Alexandria Egypt Quotes

I haven't come to you only to take , I haven't come to you empty handed : I bring you poetry as great as yours but in anther tongue , I bring you black eyes and golden skin and curly hair , I bring you Islam and Luxor and Alexandria and Lutes and tambourines and date-palms and silk rugs and sunshine and incense and voluptuous ways

Cairo and Alexandria were cosmopolitan not so much because they contained foreigners, but because the Egyptian born in them is himself a stranger to his land.

the first physician who is known to have counted the pulse, Herophilos of Alexandria (born 300 B.C.), lived in Egypt.

There are other sorcerer women in history you might admire,” Agrippa said. “Hypatia of Alexandria, the teacher. Much like you.” He smiled. “Hatshepsut, deemed by many as the greatest pharaoh in Egypt’s long history.” It struck me as odd that most sorcerer women belonged solely to antiquity, as if the glory of female magic were some crumbling myth to be debated by scholars.

And Pythagoras is reported to have been a disciple of Sonches the Egyptian arch-prophet; and Plato, of Sechnuphis of Heliopolis; and Eudoxus, of Cnidius of Konuphis, who was also an Egyptian. [Stromata, 1.15]

Here, in Egypt, the morning of Alexander’s adventure ends. Henceforth he is divided; Alexandria is his first possession and he is no longer free.

One day in the next five hundred billion years, while the probes complete one full circuit of the Milky Way, maybe they’ll stumble upon intelligent life. In forty thousand years or so, when the two probes sail close enough to a planetary system, maybe just maybe one of these plants will be home to some life form which will spy the probe with whatever it has that passes for eyes, stay its telescope, retrieve the derelict fuel-less old probe with whatever it has that passes for curiosity, lower the stylus (supplied) to the record with whatever it has that passes for digits, and set free the dadadadaa of Beethoven’s Fifth. It’ll roll like thunder through a different frontier. Human music will permeate the Milky Way’s outer reaches. There’ll be Chuck Berry and Bach, there’ll be Stravinsky and Blind Willie Johnson, and the didgeridoo, violin, slide guitar and shakuhachi. Whale song will drift through the constellation of Ursa Minor. Perhaps a being on a planet of the star AC +793888 will hear the 1970s recording of sheep bleat, laughter, footsteps, and the soft pluck of a kiss. Perhaps they’ll hear the trundle of a tractor and the voice of a child. When they hear on the phonograph a recording of rapid firecracker drills and bursts, will they know that these sounds denote brainwaves? Will they ever infer that over forty thousand years before in a solar system unknown a woman was rigged to an EEG and her thoughts recorded? Could they know to work backwards from the abstract sounds and translate them once more into brainwaves, and could they know from these brainwaves the kinds of thoughts the woman was having? Could they see into a human’s mind? Could they know she was a young woman in love? Could they tell from this dip and rise in the EEG’s pattern that she was thinking simultaneously of earth and lover as if the two were continuous? Could they see that, though she tried to keep her mental script, to bring to mind Lincoln and the Ice Age and the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt and whatever grand things have shaped the earth and which she wished to convey to an alien audience, every thought cascaded into the drawn brows and proud nose of her lover, the wonderful articulation of his hands and the way he listened like a bird and how they had touched so often without touching. And then a spike in sound as she thought of that great city Alexandria and of nuclear disarmament and the symphony of the earth’s tides and the squareness of his jaw and the way he spoke with such bright precision so that everything he said was epiphany and discovery and the way he looked at her as though she were the epiphany he kept on having and the thud of her heart and the flooding how heat about her body when she considered what it was he wanted to do to her and the migration of bison across a Utah plain and a geisha’s expressionless face and the knowledge of having found that thing in the world which she ought never to have had the good fortune of finding, of two minds and bodies flung at each other at full dumbfounding force so that her life had skittered sidelong and all her pin-boned plans just gone like that and her self engulfed in a fire of longing and thoughts of sex and destiny, the completeness of love, their astounding earth, his hands, his throat, his bare back.

