Egypt & Egyptian Culture Educational Posters & Prints
teaching and curriculum resources for the social studies classroom and home schoolers.

The three largest pyramids are the pyramid of Menkaura with its subsidiary pyramids, the pyramid of Khafre, and the Great Pyramid of Khufa is the largest, which covers 13 acres and had an original height of 481 feet.

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The Sphinx

Your fearful form is the work of the deathless gods. To spare the flat and fertile lands they placed you in their depression. A rocky island from which they banished the sand. They place you as a neighbor to the pyramids... Who vigilantly watches the blessed Osiris...  Inscription from the second century A.D.

Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in 332 BC on the site of a fishing village called Rhakotis, at the mouth of the Nile River.

Hippodamus, the first city planner , laid out Alexandria in a grid plan, Dinocrates was the chief architect, and Alexander's general Ptolemy, built the city that was famous for its lighthouse (one the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) and its library.

As of 2006, Alexandria's population was over 4 million people. Famous citizens of Alexandria include Saint Athanasius, Cleopatra, Cosmas Indicopleustes, Hypatia, Claudius Ptolemaeus, Eratosthenes, Euclid, and Origin.

Cairo is the capital of Egypt and the second largest city in the Muslim World, the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world (2011). Cairo is on the Nile River just before it begins fanning out into the Nile Delta.

Present day Cairo was founded in the 10th century AD around ancient Egyptian capitals from millennian earlier.

Memphis was the ancient capital of Aneb-Hetch, the first nome (Greek meaning district) of Lower Egypt.

According to legend the city was founded by the pharaoh Menes around 3000 BC. It remained an important city throughout ancient Mediterranean history and thrived as a regional centre for commerce, trade, and religion.

Its ruins are located near the town of Helwan, south of Cairo and are available to the public as an open-air museum.

The city of Memphis, Tennessee is the namesake of ancient Memphis.

Thebes, the Greek name for a city in Ancient Egypt, lies within the modern city of Luxor. It is located about 400 miles (800 km) south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river Nile.

The Necropolis of Thebes, on the west bank of the Nile across from the city, is one of them most famous archeological sites in the world.

Hieroglyphics is the term used to decribe a writing system of characters. The word is from the Greek “hieros” (holy) and “glyph” (to carve). It was first used by the Greeks to describe the Egyptian system.

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The Nile River, generally considered the longest river in the world (6,695 km or 4,180 mi), flows northward from east central Africa to its delta in the Mediterrean Sea.

The annual flooding of the Nile River created very fertile soil that produced bountiful food supplies; the Nile was also easy transportation that faciliated trade and sparked imagination to create pantheon of gods and a rich spiritual life.

The ancient Egyptian culture was called “the gift of the Nile” by the historian Herodotus.

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The Western Sahara Desert, or Libyan Desert, stretching from the Mediterranean south to the Sudanese border and from the Nile on the east to Egypt's western border with Libya, is an area about the size of Texas.

The Sahara Desert is the largest desert on Earth. This wind formed sand dune makes one consider if the ancient Egyptian pyramid builders might have been inspired by some ancient sand dune to capture the transient nature of the wind and sand.

The isolated Siwa Oasis, which has sustained life since ancient times, is famous for it olive and date trees. In 2007 Egyptian archaeologists reported to have found what could be the oldest human footprint in history at a prehistoric site in Siwa.

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Continent of Africa
Poster Text:
PHYSICAL FEATURES/CLIMATE
Many people think of Africa as all jungle, but there is as much desert as jungle on the continent. Deserts cover two-fifths of Africa. The Sahara Desert, the largest desert in the world, stretches across 3 1/4 million square miles of northern Africa. Much of Africa is also covered by grasslands called savannas. Africa has the largest tropical area of any continent. Dense tropical rain forests surround the Congo River Basin in West Central Africa. The world's longest river, the Nile, flows for 4,145 miles through East Africa to the Mediterranean Sea. Nearly all of Africa has a hot climate, but the humidity and rainfall vary greatly. The highest temperature ever recorded, 136?F, was in the African nation of Libya in 1922. Tropical areas can get more than 100 inches of rain a year, but the Sahara Desert averages less than 10 inches a year. Rain falls year-round in the Congo Basin, but most of the continent experiences a season of heavy rainfall followed by a dry period.
RESOURCES: Africa is a leading producer of cocoa beans, cashews, vanilla beans, and yams. Much of Africa's cultivated land is used for subsistence farming  growing local crops for the farmer and his family's own use. Africa has large deposits of diamonds, gold, copper, and petroleum, but nearly all its mineral wealth is clustered in just a few countries. Mining has played a large part in the development of Africa and accounts for more than half of its exports. South Africa is the world's leading producer of gold, and both Libya and Nigeria are leading producers of petroleum.
WILDLIFE: Africa has thousands of species of mammals, reptiles, fish, amphibians, birds, and insects. Herds of antelope, giraffes, and zebras roam the grasslands. Large cats such as leopards, cheetahs, and lions stalk these animals as prey. Some herds of elephants can still be found in the east and southeast. Chimpanezees, monkeys, and gorillas live in the forests, and hippopotamuses and crocodiles live in the tropical rivers. Because of overhunting, many of these animals are now endangered. The plant life in Africa varies greatly due to differences in climate and rainfall. Palm trees, fruit trees, and hardwoods like mahogany and ebony are found in the rain forest. Drought resistant grasses and the thick-trunked baobah tree grow on the savannas.
HISTORY/PEOPLE: The earliest evidence of human existence, dating back two million years, was found in East Africa. One of the world's first great civilizations  Ancient Egypt  sprang up along the banks of the Nile River more than 5,000 years ago. Many other empires also developed in Africa. In the 1400s, Europeans began exploring Africa and setting up trading posts. Over the next several centuries, Europeans captured Africans and shipped them to Europe and the Americas as slaves. By the 1800s, as many as 10 million Africans had been enslaved and brought to Europe and the New World. Many European nations, including Belgium, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, fought for control of Africa. By the early 1900s, these countries had made colonies af all but two nations in Africa. In the mid-1900s the demand for African independence grew and most nations were freed from European rule. The people of Africa now have various backgrounds. Some are descendents of the continent's original inhabitants, others are descended from people who came originally from Europe, East Asia, or India. There are more than 50 countries in Africa, and more than 800 languages are spoken there. Most Africans come from small ethnic groups that have their own languages and religions. In addition, Arabic-speaking Muslims are common in northern Africa, and many Christians can be found in Ethiopia and Egypt.

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