EGYPT

Overview

Cairo, Egypt’s sprawling capital, is set on the Nile River. At its heart is Tahrir Square and the vast Egyptian Museum, a trove of  antiquities including royal mummies and gilded King Tutankhamun artifacts. The Giza Plateau is a plateau in Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt, site of the Fourth Dynasty Giza Necropolis, which includes the Great Pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, the Great Sphinx, several cemeteries, a workers’ village and an industrial complex. Alexandria is a Mediterranean port city in Egypt. During the Hellenistic period, it was home to a lighthouse ranking among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World as well as a storied library. Today the library is reincarnated in the disc-shaped, ultramodern Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Edfu is an Egyptian city, located on the west bank of the Nile River between Esna and Aswan, with a population of approximately sixty  thousand people. Edfu is the site of the Ptolemaic Temple of Horus and an ancient settlement, Tell Edfu. About 5 km south of Edfu are remains of ancient pyramids. Aswan, a city on the Nile River, has been southern Egypt’s strategic and commercial gateway since antiquity. It contains significant archaeological sites like the Philae temple complex, on Agilkia Island near the landmark Aswan Dam. The Philae temple complex is an island-based temple complex in the reservoir of the Aswan Low Dam, downstream of the Aswan Dam and Lake Nasser, Egypt. Kom Ombo Egyptian Arabic: كوم أمبو‎; Coptic: Ⲉⲙⲃⲱ Embo; Ancient Greek: Ὄμβοι Omboi or Ὄμβος Ombos; or Latin: Ambo and Ombi is an agricultural town in Egypt famous for the Temple of Kom Ombo. Luxor is a city on the east bank of the Nile River in southern Egypt. It’s on the site of ancient Thebes, the pharaohs’ capital at the height of their power, during the 16th–11th centuries B.C. Today’s city surrounds 2 huge, surviving ancient monuments: graceful Luxor  Temple and Karnak Temple, a mile north.