Less than two centuries later, the Macedonian Greek Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, completing this task in a matter of months, but remaining long enough to found the city of Alexandria, whose site he selected in 331 BC at what was then the western mouth of the Nile delta. After this, in what appeared to be a characteristic act of hubris, but was in fact an attempt to win over the local priesthood, Alexander sacrificed to the sacred bull Apis and had himself crowned pharaoh.

When the British took control of Egypt the Copts occupied a number of the highest positions in the State. In less than a quarter of a century almost all the Coptic Heads of Departments had disappeared. They were at first fully represented in the bench of judges, but gradually the number was reduced to nil; the process of removing them and shutting the door against fresh appointments has gone on until they have been reduced to a state of discouragement bordering on despair!” These are the words of an Englishman.

Only then would it hit me, this truth about her ears, that she would always be deaf, never hear music, never hear laughter, never hear my voice. Only then did I realize what it meant to be alone in the world, and I would run to find her in this large house that became so quiet, so empty and so very dark at night because nighttime in our part of Alexandria was always somber and murky, especially with my father out so late every evening. We would turn the lights on everywhere in the house, not to ward off imaginary thieves, but to look out the window and see our reflected faces on the windowpane.

Even today, I continue to live my life that way. I cross the street on the slant, I always sit in the side rows at concert halls, I am a citizen of two countries but I live in neither, and I never look people in the eye,' she said, as I, conscious of her effort to do so now, averted my own, 'I'm honest with no one, though I've never lied. I've given far less than I've taken, though I'm always left with nothing. I don't even think I know who I am, I know myself the way I might know my neighbour: from across the street. When I'm here, I long to be there; when I was there I longed to be here,' she said, referring to her years in Alexandria.

Interpretation first appears in the culture of late classical antiquity, when the power and credibility of myth had been broken by the “realistic” view of the world introduced by scientific enlightenment. Once the question that haunts post-mythic consciousness—that of the seemliness of religious symbols—had been asked, the ancient texts were, in their pristine form, no longer acceptable. Then interpretation was summoned, to reconcile the ancient texts to “modern” demands. Thus, the Stoics, to accord with their view that the gods had to be moral, allegorized away the rude features of Zeus and his boisterous clan in Homer’s epics. What Homer really designated by the adultery of Zeus with Leto, they explained, was the union between power and wisdom. In the same vein, Philo of Alexandria interpreted the literal historical narratives of the Hebrew Bible as spiritual paradigms. The story of the exodus from Egypt, the wandering in the desert for forty years, and the entry into the promised land, said Philo, was really an allegory of the individual soul’s emancipation, tribulations, and final deliverance. Interpretation thus presupposes a discrepancy between the clear meaning of the text and the demands of (later) readers. It seeks to resolve that discrepancy. The situation is that for some reason a text has become unacceptable; yet it cannot be discarded. Interpretation is a radical strategy for conserving an old text, which is thought too precious to repudiate, by revamping it. The interpreter, without actually erasing or rewriting the text, is altering it. But he can’t admit to doing this. He claims to be only making it intelligible, by disclosing its true meaning. However far the interpreters alter the text (another notorious example is the Rabbinic and Christian “spiritual” interpretations of the clearly erotic Song of Songs), they must claim to be reading off a sense that is already there.

