egitto'), and emeralds in abundance. The breccia quarries, as inscriptions testify, were worked as far back as the 6th dynasty of kings (Manetho). The principal quarry was at Mount Zaburah. From Berenice southward are found, in various propor- tions, limestone and porphyry again. Mt. Basanites (Baaavirov X'lQov opos, Ptol.), consisting of a spe- cies of hornblend, terminated the eastern boundary of the Nile-valley. Beyond this, and of uncertain extent, are the gold mines SE. of the Thebaid. They are about ten days’ journey SE. from Apolli- nopolis Magna, in the present Bishdree desert. The process of gold-washing appears to be repre- sented on tombs of the age of Osirtasen. Silver and lead were also found, and sulphur abounded in this mineral region. The eastern frontier was mostly arid and barren, but neither uninhabited nor unfrequented by tra- vellers. More than one caravan track, whose bear- ings are still marked by ruined cisterns and brick pyramids, followed the gorges of the hills; and occa- sional temples imply a settled population in towns or villages. The sides and passes of the moun- tains afforded also pasture for flocks and herds, and wild deer, wolves, &c. found here their abode. Two principal roads, diverging from Coptos on the Nile — the northern leading to Philoteras (Kosseir'), lat. 26° 9', and My os Hormos or Arsinoe; the southern to Berenice — penetrated the mountain- barrier, and connected the Nile-valley with the Bed Sea. The population of this district was more Ara- bian than Coptic, and its physical characteristics were Arabian, not Libyan. ‘2, The Western bowndary of Egypt is more par- ticularly described under Oasis. The Libyan desert is not, as the ancients believed, merely an ocean of drifting sand, tenanted by serpents, and swept by pestilential blasts (Lucan, ix. 765) : on the contrary, its gravelly surface presents considerable inequalities, and the blasts are noxious only in relaxing the human frame, or by obliterating the traveller’s path with eddies of blinding sand. Everywhere this plateau rests upon a limestone basis, and descends, in shelves to the Mediterranean. 3. The Northern boundary is the Mediten-anean. From the western limit of Egypt to Pelusium the coast-line extends to about 180 geographical miles, and presents the convex form common to the allu- vial deposits of great rivers. From the depression of its shore, the approach to Egypt is dangerous to the navigator. He finds himself in shallow water almost before he detects the low and sinuous mud banks which mask the land. Indeed, from Parae- tonium in Libya to Joppa in Syria, Pharos afforded the only secure approach, and the only good an- chorage (Diod. ii. 31). Nor is it probable that any considerable advance of the shore has taken place within historical times. 4. The Southern boundary is spoken of imder Aethiopia. II. Inhabitants. The ancient Egyptians believed themselves to be autochthonous. This was no improbable conceptioq in a land yearly covered with the life-teeming mud of the Nile. When the conquests of Alexander had rendered the Greeks acquainted with Western Iniia