Final Thesis
Kenneth Ferrari
May 17, 2015
Thesis, Final Draft
Introduction:
In Strabo’s Geography, he argued that the great historian and poet Homer was as much a geographer as a historian (Lawrence, 2007). However, Eratosthenes disagreed, saying that Homer’s works were historical documents and that the geography was secondary (Lawrence, 2007). So who was correct? If you break it down his to greatest works The Iliad and The Odyssey were actually different types of poetry. The Iliad is definitely a historical epic, with the Trojan War hashed out in surprising detail, while the Odyssey is closer to being a geographical work.
In this thesis I intend to show the difference between history and cultural geography, using the works of Egyptian and Greek geographers to help define the argument. Initially, I planned to focus solely on Egypt, however I realized that Egyptian and Greek history and Geography are tied very closely together, with a lot of Egyptian cities bearing Greek names. First a few simple definitions. Geography simply means Earth Writing, not to be confused with Geometry, which means Earth Measurement, and Geology which means Earth Study. In early Egypt and Greece it wasn’t unusual to have all three studied by the same person, as I will show in this paper. History, on the other hand as it was defined by Herodotus in his writing History as “Inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation” (Brotton, 2014). The previous definition actually fits both history and geography, so more detail is needed. Simply put geography focuses its study on a specific place while history is more focused on events spread throughout time. Those events may be told as facts, fables, legends, myths, or parables. Cultural geography focuses on the people that live in a place, which can be confused with anthropology, but anthropology focuses more on how a person lived and what made them tick. The word culture comes from a Roman phrase cultura animi, which simply means soul harvest, or cultivation of the soul, depending on what translation is used. So simply put cultural geography mean Earth writing cultivated by the soul. In other words, knowledge of a place. Looking at modern references however, the definition has changed throughout time. In the revised edition of his book Don’t Know Much About Geography Kenneth Davis states in the prologue that “Geography is not just about understanding our place in the world and who our neighbors are, or about memorizing place names and state capitals. It is about understanding the links between places and events”. For instance, the reason that Egypt is so important geographically is because it is the door to another world that few people understand. Three events in modern times have brought Egypt back into the forefront as an important part of understanding geography. In the early 1800’s Napoleon’s men discovered the Rosetta stone, which helped translate Egyptian writing into Greek. In the 1920’s the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb, as well as the writings of Imhotep, led to the modern study of Egyptology (not to mention spawned a bunch of great horror movies). Finally, during WW 2 the desert fox Erwin Rommel showed with his many battles in Egypt how important Egypt was due to its oil reserves and its location centrally on many trade routes.
Protodynasty: Narmer and King Scorpion
5000 years ago there lived two kings. One was King Scorpion, whose name was unknown, and the other was Narmer, who was also known as Menes. Romanticized in the movie the Scorpion King, there is actually not a lot that is known about either king. What is known, however is that Egypt was united during the rule of these kings ending the Protodynastic period and beginning the First Dynasty (Kersken, 2011). Narmer is the more well known of the two, as not only has his grave been found, but several hieroglyphics throughout the kingdom demonstrated the extent of his rule. Based in the ancient city of Elephantine, Narmer was demonstrated by a palette to have ruled with an iron fist, with opponents being castrated and beheaded (Kersken, 2011). King Scorpion, however seemed to have been a much more compassionate ruler, with his mace head showing him with a hoe digging an agriculture trench to bring water to crops (Parsons, 2013). The King Scorpion’s reign seems to have been based in the city of Hierakonpolis, which is also where the Narmer Palette was found, so this was probably an important trade center as well. It is now known, thanks to recent discoveries in Israel, that both of these kings traded with Canaan and the rest of the Middle East (Levy, Van Den Brink, Goren, & Alon, 1995). It has even been alleged that King Scorpion may be Akkadian (by the movie the Scorpion King), but that has not been confirmed. What has been confirmed though is that both Narmer and King Scorpion both traveled the distance of the Nile between its delta and Nubia in the Sudan, leaving cartouches along the whole distance of animal life that was encountered, as well as a legend of life when the Sahara was a savannah (Kersken, 2011). The first capital city of Egypt however was established by the King Aha at Memphis around 3000 B.C. (Davis, 2005). The City of Thebes was also founded at this time, which would play a part later in the story of Moses.
Early Egyptian legends:
When people hear the name Imhotep, the first thing that comes to mind is the Mummy that was cursed by the gods for assassinating Seti the first. In actuality he lived a thousand years before Seti’s reign, but would have been known to Seti for a different reason. After all Imhotep was responsible for the design of the Step Pyramid of Djoser (Parsons, Egypt:THe Step Pyramid of King Djoser at Saqqara, 2013). Besides designing one of the first true pyramids he was also for significant contributions to geography that still stand to this day. But more on that below. Imhotep is also considered one of the fathers of cardiac medicine, with a papyrus written by him discussing the taking of a pulse to check the heart health. As a result he believed the heart to be the center of the soul, which led to the discarding of brains as being unimportant to the mummy (: ElMaghawry M, 2014). However, since this is a paper on geography we must discuss his important contributions to this field. There were two contributions by Imhotep to geographical thought. The first is the idea of a central city-state where the rest of the country’s business could take place, including trade and worship. The second was the idea of using the sun for navigation, which was immortalized in the village of the dead Saqqaro (Glassman, 2000) . He aligned the Pyramid of Djoser so that the Sun would rise and set directly over the pyramid. This was the inspiration for the Eye of RA (Parsons, Egypt:THe Step Pyramid of King Djoser at Saqqara, 2013). There is a Christian legend that Imhotep was the Joseph mentioned in the Old Testament as the son of Jacob, but it has never been verified. The last interesting note in Imhotep’s history is that Napoleon discovered an artifact that helped translate Imhotep’s writing, but more on that later (Glassman, 2000).