And suddenly I knew, as I touched the damp, grainy surface of the seawall, that I would always remember this night, that in years to come I would remember sitting here, swept with confused longing as I listened to the water lapping the giant boulders beneath the promenade and watched the children head toward the shore in a winding, lambent procession. I wanted to come back tomorrow night, and the night after, and the one after that as well, sensing that what made leaving so fiercely painful was the knowledge that there would never be another night like this, that I would never eat soggy cakes along the coast road in the evening, not this year or any other year, nor feel the baffling, sudden beauty of that moment when, if only for an instant, I had caught myself longing for a city I never knew I loved. Exactly a year from now, I vowed, I would sit outside at night wherever I was, somewhere in Europe, or in America, and turn my face to Egypt, as Moslems do when they pray and face Mecca, and remember this very night, and how I had thought these things and made this vow. You're beginning to sound like Elsa and her silly seders, I said to myself, mimicking my father's humour. On my way home I thought of what the others were doing. I wanted to walk in, find the smaller living room still lit, the Beethoven still playing, with Abdou still cleaning the dining room, and, on closing the front door, suddenly hear someone say, "We were just waiting for you, we're thinking of going to the Royal." "But we've already seen that film," I would say. "What difference does it make. We'll see it again." And before we had time to argue, we would all rush downstairs, where my father would be waiting in a car that was no longer really ours, and, feeling the slight chill of a late April night, would huddle together with the windows shut, bicker as usual about who got to sit where, rub our hands, turn the radio to a French broadcast, and then speed to the Corniche, thinking that all this was as it always was, that nothing ever really changed, that the people enjoying their first stroll on the Corniche after fasting, or the woman selling tickets at the Royal, or the man who would watch our car in the side alley outside the theatre, or our neighbours across the hall, or the drizzle that was sure to greet us after the movie at midnight would never, ever know, nor even guess, that this was our last night in Alexandria.

Als Präsident Obama den Aufstand als legitime Meinungsäußerung begrüßte, die von der Regierung anerkannt werden müsse, war die Verwirrung komplett. Die Massen in Kairo und Alexandria wollten keine Anerkennung ihrer Forderungen durch die Regierung, deren Rechtmäßigkeit sie rundweg ablehnten. Sie wünschten sich das Mubarak-Regime nicht als Gesprächspartner, sie wollten, dass Mubarak verschwand. Ihr Ziel war nicht nur eine neue Regierung, die ihre Meinung anhören würde, sondern eine Umgestaltung des gesamten Staates. Sie hatten keine »Meinungen «; sie waren die Wahrheit der Situation in Ägypten. (S. 55)

And barbarians were inventors not only of philosophy, but almost of every art. The Egyptians were the first to introduce astrology among men. Similarly also the Chaldeans. The Egyptians first showed how to burn lamps, and divided the year into twelve months, prohibited intercourse with women in the temples, and enacted that no one should enter the temples from a woman without bathing. Again, they were the inventors of geometry. There are some who say that the Carians invented prognostication by the stars. The Phrygians were the first who attended to the flight of birds. And the Tuscans, neighbours of Italy, were adepts at the art of the Haruspex. The Isaurians and the Arabians invented augury, as the Telmesians divination by dreams. The Etruscans invented the trumpet, and the Phrygians the flute. For Olympus and Marsyas were Phrygians. And Cadmus, the inventor of letters among the Greeks, as Euphorus says, was a Phoenician; whence also Herodotus writes that they were called Phoenician letters. And they say that the Phoenicians and the Syrians first invented letters; and that Apis, an aboriginal inhabitant of Egypt, invented the healing art before Io came into Egypt. But afterwards they say that Asclepius improved the art. Atlas the Libyan was the first who built a ship and navigated the sea. Kelmis and Damnaneus, Idaean Dactyli, first discovered iron in Cyprus. Another Idaean discovered the tempering of brass; according to Hesiod, a Scythian. The Thracians first invented what is called a scimitar (arph), -- it is a curved sword, -- and were the first to use shields on horseback. Similarly also the Illyrians invented the shield (pelth). Besides, they say that the Tuscans invented the art of moulding clay; and that Itanus (he was a Samnite) first fashioned the oblong shield (qureos). Cadmus the Phoenician invented stonecutting, and discovered the gold mines on the Pangaean mountain. Further, another nation, the Cappadocians, first invented the instrument called the nabla, and the Assyrians in the same way the dichord. The Carthaginians were the first that constructed a triterme; and it was built by Bosporus, an aboriginal. Medea, the daughter of Æetas, a Colchian, first invented the dyeing of hair. Besides, the Noropes (they are a Paeonian race, and are now called the Norici) worked copper, and were the first that purified iron. Amycus the king of the Bebryci was the first inventor of boxing-gloves. In music, Olympus the Mysian practised the Lydian harmony; and the people called Troglodytes invented the sambuca, a musical instrument. It is said that the crooked pipe was invented by Satyrus the Phrygian; likewise also diatonic harmony by Hyagnis, a Phrygian too; and notes by Olympus, a Phrygian; as also the Phrygian harmony, and the half-Phrygian and the half-Lydian, by Marsyas, who belonged to the same region as those mentioned above. And the Doric was invented by Thamyris the Thracian. We have heard that the Persians were the first who fashioned the chariot, and bed, and footstool; and the Sidonians the first to construct a trireme. The Sicilians, close to Italy, were the first inventors of the phorminx, which is not much inferior to the lyre. And they invented castanets. In the time of Semiramis queen of the Assyrians, they relate that linen garments were invented. And Hellanicus says that Atossa queen of the Persians was the first who composed a letter. These things are reported by Seame of Mitylene, Theophrastus of Ephesus, Cydippus of Mantinea also Antiphanes, Aristodemus, and Aristotle and besides these, Philostephanus, and also Strato the Peripatetic, in his books Concerning Inventions. I have added a few details from them, in order to confirm the inventive and practically useful genius of the barbarians, by whom the Greeks profited in their studies. And if any one objects to the barbarous language, Anacharsis says, "All the Greeks speak Scythian to me." [...]

