World History in Credo: Africa & Egypt

Officially Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia; Republic, 471,776 sq mi (1,221,900 sq km), NE Africa. Addis Ababa is the capital and largest city. The first kingdom for which there is documentary evidence is that of Aksum (Axum), a kingdom which probably emerged in the 2d cent. A.D., thus making Ethiopia the oldest independent country in Africa and one of the most ancient in the world.

World's largest desert, c.3,500,000 sq mi, N Africa; the western part of a great arid zone that continues into SW Asia. It was not until c.3000 B.C. that the Sahara transformed into its present arid state. The camel was introduced probably in the 1st cent. A.D. and facilitated occupation by nomads.

Ancient state of NE Africa. At the height of its political power Nubia extended, from north to south, from the First Cataract of the Nile (near Aswan, Egypt) to Khartoum, in Sudan.

River in Africa, the world's longest, 6,695 km/4,160 mi; flows northward from its sources in eastern Africa toward the Mediterranean Sea. Considering the great importance of the Nile to Egypt, it is not surprising that in ancient times it was deified, and it has always been regarded with the utmost reverence. Each year the Nile floods its banks and the height of the flood has been recorded annually since at least 3600 BC.

Far down the Nile River from Cairo is the ancient Egyptian temple city of Thebes and Luxor. Modern visitors will find three ancient temple areas in the modern city of Luxor: Luxor Temple, the temples of Karnak, and the complex of Thebes across the Nile River.

From Encyclopedia of African History
King of the Eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty, Akhenaten reigned from approximately 1360 to 1343bce. Akhenaten is notable for having briefly replaced the entire Egyptian pantheon with a single deity, the Aten, the physical manifestation of the sun.

Queen of Egypt, one of the great romantic heroines of all time. Cleopatra was the daughter of Ptolemy XII Auletes, who died in 51BC. By the terms of his will he appointed her joint successor, as Cleopatra VII, with her younger brother as Ptolemy XIII.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
D. 229 or 228 B.C., Carthaginian general. Father of Hannibal. He was assigned the command in Sicily in 247 in the First Punic War (see Punic Wars). From mountain bases near Palermo he made repeated raids on the Romans and relieved the Punic garrison in Lilybaeum.

From Encyclopedia of the Ancient World
Carthaginian military leader during the Second Punic War. As chief military commander for the North African state of Carthage, Hannibal Barca led over 40,000 troops and 38 elephants from Spain to Italy over the Alps during the Second Punic War with Rome.

From The Encyclopedia of Ancient History
Nefertiti was the Great Wife of the Egyptian king Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV)), whom she seems to have married soon after his accession. Her origins remain a matter of debate, but she was certainly not the child of a king; it has been suggested that she may have been the daughter of the army officer Ay, who later became king.

Ramses II, also known as “Ramses the Great,” was one of the most famous pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty of Egypt (1570–1070 bce). He established numerous building projects, conducted aggressive war campaigns, and created international ties that are still discussed today.

Nebkheperara Tutankhamen (1342-1323 BC) was a short-lived and relatively insignificant ruler during a troubled time in the history of Kernet.

Extinct language of ancient Egypt. Developed during four periods: (1) Old Egyptian (3d millennium B.C.); (2) Middle Egyptian (2134-1354 B.C.) (3) Late Egyptian (to 12th cent. B.C.); and (4) demotic (8th cent. B.C.-5th cent. A.D.).

Extinct language of Ethiopia belonging to the North Ethiopic group of the South Semitic (or Ethiopic) languages, which, in turn, belong to the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic family of languages.

A type of writing used in ancient Egypt. Similar pictographic styles of Crete, Asia Minor, and Central America and Mexico are also called hieroglyphic. Egyptian hieroglyphics appear in several stages: the first dynasty (3110–2884 B.C.), when they were already perfected; the Old Kingdom; the Middle Kingdom, when they were beginning to go out of use; the New Empire, when they were no longer well understood by the scribes; and the late hieroglyphics (from 500 B.C.), when the use of them was a tour de force.