Fast forward almost 800 years we get to the reign of Nefertiti and Akhenaton. What is interesting about this couple is that he was the father of King Tutankhamun and she was the mother of Anck-su-namun, who was married to King Tutankhamun. In the movie the Mummy Nefertiti was Anck-su-namun’s step daughter to be. While Seti, the King in the Mummy was aware of Anck-Su-Namun and Nefertiti, it was because they were his Great Grandmother and Great-Great Grandmother respectively (Ramsey, Dee, Rowland, Higham, & Harris, 2010). Also he would have been aware of Imhotep as a deity to give prayers to, not the person who killed him (Glassman, 2000). The main reason all of this is known is through the tomb of Tutankhamun, one of the few that was well preserved. Akhenaton is also well known because he was the only monotheistic pharaoh in recorded history. (Ramsey, Dee, Rowland, Higham, & Harris, 2010). It is well believed that his monotheism spread throughout the region and was an inspiration for both Judaism and Zoroastrianism, which in turn inspired a symbol of evil in Egypt known as the Apis Bull (Davis K. C., 2005)
The contributions of Ramses the second to geography and history is immeasurable. During his reign the use of boats for navigation had become common place, as well as the use of stars for navigation. In 1270 B.C. he fought an important battle at the town of Kadesh. When he realized he was outnumbered and his men not willing to fight the superior Hittite army, he and the Hittite Leader established the first written peace treaty, which surprisingly criticized his own men for cowardice. The end result of this treaty though is it provided a blueprint for future treaties, and established peace between the Hittites and Egyptians, who thereafter turned to trade (Doyle, 2011). Other contributions included having a geographer on staff to keep track of space and place, as well as trade with Asia along the Silk Road. Which brings us to the story of Moses and Israel, which was mentioned by Ramses II but he claimed they were a nomadic tribe he traded with.
Most of what is known about Moses is either through the Bible, or through the Greek Historian Josephus. Ramses briefly mentioned Israel, but did not mention Moses at all. However, recent documents suggest that Moses actually lived earlier and was the son of Amenhotep the III (Alchin, 2015). Known as Thutmose, like Moses his name was mysteriously stricken from Egyptian records. Moses is known as the first writer of geographic knowledge. Some of the things he wrote about that were influenced by stories from other sources include the Tower of Babel, Noah, , and Moses own adoption story (presuming he adopted the story to cover up his royal court exile).
One of the early stories written about was Noah’s ark which was based on the stories of Gilgamesh. While a lot of the story is made up of legends that were put on a clay tablet in Sumeria around 2000 BC( making it the first known work of literature) there were three indications that Gilgamesh was a true story. The first is that the Sumerian King List, which was found in the town of Ninevah (which was also written about in a later book of the Bible) lists him as the 5th leader of Uruk’s first dynasty (Davis K. C., 2005). The second was a wall in Uruk, which was marked with him as the builder. The final is other legends in the area, including the Babylonian story of Enuma Elish, which referred to a flood also, as well as Sumeria and its kings. Scientific evidence showed the flood actually took place around 5600 B.C. when the Black Sea was flooded by the Mediterranean Sea after a sudden sea level rise, which Oceanographer Robert Ballard provided strong evidence for with an expedition in 2000 with houses he charted underwater in the Black Sea (Davis K. C., 2005). This flooding was possibly caused by climate change melting ice caps from the last Ice Age which ended around the same time. Anyway the flood was written about by Greeks, Sumerians, Babylonian, and early Semite tribes, all who have had contact with Egypt. So the story of Noah came from one of these sources.
“Go to, let us go down, and confound their language, that they might not understand each other’s speech” - Genesis 11:7-8. This passage that Moses wrote about is probably about the Temple of Marduk, which was built around 1900 B.C., right after which Babylon was invaded by invaders from several different civilizations, all with separate languages. Within 200 years Babylon was split between Akkadians, Sumerians, Hittites, early Persians, and early Greeks, all who traded with the Egyptians and led to the story of The Tower of Babel (Davis K. C., 2005).
Finally, even Moses own adoption story is based on a legend. In Egyptian legend Isis hid her son Horus among the bull rushes, to hide him from Set until he was old enough to fight Set. The Greek historians Josephus and Manetho however, both wrote about Moses, claiming that Moses, Aaron, and Miriam were the children of Merneptah, a disgraced member of the royal family. The basis of their assertions comes from a tablet known as The Stele of Victory of Merneptah (Franklin, 2004), which documents Merneptah’s lineage and war within his family in Egypt. Merneptah was known to be the son of the Pharaoh Merneptah, and that his brother was Seti the 2nd who ruled after his father and banished his brothers and sister from Egypt (Franklin, 2004). It is also known that he joined up with the Syrians (what the people of Israel were known as in Egyptian history) and became their leader. So while Moses is known as a religious leader, his writings formed a basis for a study in geography as the Books of Genesis and Exodus put into writing the stories of Egypt’s old trading partners as well as Egypt itself. He could also have been said to be a historian, as a lot of the stories written in the part of the bible he wrote were later verified to be true, first by the historian Josephus, then later on through anthropology throughout the centuries.
Herodotus, Greece’s Father of History has jokingly been referred to as the world’s first travel writer since he visited most of the places he wrote about. This led to the development of expeditions as a way to obtain both geographical and historical information. The writings that tie him to Egyptian geography however were his studies of both the Pyramids of Giza, as well as the great Sphinx which are part of the list of The Seven Wonders of The World (D'Epiro & Pinkwish, 1998). Estimating that they took 100000 men ten years to build, the Pyramids were already 2000 years old by the time Herodotus saw them. Herodotus’s writing influenced the three great Philosophers of Greece, Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, who passed this thirst for knowledge on to Alexander the Great, who developed the Library at Alexandria the home of Egypt’s greatest geographers. Last, but certainly not least, Herodotus created one of the first maps of the known World of his time that was based on a sphere and not on either a disc or a Cylinder (See map 1). He was also the first map maker to have put the Caspian Sea as a landlocked sea instead of a branch of the Indian Ocean (Brotton, 2012). Map comes from http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/Ancient%20Web%20Pages/109mono.html.
Map 1
Starting with Herodotus in 460 BC and ending with Ptolemy in 168 AD several Greeks living in Egypt provided the basis for geographic thought that is still used today. Herodotus, Eratosthenes, Strabo, and Ptolemy all realized that for geography to work, the data must be worked and tested. While all four men made mistakes with their data, their theories were pretty close to the mark considering what they had to work with at the time.
Eratosthenes is probably the best known of Egyptian Geographers. However that was just the beginning. By the time he died in 194 B.C. he will have determined the Earth was round, that the circumference of the earth was around 25000 miles, that the Earth is divided along meridians, how the equinoxes determined the sun’s position in the sky, the geographical significance of Homer’s writings, and the placement of the sun in the sky during the seasons. We will look at each point separately.