century. The most visible legacy of the wealth and splendor generated by the medieval spice trade still dazzles the eye today in Venice, whose grand palazzi and magnificent public architecture were built largely on profits from pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, and cloves. A hundred pounds of nutmeg, purchased in medieval Alexandria for ten ducats, might easily go for thirty or fifty ducats on the wharves of Venice. Even after payments for shipping, insurance, and customs duties at both ends, profits well in excess of 100 percent were routine; a typical Venetian galley carried one to three hundred tons between Egypt and Italy and earned vast fortunes for the imaginative and the lucky. During the medieval period, a corpulent Croesus was called a “pepper sack,” not a thoroughgoing insult, since the price of a bag of pepper was usually higher than that of a human being.

The area occupied by the Christians in Syria and Palestine, called Outremer because of its location beyond the Mediterranean Sea, was a thin coastal strip extending from Armenia in the north to the borders of the Fatimid caliphate of Egypt in the south. By 1109, the Christian territory was divided into four large states: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, extending from Gaza to Beirut; the County of Tripoli, from Beirut to Margat; the Principality of Antioch, from Margat to Alexandria; and the County of Edessa, which stretched northeast all the way to present-day Urfa. These Latin states were governed by noble courts in much the same way as their counterparts in Europe. They were often rocked by dynastic disputes, which, together with the scarcity of available troops and the latent threat of Muslim attack, put the security of the Christian population in a constant state of uncertainty.

What was at stake for the Romans was whether they could win in battle and then whether – by persuasion, bullying or force – they could impose their will where, when and if they chose. The style of this imperium is vividly summed up in the story of the last encounter between Antiochus Epiphanes and the Romans. The king was invading Egypt for the second time, and the Egyptians had asked the Romans for help. A Roman envoy, Gaius Popilius Laenas, was dispatched and met Antiochus outside Alexandria. After his long familiarity with the Romans, the king no doubt expected a rather civil meeting. Instead, Laenas handed him a decree of the senate instructing him to withdraw from Egypt immediately. When Antiochus asked for time to consult his advisors, Laenas picked up a stick and drew a circle in the dust around him. There was to be no stepping out of that circle before he had given his answer. Stunned, Antiochus meekly agreed to the senate’s demands. This was an empire of obedience.