From the Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Inscribed stone slab, now in the British Museum, that provided an important key to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. An irregularly shaped block of black basalt with inscriptions in hieroglyphs, Demotic Egyptian, and Greek, it was discovered by Napoleon's troops near the town of Rosetta (Rashid), northeast of Alexandria, in 1799.

Second-largest continent (after Asia), straddling the equator and lying largely within the tropics. Africa's first great civilization emerged in ancient Egypt in c.3400 BC. Carthage was founded by Phoenicians in the 9th century BC.

Ancient civilization, based around the River Nile in Egypt, which emerged 5,000 years ago and reached its peak in the 16th century BC.

Ancient Phoenician port in North Africa founded by colonists from Tyre in the late 9th century BC. A leading trading centre, it was in conflict with Greece from the 6th century BC, and then with Rome, and was destroyed by Roman forces in 146 BC at the end of the Punic Wars.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Battle fought 202 BC in Numidia (now Algeria), in which the Carthaginians under Hannibal were defeated by the Romans under the younger Scipio, so ending the Second Punic War.

From Encyclopedia of African History
Osei Tutu, ruler of Asante from 1701 to 1717, stands out as one of the most important figures in Asante history. He finalized the long task of nation building initiated by Twum and Antwi, the first two Asante rulers.

From Encyclopedia of African History
The kingdom was an absolute monarchy, quite unlike the surrounding traditional kingdoms.

From Encyclopedia of African History
The ancient kingdom of Ghana was founded in the western part of the savanna region of West Africa.

From Encyclopedia of African History
One of the great empires of the Middle Ages.

From Encyclopedia of African History
The largest of the three great West African empires of the later Iron Age, [the Songhay Empire] flourished between the mid-fifteenth and late sixteenth centuries, but the foundations were laid some hundreds of years earlier. Today, the Songhay are the dominant ethnic group in the vicinity of Gao and their fortunes are intimately associated with the River Niger, especially in the area known as the Niger Bend, encompassing eastern Mali and northwestern Niger.

From Encyclopedia of African History
The Fulbe are one of the most widespread ethnic groups in West Africa and have played a prominent role in West African history.

From Encyclopedia of Empire
The Mossi became a West African power that sought to control the economically rich Niger bend when seven states emerged as Malian power declined in the 15th century.

From Encyclopedia of African History
By 1400, Oyo, which was farther to the north at the margins of the forest and savanna, became the dominant commercial and political city of the Yoruba.

The origins of Timbuktu are obscure. According to local tradition and an indigenous chronicle written in the seventeenth century, the Tarikh es Soudan, the city was founded in approximately 1100 as a seasonal nomad camp.

From Encyclopedia of African History
The Tukulor empire of Al Hajj Umar (c. 1796-1864) was formed in western Africa in the middle of the nineteenth century, against the background of major jihads (holy wars) and the beginning of colonial penetration.

Great Zimbabwe existed for over 500 years as a bustling center of trade and commerce, and it politically dominated the surrounding valley and plateaus.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Ra, the sun god, and Osiris, god of the dead, were the chief deities, but many gods were believed to control birth and death and various aspects of everyday life. The gods were depicted with the heads of the animals sacred to them. The hawk was sacred to Ra and Horus, the ibis to Thoth, and the jackal to Anubis. Later the local deity of Thebes, Ammon, became supreme as Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, a symbol of national unity. Immortality was originally the preserve of the pharaohs, but under the New Kingdom all who could afford mummification could achieve it.

Ancient Egyptian god, the embodiment of goodness, who ruled the underworld after being killed by Set. The pharaohs were believed to be his incarnation.

Mythological creature, depicted in Egyptian, Assyrian, and Greek art as a lion with a human head. One of the oldest monuments is the Great Sphinx at El Gîza, Egypt, which was probably built about 2900-2750 BC.

Dead human or animal body preserved by embalming or by unusual natural conditions. Refers primarily to the burials found in Egypt, where the practice of mummification was perfected over the centuries to an extreme of elaboration. As a rule mummies are from ancient times