When Alexander the Great at passed away he established two libraries. The first one was at Alexandretta, which I will discuss later. The second was the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, which by the time Eratosthenes came along had over 100000 documents and books, all written down on papyrus scrolls (Davis K. , 2013). While reading through these scrolls he discovered a text about a well in Syrene, where the sun is directly overhead on June 21st. This was noticed because no shadow is cast on noon that day. Knowing that Alexandria was directly North of Syrene, the next time noon fell on June 21st, he went outside and looked at the shadow cast by the Obelisk of the Library. Using measurements he calculated the angle between the shadow and obelisk which calculated to 7 degrees and 12 minutes. Knowing that the Earth was a sphere (thanks to Herodotus) he divided 360 degrees by 7◦12’ and got 50. Next he multiplied the 5000 Stadia (a Stadia equals 1 10th of a mile) by 50 and got 250000 Stadia (25000 miles) for the Earth’s circumference which is very close to modern measurements. Not bad, using only geometry.
In his book Geography, Eratosthenes called Homer the first true Geographer (Hunter, 2011). In the second book he wrote, Eratosthenes documented the journey of Odysseus throughout the seas between Troy and Ithaca and whether the places that Homer described in the Odyssey actually existed. “Homer had found room in his poetry for what he had found out about Ethiopia and Egypt and Libya, and went into extraordinary detail on Greece and adjacent areas . . .” (Eratosthenes quoted by Strabo) (Lawrence, October 2007). However, unlike Strabo Eratosthenes felt that since a lot of the events in the Odyssey lacked relevance he felt that the geography was secondary, that the primary intent of Homer was to entertain (Davis K. , 2013). More on Strabo will come later.
The last work that Eratosthenes was known for divided the known world into meridians, and used those meridians for showing sun position during seasons. Derived from his work on the Earth’s circumference, he used places that were known during his life to define the meridians. Rhodes, Alexandria, The Pillars of Hercules, and the bottom of the Indian Peninsula were the spots where the meridians passed through, with Syrene being the spot that defined the Summer season. As the map below shows however, these were the East and West boundaries of the world known to him at the time. He only defined a Southern Latitude at the time though, as this was the only place he had information on. The orange dots on map 2 are his Meridians .The defining of latitude and longitude would come later on.
map 2
Before we enter the period after Christ, the subject of the great trio of Greek Philosophers needs to be touched on, since they influenced all geographical thought in the Greek-Egyptian period. Even though they never entered Egypt, their students were an important part of Egypt’s history, including the taking over of Egypt’s government by the Greek Dynasty. The first of these teachers was Plato who lived between 428-328 BC. Plato had started an academy of philosophical thought based on the seven arts of learning. These were grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy (which included geography). While he did not contribute much to the study of geometry (except passing down the legend of Atlantis, based on the Minoan culture) two of his students would go on to define the field of geometry and it’s application in geography. These two students were Euclid and Aristotle, who proved the world was a sphere (more on that in a minute).
A student of Plato’s, Euclid was well known in Egypt during the time of Ptolemy I. Unfortunately little is known about the man who revolutionized the study of geometry, as no one knowns for sure when he was born or died. What is known however is his development of the Euclidean school of geometric thought, which was used to calculate not only the circumference of the Earth, but also how the Earth should be divided (D'epiro & Pinkowish, 1998). His most important theorem however was unproven, that was the theorem that if two lines never meet at an angle, then they are parallel (Fletcher, 1938). This line of thinking was used to set up latitude and longitude later.
Aristotle made one contribution to Geography, but it was a very important one. He proved that the Earth was a sphere, simply by observing lunar eclipses. He observed that while the phases of the moon have straight lines, an eclipse never does. So when the Earth passes between the moon and the Sun, the shadow of the Earth cast on the moon is round, therefore proving the Earth is a sphere (Davis K. , 2013). However Aristotle’s student Alexander the Great would go on to establish the Library of Alexandria the home of Egyptian Geography.
Socrates is the third of the Ancient Greek philosophers. Besides being Plato’s student he made two contributions to geographical thought, neither which he could not prove, but were later on proven by other geographers. The first, the story of the Minoan culture he heard from Egyptians and put it in writing. The fact that Minoa actually existed was not proven until much later on. The second contribution he made was that the Earth rotated on its axis, not the Sun revolving around the Earth. Aristotle later worked out how it was possible (Davis K. , 2013).
Homer is often mentioned as one of the first cultural geographers, especially by Strabo (Lawrence, The Portrai of Homer in Strabo's Geography, October 2007). But Eratosthenes had disagreed with him. The main emphasis for this disagreement were Homer’s two works The Iliad and The Odyssey. The mainstay of 10th grade English classes everywhere, the Iliad chronicles the events of the Trojan War. At first thought of as a legend, in the 1870’s discoveries by Heinrich Scliemann proved that Troy actually existed (Davis K. C., Elephants in the Alps, 2013). Since it gives historical data, the Iliad is considered a historical document, while the Odyssey is considered a geographical account since it talks about all the places Jason visited.
We finally get to the last two of the Greek-Egyptian geographers, Strabo and Ptolemy. The contributions of both men are immeasurable, but both made errors in geographic thought that would cause problems later when Europe exits the Dark Ages. Strabo divided the world into three zones temperate, tropical and frigid and their locations in relation to the Equator. However he miscalculated where the habitable and inhabitable zones ended. Because of this came about the belief that Nubians were dark because they were burnt, and that the Celts were pale because they never saw sun. This was not proven inaccurate until the time of explorations in the mid-15th century (Davis K. , 2013). His greatest contribution however was collecting all geographic knowledge of the time into a seventeen volume set known as Geographica. This collection proved immeasurable to Egypt’s Arab conquerors, so that by the time of the Crusades the Arab nations had established the Silk Road as well as the passage between the Saharan and Sub Saharan nation. Strabo also discussed Homer as bring the first geographer, and offered extensive proof of this in his analysis of the Odyssey. Strabo’s proof that Homer thought geographically came from Homer’s knowledge of Iberia and the Northern polar area, areas of the World that were not well known in Homer’s time (Lawrence, October 2007).
Ptolemy also contributed a great deal to the study of geography, including a surprisingly accurate map of the world during his time. Including China, Scandinavia, and the British Isles, it also had the whole length of the Nile, which was not seen by Europeans until the 19th century. However, it is his to errors that would cause huge problems in the age of exploration. The first is his calculation that the World was only 18000 miles in circumference, which was used by Columbus when he set out for Asia in the 15th Century. If Columbus would have used Eratosthenes calculations instead, he would have realized it was too far to Asia and not make the trip (Davis K. , 2013). His other mistake, the idea of antipodes led to James Cook exploring the waters off of Antarctica, but with this exploration Cook proved that the theory of Antipodes was wrong, and that most of the land in the world was north of the Equator (Davis K. , 2013). However part of this theory was disapproved by Vasco De Gama when he rounded around Africa in the 15th Century.