Let’s examine the history of Genesis I, II, and III. There are many schools of thought on this subject, but the most predominant one is that Moses was the originator. This seems not too far-fetched, since Moses was reared in the Egyptian tradition, in a royal household, and probably had access to many religious writings and teachings now lost with the passing of the archives of Egypt, in Alexandria, Heliopolis, and Sais. Certainly the Ten Commandments were a condensation of the forty-two questions of Osiris for entering heaven. If Moses did write part of the Old Testament, he then must have had Naga tablet writings, or Egyptian interpretations of them, handed down to the Egyptians for thousands of years; and the Egyptian priesthood had knowledge of a cataclysm 11,500 years ago. Priests of Egypt are supposed to have told Solon during his ten years in Egypt (about 600 B.C.) that 9,000 years before that time there was a cataclysm which buried Atlantis beneath the ocean. Note that 9,000 + 600 B.C. + 1950 A.D. equals 11,550 years ago [, when the Younger Dryas ended].

Biblia pamoja na historia vinatwambia kuwa mitume kumi na wawili wa Yesu Kristo waliamua kufa kinyama kama mfalme wao alivyokufa, kwa sababu walikataa kukana imani yao juu ya Yesu Kristo. Mathayo alikufa kwa ajili ya Ukristo nchini Ethiopia kwa jeraha lililotokana na kisu kikali, Marko akavutwa na farasi katika mitaa ya Alexandria nchini Misri mpaka akafa, kwa sababu alikataa kukana jina la Yesu Kristo. Luka alinyongwa nchini Ugiriki kwa sababu ya kuhubiri Injili ya Yesu Kristo katika nchi ambapo watu hawakumtambua Yesu. Yohana alichemshwa katika pipa la mafuta ya moto katika kipindi cha mateso makubwa ya Wakristo nchini Roma, lakini kimiujiza akaponea chupuchupu, kabla ya kufungwa katika gereza la kisiwa cha Patmo (Ugiriki) ambapo ndipo alipoandika kitabu cha Ufunuo. Mtume Yohana baadaye aliachiwa huru na kurudi Uturuki, ambapo alimtumikia Bwana kama Askofu wa Edessa. Alikufa kwa uzee, akiwa mtume pekee aliyekufa kwa amani. Petro alisulubiwa kichwa chini miguu juu katika msalaba wa umbo la X kulingana na desturi za kikanisa za kipindi hicho, kwa sababu aliwaambia maadui zake ya kuwa alijisikia vibaya kufa kama alivyokufa mfalme wake Yesu Kristo. Yakobo ndugu yake na Yesu (Yakobo Mkubwa), kiongozi wa kanisa mjini Yerusalemu, alirushwa kutoka juu ya mnara wa kusini-mashariki wa hekalu aliloliongoza la Hekalu Takatifu (zaidi ya futi mia moja kwenda chini) na baadaye kupigwa kwa virungu mpaka akafa, alipokataa kukana imani yake juu ya Yesu Kristo. Yakobo mwana wa Zebedayo (Yakobo Mdogo) alikuwa mvuvi kabla Yesu Kristo hajamwita kuwa mchungaji wa Injili yake. Kama kiongozi wa kanisa hatimaye, Yakobo aliuwawa kwa kukatwa kichwa mjini Yerusalemu. Afisa wa Kirumi aliyemlinda Yakobo alishangaa sana jinsi Yakobo alivyolinda imani yake siku kesi yake iliposomwa. Baadaye afisa huyo alimsogelea Yakobo katika eneo la mauti. Nafsi yake ilipomsuta, alijitoa hatiani mbele ya hakimu kwa kumkubali Yesu Kristo kama kiongozi wa maisha yake; halafu akapiga magoti pembeni kwa Yakobo, ili na yeye akatwe kichwa kama mfuasi wa Yesu Kristo. Bartholomayo, ambaye pia alijulikana kama Nathanali, alikuwa mmisionari huko Asia. Alimshuhudia Yesu mfalme wa wafalme katika Uturuki ya leo. Bartholomayo aliteswa kwa sababu ya mahubiri yake huko Armenia, ambako inasemekana aliuwawa kwa kuchapwa bakora mbele ya halaiki ya watu iliyomdhihaki. Andrea alisulubiwa katika msalaba wa X huko Patras nchini Ugiriki. Baada ya kuchapwa bakora kinyama na walinzi saba, alifungwa mwili mzima kwenye msalaba ili ateseke zaidi. Wafuasi wake waliokuwepo katika eneo la tukio waliripoti ya kuwa, alipokuwa akipelekwa msalabani, Andrea aliusalimia msalaba huo kwa maneno yafuatayo: "Nimekuwa nikitamani sana na nimekuwa nikiitegemea sana saa hii ya furaha. Msalaba uliwekwa wakfu na Mwenyezi Mungu baada ya mwili wa Yesu Kristo kuning’inizwa juu yake." Aliendelea kuwahubiria maadui zake kwa siku mbili zaidi, akiwa msalabani, mpaka akaishiwa na nguvu na kuaga dunia. Tomaso alichomwa mkuki nchini India katika mojawapo ya safari zake za kimisionari akiwa na lengo la kuanzisha kanisa la Yesu Kristo katika bara la India. Mathiya alichaguliwa na mitume kuchukua nafasi ya Yuda Iskarioti, baada ya kifo cha Yuda katika dimbwi la damu nchini India. Taarifa kuhusiana na maisha na kifo cha Mathiya zinachanganya na hazijulikani sawasawa. Lakini ipo imani kwamba Mathiya alipigwa mawe na Wayahudi huko Yerusalemu, kisha akauwawa kwa kukatwa kichwa. Yuda Tadei, ndugu yake na Yesu, aliuwawa kwa mishale alipokataa kukana imani yake juu ya Yesu Kristo. Mitume walikuwa na imani kubwa kwa sababu walishuhudia ufufuo wa Yesu Kristo, na miujiza mingine. Biblia ni kiwanda cha imani. Tunapaswa kuiamini Biblia kama mitume walivyomwamini Yesu Kristo, kwa sababu Biblia iliandikwa na mitume.