After the Romans took over Egypt, two men made contributions to geographic thought before Europe entered the Dark Ages. However, one of those two men Pliny the Elder, was also the creator of tall tales, so for centuries no one knew for sure what was fake and what was real. One real contribution he made was proving there were islands outside the Pillars of Hercules. Known as the land of Dogs Insulae Canariae, the Canary Islands proved to be important geographically because it is the birthplace of storms during the late summer and early fall. But the discovery of the islands also provided Europe with an unknown species of bird, the Canary, who the islands were later named after (Davis K. C., If people were Dolphins, the Planet would be called Ocean, 2013).
Finally there was a man named Josephus. While mostly a historian, he did write a geographical history of Egypt, Greece, and the Jewish people, who fought a war with the Romans during Josephus lifetime. The most important thing he did however was to set up a timeline for three above mentioned civilizations from antiquity to their fall to the Roman Empire. Included in this writings were Josephus timeline of the Books of Chronicles in the Bible (Becking, 2011), as well as the Chronicles of Egypt’s Pharaohs, including an in depth look at Ramses the Second (Ramsey, Dee, Rowland, Higham, & Harris, 2010). Finally Josephus made a map of the important roads in the Roman Empire, some of which have survived to this day. The map below shows Egypt in relation to the rest of the Roman Empire during Josephus time.
Map 3 The Roman Empire during Josephus time.
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/resource/rome2.htm
After the Roman Empire took over Egypt gradually turned to Christianity. Becoming part of the Byzantine Empire in the 5th century, the Library of Alexandria fell into disuse, where it will stay until the seventh century when the Arab Muslim religion took over. No serious explorations of the Nile area took place again until the Early 19th when an exploration by Napoleon made a very important discovery. Found outside of Alexandria, near the town of Rosetta was a black Basalt stone measuring 2 foot 4 inches by 3 foot 9 inches. Carved during the reign of Ptolemy V, the Rosetta stone had 3 different written languages, Greek, Coptic, and more importantly hieroglyphics (Davis K. C., All men have need of the Gods, 2005). Since the document was in all three languages, it allowed modern Egyptologists to understand Egyptian writings going all the way back to the Scorpion King. More importantly, the Nile valley was explored once again by a European Empire, this time the British, who also worked to unlock the secrets of the Pyramids.
Three final geographical legends of Egypt need to be addressed as they play an important part in modern culture. The first is the Lighthouse of Pharos, the first lighthouse that was mentioned in literature. Built in 280 A.D. by Ptolemy II( also known as Philadelphus) it was 293.4 feet tall and lit by a combination of wood fires and mirrors. It was built because Alexander The Great saw how treacherous the coastline off of Alexandria could be at nighttime. (D'Epiro & Pinkwish, 1998). It collapsed during an earthquake in 1303.
The second was the City of Tanis. While it is known in popular culture as the final resting place of the Ark of the Covenant( while the Pharaoh mentioned in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark was based on was really based at Tanis at the time, the Jewish people were under the reign of the Babylonians during this period. However there was a real Ark found there, but it was the Processional Ark of Anubis (http://www.lexicorient.com/e.o/tanis.htm). According to the movie The Ten Commandments this is where the Pharaohs daughter found Moses (possible, it is near the Temple of Ramses), but there is not enough information to say for sure. What is true is that it was the first City to have been built by Non-Egyptians (Libyan rulers that briefly ruled Egypt during the second intermediate period (Davis K. C., Gift of the Nile;Myths of Egypt, 2005). It is also the final resting place of Shabaqo a Pharaoh of the last dynasty before the Greeks took over.
The final legend is that the Nile Delta froze over in 829 AD. While a couple of my sources have stories concerning this legend, I have not been able to verify it with any journal information. However, considering the latitude of the Delta and the fact it occasionally gets snow, it is possible it happened. Until further research can be done though we will leave this as a legend.
Conclusion:
The cradle of civilization Egypt has played an important part in the study of Geography. In the beginning this study was simply to determine where the best locations to plant crops was located. But as the Egyptians started building boats, they started looking outward, first for trade, then for battle. Eventually though, people start wondering where they came from, so they listen to the stories of their neighbors, and developing their own creation stories. After a while Egypt got conquered and the Greeks brought their philosophical thought to Egypt and the study of geography began in the Greek Dynasty. When we think of this dynasty, the names of Strabo, Ptolemy and Eratosthenes come up, as these are the most important people in the development of geographical thought. But these librarians were not the only ones. Every man in history wants to know where their place on Earth is. Even though I did not mention the Leakeys or Darwin, they picked up where the Greeks left off. On the other hand were Stanley and Himmler, whose main interest in geography was so they can learn how to oppress people that they considered less than them (Driver, 2001). However, there was a third group of geographers, whose dream it was to see the Earth from the stars. Carl Sagan’s dream came true Feb, 1990 when Voyager turned her cameras back to Earth as she was leaving the solar system and took one final snapshot.
The book Geography militant looks at the relationship between geography and history, but through a negative eye. The author strongly believed that while there were some geographers and historians who were interested in a scientific look at culture, others were more interested in studying those cultures so that they can suppress them. While this may be true of the Roman, Spanish, and British Empires, as well as the Nazis, others such as the Greeks and the Ottomans, were more interested in preserving those cultures they came across, so while both groups ruled Egypt, they left Egypt intact, and preserved what they found in monuments and museums. (Davis K. C., Gift of the Nile;Myths of Egypt, 2005)
I created a layout of three sets of maps of Egypt for my final project in another class. While they do not directly tie in to the thesis, they are interesting in that they show changes in Egypt throughout time. The first map (Map 4) shows Egypt’s age by plotting on the map when each city was founded(some are approximate due to carbon dating, others are absolute due to the narratives of different pharaohs.Map 4 Ancient Map of Egypt
The second map is the route the camel caravan took that Eratosthenes used to measure the difference between Syene and Alexandria. This layout(map 5) is in both kms and Stadia to compare the differences in the measurements.Map5
The third map layout(map 6) shows the changes in the Nile delta between Eratosthenes time and the modern era. The most interesting one is the map from Napoleon’s cartographer, which is so poorly projected all the cities on the lower half of the Nile do not sit there on this map.
With Google Earth it is now possible to see all of these sites in Egypt without leaving the house. What will the future bring us?
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Parsons, M. (2013). Egypt:THe Step Pyramid of King Djoser at Saqqara. Retrieved from Tour Egypt: http://www.touregypt.net/stepyram.htm
Ramsey, C. B., Dee, M. W., Rowland, J. M., Higham, T. F., & Harris, S. A. (2010). Radiocarbon-Based Chronology for Dynastic Egypt. Science, 1554-1558.
May 17, 2015
Thesis, Final Draft
Introduction:
In Strabo’s Geography, he argued that the great historian and poet Homer was as much a geographer as a historian (Lawrence, 2007). However, Eratosthenes disagreed, saying that Homer’s works were historical documents and that the geography was secondary (Lawrence, 2007). So who was correct? If you break it down his to greatest works The Iliad and The Odyssey were actually different types of poetry. The Iliad is definitely a historical epic, with the Trojan War hashed out in surprising detail, while the Odyssey is closer to being a geographical work.
In this thesis I intend to show the difference between history and cultural geography, using the works of Egyptian and Greek geographers to help define the argument. Initially, I planned to focus solely on Egypt, however I realized that Egyptian and Greek history and Geography are tied very closely together, with a lot of Egyptian cities bearing Greek names. First a few simple definitions. Geography simply means Earth Writing, not to be confused with Geometry, which means Earth Measurement, and Geology which means Earth Study. In early Egypt and Greece it wasn’t unusual to have all three studied by the same person, as I will show in this paper. History, on the other hand as it was defined by Herodotus in his writing History as “Inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation” (Brotton, 2014). The previous definition actually fits both history and geography, so more detail is needed. Simply put geography focuses its study on a specific place while history is more focused on events spread throughout time. Those events may be told as facts, fables, legends, myths, or parables. Cultural geography focuses on the people that live in a place, which can be confused with anthropology, but anthropology focuses more on how a person lived and what made them tick. The word culture comes from a Roman phrase cultura animi, which simply means soul harvest, or cultivation of the soul, depending on what translation is used. So simply put cultural geography mean Earth writing cultivated by the soul. In other words, knowledge of a place. Looking at modern references however, the definition has changed throughout time. In the revised edition of his book Don’t Know Much About Geography Kenneth Davis states in the prologue that “Geography is not just about understanding our place in the world and who our neighbors are, or about memorizing place names and state capitals. It is about understanding the links between places and events”. For instance, the reason that Egypt is so important geographically is because it is the door to another world that few people understand. Three events in modern times have brought Egypt back into the forefront as an important part of understanding geography. In the early 1800’s Napoleon’s men discovered the Rosetta stone, which helped translate Egyptian writing into Greek. In the 1920’s the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb, as well as the writings of Imhotep, led to the modern study of Egyptology (not to mention spawned a bunch of great horror movies). Finally, during WW 2 the desert fox Erwin Rommel showed with his many battles in Egypt how important Egypt was due to its oil reserves and its location centrally on many trade routes.
Protodynasty: Narmer and King Scorpion
5000 years ago there lived two kings. One was King Scorpion, whose name was unknown, and the other was Narmer, who was also known as Menes. Romanticized in the movie the Scorpion King, there is actually not a lot that is known about either king. What is known, however is that Egypt was united during the rule of these kings ending the Protodynastic period and beginning the First Dynasty (Kersken, 2011). Narmer is the more well known of the two, as not only has his grave been found, but several hieroglyphics throughout the kingdom demonstrated the extent of his rule. Based in the ancient city of Elephantine, Narmer was demonstrated by a palette to have ruled with an iron fist, with opponents being castrated and beheaded (Kersken, 2011). King Scorpion, however seemed to have been a much more compassionate ruler, with his mace head showing him with a hoe digging an agriculture trench to bring water to crops (Parsons, 2013). The King Scorpion’s reign seems to have been based in the city of Hierakonpolis, which is also where the Narmer Palette was found, so this was probably an important trade center as well. It is now known, thanks to recent discoveries in Israel, that both of these kings traded with Canaan and the rest of the Middle East (Levy, Van Den Brink, Goren, & Alon, 1995). It has even been alleged that King Scorpion may be Akkadian (by the movie the Scorpion King), but that has not been confirmed. What has been confirmed though is that both Narmer and King Scorpion both traveled the distance of the Nile between its delta and Nubia in the Sudan, leaving cartouches along the whole distance of animal life that was encountered, as well as a legend of life when the Sahara was a savannah (Kersken, 2011). The first capital city of Egypt however was established by the King Aha at Memphis around 3000 B.C. (Davis, 2005). The City of Thebes was also founded at this time, which would play a part later in the story of Moses.
Early Egyptian legends:
When people hear the name Imhotep, the first thing that comes to mind is the Mummy that was cursed by the gods for assassinating Seti the first. In actuality he lived a thousand years before Seti’s reign, but would have been known to Seti for a different reason. After all Imhotep was responsible for the design of the Step Pyramid of Djoser (Parsons, Egypt:THe Step Pyramid of King Djoser at Saqqara, 2013). Besides designing one of the first true pyramids he was also for significant contributions to geography that still stand to this day. But more on that below. Imhotep is also considered one of the fathers of cardiac medicine, with a papyrus written by him discussing the taking of a pulse to check the heart health. As a result he believed the heart to be the center of the soul, which led to the discarding of brains as being unimportant to the mummy (: ElMaghawry M, 2014). However, since this is a paper on geography we must discuss his important contributions to this field. There were two contributions by Imhotep to geographical thought. The first is the idea of a central city-state where the rest of the country’s business could take place, including trade and worship. The second was the idea of using the sun for navigation, which was immortalized in the village of the dead Saqqaro (Glassman, 2000) . He aligned the Pyramid of Djoser so that the Sun would rise and set directly over the pyramid. This was the inspiration for the Eye of RA (Parsons, Egypt:THe Step Pyramid of King Djoser at Saqqara, 2013). There is a Christian legend that Imhotep was the Joseph mentioned in the Old Testament as the son of Jacob, but it has never been verified. The last interesting note in Imhotep’s history is that Napoleon discovered an artifact that helped translate Imhotep’s writing, but more on that later (Glassman, 2000).