Muhammad’s violent end years and final violent words were quickly followed by those who succeeded him in power, after his death in 632 AD.          “Within thirty years after Muhammad’s death Islam achieved the most spectacular expansion in its history. During the caliphate of Muhammad’s immediate successors from 632 to 661, Islam conquered the whole Arabian peninsula and invaded territories which had been in Greco-Roman hands since the reign of Alexander the Great….Damascus fell in 635. Jerusalem was captured in 638. In the same year Antioch fell, and the other great Hellenistic capital, Alexandria, became a permanent Arab possession in 646. Coastal cities in Syria, Palestine and Egypt, as well as the island of Cyprus were successively occupied by Arabs in a short period of time…The rapid advance of Islam spread panic and consternation among the Christians in the Greek Near East…The Arabic wars against the Greeks were not only political and economic wars, but holy wars of Islam against Christianity.” (“Greek Christian and Other Accounts of the Muslim Conquests of the Near East,” Demetrios Constantelos, article in The Legacy of Jihad, Prometheus Books, 2005, Edited by Andrew Bostom, MD).

Ptolemy agreed to this arrangement, thinking that his forces could intercept Cleopatra before she arrived. Cleopatra however was aware of her brother’s plans and came up with the idea of smuggling herself directly into Caesar’s chambers. She managed to slip through her brother’s dragnet and arrived in Alexandria by small boat. She then had her servants wrap her up in a rug and carry her right inside the palace where Caesar was staying. Once inside, her servants unfurled the rug and Cleopatra introduced herself to a very surprised Julius Caesar. This abrupt meeting would be the beginning of a very powerful relationship as the two brokered the future of the entire Mediterranean world. After deposing Ptolemy, Caesar installed Cleopatra as the ruler of Egypt, who then married her surviving brother Ptolemy XIV, who would rule as a figurehead with Cleopatra the true power behind the throne.