Fast forward almost 800 years we get to the reign of Nefertiti and Akhenaton. What is interesting about this couple is that he was the father of King Tutankhamun and she was the mother of Anck-su-namun, who was married to King Tutankhamun. In the movie the Mummy Nefertiti was Anck-su-namun’s step daughter to be. While Seti, the King in the Mummy was aware of Anck-Su-Namun and Nefertiti, it was because they were his Great Grandmother and Great-Great Grandmother respectively (Ramsey, Dee, Rowland, Higham, & Harris, 2010). Also he would have been aware of Imhotep as a deity to give prayers to, not the person who killed him (Glassman, 2000). The main reason all of this is known is through the tomb of Tutankhamun, one of the few that was well preserved. Akhenaton is also well known because he was the only monotheistic pharaoh in recorded history. (Ramsey, Dee, Rowland, Higham, & Harris, 2010). It is well believed that his monotheism spread throughout the region and was an inspiration for both Judaism and Zoroastrianism, which in turn inspired a symbol of evil in Egypt known as the Apis Bull (Davis K. C., 2005)
The contributions of Ramses the second to geography and history is immeasurable. During his reign the use of boats for navigation had become common place, as well as the use of stars for navigation. In 1270 B.C. he fought an important battle at the town of Kadesh. When he realized he was outnumbered and his men not willing to fight the superior Hittite army, he and the Hittite Leader established the first written peace treaty, which surprisingly criticized his own men for cowardice. The end result of this treaty though is it provided a blueprint for future treaties, and established peace between the Hittites and Egyptians, who thereafter turned to trade (Doyle, 2011). Other contributions included having a geographer on staff to keep track of space and place, as well as trade with Asia along the Silk Road. Which brings us to the story of Moses and Israel, which was mentioned by Ramses II but he claimed they were a nomadic tribe he traded with.
Most of what is known about Moses is either through the Bible, or through the Greek Historian Josephus. Ramses briefly mentioned Israel, but did not mention Moses at all. However, recent documents suggest that Moses actually lived earlier and was the son of Amenhotep the III (Alchin, 2015). Known as Thutmose, like Moses his name was mysteriously stricken from Egyptian records. Moses is known as the first writer of geographic knowledge. Some of the things he wrote about that were influenced by stories from other sources include the Tower of Babel, Noah, , and Moses own adoption story (presuming he adopted the story to cover up his royal court exile).
One of the early stories written about was Noah’s ark which was based on the stories of Gilgamesh. While a lot of the story is made up of legends that were put on a clay tablet in Sumeria around 2000 BC( making it the first known work of literature) there were three indications that Gilgamesh was a true story. The first is that the Sumerian King List, which was found in the town of Ninevah (which was also written about in a later book of the Bible) lists him as the 5th leader of Uruk’s first dynasty (Davis K. C., 2005). The second was a wall in Uruk, which was marked with him as the builder. The final is other legends in the area, including the Babylonian story of Enuma Elish, which referred to a flood also, as well as Sumeria and its kings. Scientific evidence showed the flood actually took place around 5600 B.C. when the Black Sea was flooded by the Mediterranean Sea after a sudden sea level rise, which Oceanographer Robert Ballard provided strong evidence for with an expedition in 2000 with houses he charted underwater in the Black Sea (Davis K. C., 2005). This flooding was possibly caused by climate change melting ice caps from the last Ice Age which ended around the same time. Anyway the flood was written about by Greeks, Sumerians, Babylonian, and early Semite tribes, all who have had contact with Egypt. So the story of Noah came from one of these sources.
“Go to, let us go down, and confound their language, that they might not understand each other’s speech” - Genesis 11:7-8. This passage that Moses wrote about is probably about the Temple of Marduk, which was built around 1900 B.C., right after which Babylon was invaded by invaders from several different civilizations, all with separate languages. Within 200 years Babylon was split between Akkadians, Sumerians, Hittites, early Persians, and early Greeks, all who traded with the Egyptians and led to the story of The Tower of Babel (Davis K. C., 2005).
Finally, even Moses own adoption story is based on a legend. In Egyptian legend Isis hid her son Horus among the bull rushes, to hide him from Set until he was old enough to fight Set. The Greek historians Josephus and Manetho however, both wrote about Moses, claiming that Moses, Aaron, and Miriam were the children of Merneptah, a disgraced member of the royal family. The basis of their assertions comes from a tablet known as The Stele of Victory of Merneptah (Franklin, 2004), which documents Merneptah’s lineage and war within his family in Egypt. Merneptah was known to be the son of the Pharaoh Merneptah, and that his brother was Seti the 2nd who ruled after his father and banished his brothers and sister from Egypt (Franklin, 2004). It is also known that he joined up with the Syrians (what the people of Israel were known as in Egyptian history) and became their leader. So while Moses is known as a religious leader, his writings formed a basis for a study in geography as the Books of Genesis and Exodus put into writing the stories of Egypt’s old trading partners as well as Egypt itself. He could also have been said to be a historian, as a lot of the stories written in the part of the bible he wrote were later verified to be true, first by the historian Josephus, then later on through anthropology throughout the centuries.
Herodotus, Greece’s Father of History has jokingly been referred to as the world’s first travel writer since he visited most of the places he wrote about. This led to the development of expeditions as a way to obtain both geographical and historical information. The writings that tie him to Egyptian geography however were his studies of both the Pyramids of Giza, as well as the great Sphinx which are part of the list of The Seven Wonders of The World (D'Epiro & Pinkwish, 1998). Estimating that they took 100000 men ten years to build, the Pyramids were already 2000 years old by the time Herodotus saw them. Herodotus’s writing influenced the three great Philosophers of Greece, Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, who passed this thirst for knowledge on to Alexander the Great, who developed the Library at Alexandria the home of Egypt’s greatest geographers. Last, but certainly not least, Herodotus created one of the first maps of the known World of his time that was based on a sphere and not on either a disc or a Cylinder (See map 1). He was also the first map maker to have put the Caspian Sea as a landlocked sea instead of a branch of the Indian Ocean (Brotton, 2012). Map comes from http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/Ancient%20Web%20Pages/109mono.html.
Map 1
Starting with Herodotus in 460 BC and ending with Ptolemy in 168 AD several Greeks living in Egypt provided the basis for geographic thought that is still used today. Herodotus, Eratosthenes, Strabo, and Ptolemy all realized that for geography to work, the data must be worked and tested. While all four men made mistakes with their data, their theories were pretty close to the mark considering what they had to work with at the time.
Eratosthenes is probably the best known of Egyptian Geographers. However that was just the beginning. By the time he died in 194 B.C. he will have determined the Earth was round, that the circumference of the earth was around 25000 miles, that the Earth is divided along meridians, how the equinoxes determined the sun’s position in the sky, the geographical significance of Homer’s writings, and the placement of the sun in the sky during the seasons. We will look at each point separately.
When Alexander the Great at passed away he established two libraries. The first one was at Alexandretta, which I will discuss later. The second was the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, which by the time Eratosthenes came along had over 100000 documents and books, all written down on papyrus scrolls (Davis K. , 2013). While reading through these scrolls he discovered a text about a well in Syrene, where the sun is directly overhead on June 21st. This was noticed because no shadow is cast on noon that day. Knowing that Alexandria was directly North of Syrene, the next time noon fell on June 21st, he went outside and looked at the shadow cast by the Obelisk of the Library. Using measurements he calculated the angle between the shadow and obelisk which calculated to 7 degrees and 12 minutes. Knowing that the Earth was a sphere (thanks to Herodotus) he divided 360 degrees by 7◦12’ and got 50. Next he multiplied the 5000 Stadia (a Stadia equals 1 10th of a mile) by 50 and got 250000 Stadia (25000 miles) for the Earth’s circumference which is very close to modern measurements. Not bad, using only geometry.
In his book Geography, Eratosthenes called Homer the first true Geographer (Hunter, 2011). In the second book he wrote, Eratosthenes documented the journey of Odysseus throughout the seas between Troy and Ithaca and whether the places that Homer described in the Odyssey actually existed. “Homer had found room in his poetry for what he had found out about Ethiopia and Egypt and Libya, and went into extraordinary detail on Greece and adjacent areas . . .” (Eratosthenes quoted by Strabo) (Lawrence, October 2007). However, unlike Strabo Eratosthenes felt that since a lot of the events in the Odyssey lacked relevance he felt that the geography was secondary, that the primary intent of Homer was to entertain (Davis K. , 2013). More on Strabo will come later.
The last work that Eratosthenes was known for divided the known world into meridians, and used those meridians for showing sun position during seasons. Derived from his work on the Earth’s circumference, he used places that were known during his life to define the meridians. Rhodes, Alexandria, The Pillars of Hercules, and the bottom of the Indian Peninsula were the spots where the meridians passed through, with Syrene being the spot that defined the Summer season. As the map below shows however, these were the East and West boundaries of the world known to him at the time. He only defined a Southern Latitude at the time though, as this was the only place he had information on. The orange dots on map 2 are his Meridians .The defining of latitude and longitude would come later on.
map 2
Before we enter the period after Christ, the subject of the great trio of Greek Philosophers needs to be touched on, since they influenced all geographical thought in the Greek-Egyptian period. Even though they never entered Egypt, their students were an important part of Egypt’s history, including the taking over of Egypt’s government by the Greek Dynasty. The first of these teachers was Plato who lived between 428-328 BC. Plato had started an academy of philosophical thought based on the seven arts of learning. These were grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy (which included geography). While he did not contribute much to the study of geometry (except passing down the legend of Atlantis, based on the Minoan culture) two of his students would go on to define the field of geometry and it’s application in geography. These two students were Euclid and Aristotle, who proved the world was a sphere (more on that in a minute).
A student of Plato’s, Euclid was well known in Egypt during the time of Ptolemy I. Unfortunately little is known about the man who revolutionized the study of geometry, as no one knowns for sure when he was born or died. What is known however is his development of the Euclidean school of geometric thought, which was used to calculate not only the circumference of the Earth, but also how the Earth should be divided (D'epiro & Pinkowish, 1998). His most important theorem however was unproven, that was the theorem that if two lines never meet at an angle, then they are parallel (Fletcher, 1938). This line of thinking was used to set up latitude and longitude later.
Aristotle made one contribution to Geography, but it was a very important one. He proved that the Earth was a sphere, simply by observing lunar eclipses. He observed that while the phases of the moon have straight lines, an eclipse never does. So when the Earth passes between the moon and the Sun, the shadow of the Earth cast on the moon is round, therefore proving the Earth is a sphere (Davis K. , 2013). However Aristotle’s student Alexander the Great would go on to establish the Library of Alexandria the home of Egyptian Geography.
Socrates is the third of the Ancient Greek philosophers. Besides being Plato’s student he made two contributions to geographical thought, neither which he could not prove, but were later on proven by other geographers. The first, the story of the Minoan culture he heard from Egyptians and put it in writing. The fact that Minoa actually existed was not proven until much later on. The second contribution he made was that the Earth rotated on its axis, not the Sun revolving around the Earth. Aristotle later worked out how it was possible (Davis K. , 2013).
Homer is often mentioned as one of the first cultural geographers, especially by Strabo (Lawrence, The Portrai of Homer in Strabo's Geography, October 2007). But Eratosthenes had disagreed with him. The main emphasis for this disagreement were Homer’s two works The Iliad and The Odyssey. The mainstay of 10th grade English classes everywhere, the Iliad chronicles the events of the Trojan War. At first thought of as a legend, in the 1870’s discoveries by Heinrich Scliemann proved that Troy actually existed (Davis K. C., Elephants in the Alps, 2013). Since it gives historical data, the Iliad is considered a historical document, while the Odyssey is considered a geographical account since it talks about all the places Jason visited.
We finally get to the last two of the Greek-Egyptian geographers, Strabo and Ptolemy. The contributions of both men are immeasurable, but both made errors in geographic thought that would cause problems later when Europe exits the Dark Ages. Strabo divided the world into three zones temperate, tropical and frigid and their locations in relation to the Equator. However he miscalculated where the habitable and inhabitable zones ended. Because of this came about the belief that Nubians were dark because they were burnt, and that the Celts were pale because they never saw sun. This was not proven inaccurate until the time of explorations in the mid-15th century (Davis K. , 2013). His greatest contribution however was collecting all geographic knowledge of the time into a seventeen volume set known as Geographica. This collection proved immeasurable to Egypt’s Arab conquerors, so that by the time of the Crusades the Arab nations had established the Silk Road as well as the passage between the Saharan and Sub Saharan nation. Strabo also discussed Homer as bring the first geographer, and offered extensive proof of this in his analysis of the Odyssey. Strabo’s proof that Homer thought geographically came from Homer’s knowledge of Iberia and the Northern polar area, areas of the World that were not well known in Homer’s time (Lawrence, October 2007).
Ptolemy also contributed a great deal to the study of geography, including a surprisingly accurate map of the world during his time. Including China, Scandinavia, and the British Isles, it also had the whole length of the Nile, which was not seen by Europeans until the 19th century. However, it is his to errors that would cause huge problems in the age of exploration. The first is his calculation that the World was only 18000 miles in circumference, which was used by Columbus when he set out for Asia in the 15th Century. If Columbus would have used Eratosthenes calculations instead, he would have realized it was too far to Asia and not make the trip (Davis K. , 2013). His other mistake, the idea of antipodes led to James Cook exploring the waters off of Antarctica, but with this exploration Cook proved that the theory of Antipodes was wrong, and that most of the land in the world was north of the Equator (Davis K. , 2013). However part of this theory was disapproved by Vasco De Gama when he rounded around Africa in the 15th Century.