In the last ten years of the second century and in the third century, the heretical school of theology at Alexandria, Egypt, advanced the erroneous principle that the Bible should be interpreted in a nonliteral or allegorical sense.

Then there is Roman engineering: the Roman roads, aqueducts, the Colosseum. Warfare, alas, has always been beneficial to engineering. Yet there are unmistakeable trends in the engineering of the gamgster states. In a healthy society, engineering design gets smarter and smarter; in gangster states, it gets bigger and bigger. In World War II, the democracies produced radar and split the atom; German basic research was far behind in these fields and devoted its efforts to projects like lenses so bog they could burn Britain, and bells so big that their sound would be lethal. (The lenses never got off the drawing board, and the bells, by the end of the war, would kill mice in a bath tub.) Roman engineering, too, was void of all subtlety. Roman roads ran absolutely straight; when they came to a mountain, they ran over the top of the mountain as pigheadedly as one of Stalin's frontal assaults. Greek soldiers used to adapt their camps to the terrain; but the Roman army, at the end of a days' march, would invariably set up exactly the same camp, no matter whether in the Alps or in Egypt. If the terrain did not correspond to the one and only model decreed by the military bureaucracy, so much the worse for the terrain; it was dug up until it fitted inti the Roman Empire. The Roman aqueducts were bigger than those that had been used centuries earlier in the ancient world; but they were administered with extremely poor knowledge of hydraulics. Long after Heron of Alexandria (1st Century A.D.) had designed water clocks, water turbines and two-cylinder water pumps, and had written works on these subjects, the Romans were still describing the performance of their aqueducts in terms of the quinaria, a measure of the cross-section of the flow, as if the volume of the flow did not also depend on its velocity. The same unit was used in charging users of large pipes tapping the aqueduct; the Roman engineers failed to realize that doubling the cross-section would more than double the flow of water. Heron could never have blundered like this.

them. Yet in reality, Christianity spread from Jerusalem to Africa and then to Europe. Christianity’s headquarters were in Alexandria, Egypt well before Christendom formed in Rome.

Ancient Egypt had just finished building the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

We arrived in sight of Alexandria,” he wrote in his diary. “How I gazed on it! It was Egypt, the land of my dreams; Egypt the most ancient of all countries! A land that was old when Rome was bright, was old when Babylon was in its glory, was old when Troy was taken! It was a sight to awaken a thousand thoughts, and it did.