After the Romans took over Egypt, two men made contributions to geographic thought before Europe entered the Dark Ages. However, one of those two men Pliny the Elder, was also the creator of tall tales, so for centuries no one knew for sure what was fake and what was real. One real contribution he made was proving there were islands outside the Pillars of Hercules. Known as the land of Dogs Insulae Canariae, the Canary Islands proved to be important geographically because it is the birthplace of storms during the late summer and early fall. But the discovery of the islands also provided Europe with an unknown species of bird, the Canary, who the islands were later named after (Davis K. C., If people were Dolphins, the Planet would be called Ocean, 2013).
Finally there was a man named Josephus. While mostly a historian, he did write a geographical history of Egypt, Greece, and the Jewish people, who fought a war with the Romans during Josephus lifetime. The most important thing he did however was to set up a timeline for three above mentioned civilizations from antiquity to their fall to the Roman Empire. Included in this writings were Josephus timeline of the Books of Chronicles in the Bible (Becking, 2011), as well as the Chronicles of Egypt’s Pharaohs, including an in depth look at Ramses the Second (Ramsey, Dee, Rowland, Higham, & Harris, 2010). Finally Josephus made a map of the important roads in the Roman Empire, some of which have survived to this day. The map below shows Egypt in relation to the rest of the Roman Empire during Josephus time.
Map 3 The Roman Empire during Josephus time.
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/resource/rome2.htm
After the Roman Empire took over Egypt gradually turned to Christianity. Becoming part of the Byzantine Empire in the 5th century, the Library of Alexandria fell into disuse, where it will stay until the seventh century when the Arab Muslim religion took over. No serious explorations of the Nile area took place again until the Early 19th when an exploration by Napoleon made a very important discovery. Found outside of Alexandria, near the town of Rosetta was a black Basalt stone measuring 2 foot 4 inches by 3 foot 9 inches. Carved during the reign of Ptolemy V, the Rosetta stone had 3 different written languages, Greek, Coptic, and more importantly hieroglyphics (Davis K. C., All men have need of the Gods, 2005). Since the document was in all three languages, it allowed modern Egyptologists to understand Egyptian writings going all the way back to the Scorpion King. More importantly, the Nile valley was explored once again by a European Empire, this time the British, who also worked to unlock the secrets of the Pyramids.
Three final geographical legends of Egypt need to be addressed as they play an important part in modern culture. The first is the Lighthouse of Pharos, the first lighthouse that was mentioned in literature. Built in 280 A.D. by Ptolemy II( also known as Philadelphus) it was 293.4 feet tall and lit by a combination of wood fires and mirrors. It was built because Alexander The Great saw how treacherous the coastline off of Alexandria could be at nighttime. (D'Epiro & Pinkwish, 1998). It collapsed during an earthquake in 1303.
The second was the City of Tanis. While it is known in popular culture as the final resting place of the Ark of the Covenant( while the Pharaoh mentioned in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark was based on was really based at Tanis at the time, the Jewish people were under the reign of the Babylonians during this period. However there was a real Ark found there, but it was the Processional Ark of Anubis (http://www.lexicorient.com/e.o/tanis.htm). According to the movie The Ten Commandments this is where the Pharaohs daughter found Moses (possible, it is near the Temple of Ramses), but there is not enough information to say for sure. What is true is that it was the first City to have been built by Non-Egyptians (Libyan rulers that briefly ruled Egypt during the second intermediate period (Davis K. C., Gift of the Nile;Myths of Egypt, 2005). It is also the final resting place of Shabaqo a Pharaoh of the last dynasty before the Greeks took over.
The final legend is that the Nile Delta froze over in 829 AD. While a couple of my sources have stories concerning this legend, I have not been able to verify it with any journal information. However, considering the latitude of the Delta and the fact it occasionally gets snow, it is possible it happened. Until further research can be done though we will leave this as a legend.
Conclusion:
The cradle of civilization Egypt has played an important part in the study of Geography. In the beginning this study was simply to determine where the best locations to plant crops was located. But as the Egyptians started building boats, they started looking outward, first for trade, then for battle. Eventually though, people start wondering where they came from, so they listen to the stories of their neighbors, and developing their own creation stories. After a while Egypt got conquered and the Greeks brought their philosophical thought to Egypt and the study of geography began in the Greek Dynasty. When we think of this dynasty, the names of Strabo, Ptolemy and Eratosthenes come up, as these are the most important people in the development of geographical thought. But these librarians were not the only ones. Every man in history wants to know where their place on Earth is. Even though I did not mention the Leakeys or Darwin, they picked up where the Greeks left off. On the other hand were Stanley and Himmler, whose main interest in geography was so they can learn how to oppress people that they considered less than them (Driver, 2001). However, there was a third group of geographers, whose dream it was to see the Earth from the stars. Carl Sagan’s dream came true Feb, 1990 when Voyager turned her cameras back to Earth as she was leaving the solar system and took one final snapshot.
The book Geography militant looks at the relationship between geography and history, but through a negative eye. The author strongly believed that while there were some geographers and historians who were interested in a scientific look at culture, others were more interested in studying those cultures so that they can suppress them. While this may be true of the Roman, Spanish, and British Empires, as well as the Nazis, others such as the Greeks and the Ottomans, were more interested in preserving those cultures they came across, so while both groups ruled Egypt, they left Egypt intact, and preserved what they found in monuments and museums. (Davis K. C., Gift of the Nile;Myths of Egypt, 2005)
I created a layout of three sets of maps of Egypt for my final project in another class. While they do not directly tie in to the thesis, they are interesting in that they show changes in Egypt throughout time. The first map (Map 4) shows Egypt’s age by plotting on the map when each city was founded(some are approximate due to carbon dating, others are absolute due to the narratives of different pharaohs.Map 4 Ancient Map of Egypt
The second map is the route the camel caravan took that Eratosthenes used to measure the difference between Syene and Alexandria. This layout(map 5) is in both kms and Stadia to compare the differences in the measurements.Map5
The third map layout(map 6) shows the changes in the Nile delta between Eratosthenes time and the modern era. The most interesting one is the map from Napoleon’s cartographer, which is so poorly projected all the cities on the lower half of the Nile do not sit there on this map.
With Google Earth it is now possible to see all of these sites in Egypt without leaving the house. What will the future bring us?
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