If brute force wouldn't suffice, however, there was always the famous Viking cunning. The fleet was put to anchor and under a flag of truce some Vikings approached the gate. Their leader, they claimed, was dying and wished to be baptized as a Christian. As proof, they had brought along the ailing Hastein on a litter, groaning and sweating.  The request presented a moral dilemma for the Italians. As Christians they could hardly turn away a dying penitent, but they didn't trust the Vikings and expected a trick. The local count, in consultation with the bishop, warily decided to admit Hastein, but made sure that he was heavily guarded. A detachment of soldiers was sent to collect Hastein and a small retinue while the rest of the Vikings waited outside.  Despite the misgivings, the people of Luna flocked to see the curiosity of a dreaded barbarian peacefully inside their city. The Vikings were on their best behavior as they were escorted to the cathedral, remaining silent and respectful. Throughout the service, which probably lasted a few hours, Hastein was a picture of reverence and weakness, a dying man who had finally seen the light. The bishop performed the baptism, and the count stood in as godfather, christening Hastein with a new name. When the rite had concluded, the Vikings respectfully picked up the litter and carried their stricken leader back to the ships.  That night, a Viking messenger reappeared at the gates, and after thanking the count for allowing the baptism, sadly informed him that Hastein had died. Before he expired, however, he had asked to be given a funeral mass and to be buried in the holy ground of the cathedral cemetery.  The next day a solemn procession of fifty Vikings, each dressed in long robes of mourning, entered the city carrying Hastein's corpse on a bier. Virtually all the inhabitants of the city had turned out to witness the event, joining the cavalcade all the way to the cathedral. The bishop, surrounded by a crowd of monks and priests bearing candles, blessed the coffin with holy water, and led the entire procession inside.  As the bishop launched into the funerary Mass, reminding all good Christians to look forward to the day of resurrection, the coffin lid was abruptly thrown to the ground and a very much alive Hastein leapt out. As he cut down the bishop, his men threw off their cloaks and drew their weapons. A few ran to bar the doors, the rest set about slaughtering the congregation.  At the same time – perhaps alerted by the tolling bell – Bjorn Ironside led the remaining Vikings into the city and they fanned out, looking for treasure. The plundering lasted for the entire day. Portable goods were loaded onto the ships, the younger citizens were spared to be sold as slaves, and the rest were killed. Finally, when night began to fall, Hastein called off the attack. Since nothing more could fit on their ships, they set fire to the city and sailed away.97 For the next two years, the Norsemen criss-crossed the Mediterranean, raiding both the African and European coasts. There are even rumors that they tried to sack Alexandria in Egypt, but were apparently unable to take it by force or stealth.

the papyri referred to a period, roughly three hundred years after the death of Christ, in which the barbarous Roman emperor Diocletian had initiated what was commonly known as the Great Persecution. It was from this era that most of the well-known stories of Christians martyred in the arena to ravenous beasts, of saints being roasted over slow fires, of endless roads lined with teetering crosses bearing the bodies of the crucified, sprang. Diocletian himself had come to Egypt on one of his triumphal tours, and in Alexandria had torn down all of the Christian churches and burned thousands of holy texts.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Largely credited to Philo of Byzantium. But since it was compiled in the third century BC, I’m guessing he called it the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. And even back then it pissed people off.” “Why?” “Because Philo did his research at the largest library of the time in Alexandria. And some people got the notion that the fix was in. At the top of the list, the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt—no argument there—and at the bottom, the lighthouse at Alexandria. The early Persians are like, ‘I thought we outgrew this hometown bullshit in the Neolithic. I mean, you can’t be serious. That lighthouse? When we’ve got the Apadana Palace of Persepolis? What are we, fucking Mesopotamians over here?

The Earth is Round! Nothing, other than perhaps our universe, started in a vacuum and neither did the discovery of the Americas, which of course included the island of Cuba. Why did Columbus want to sail for parts unknown? What was going through his mind when he turned his small fleet of three ships in a westerly direction and headed towards the edge of the world? Surely, he didn’t have a death wish, so what was it that he knew that the rest of the 15th century world didn’t? Scholars recalled that there had been a grand library in Alexandria, Egypt, that contained as many as 500,000 scrolls. These were the records of human endeavors, and the shared knowledge known to the people of that era. Many of these scrolls concerned themselves with science, history and the earthly wisdom that scholars wanted to share with others. Unfortunately, everything in the library was lost, when this magnificent structure burned to the ground in 48 BC however educated people still had a better understanding of Earth and their surroundings than we give them credit for. It was a fact that many did know that the Earth was round and speculated that navigators could sail west and arrive in the Far East!

I believe North Carolina is going to be a very important place in holding positive energy for this part of the world as we go through our next evolution on a body, mind, spirit, and planetary level. I believe that North Carolina is evolving into a light center for the United States. I see the symbolism with the lighthouses all along the North Carolina coast, shining brightly. They remind me of the great lighthouse in Alexandria, Egypt, where the world’s greatest library once existed. On the other end of the state lie the mystical Blue Ridge Mountains, one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world, and with vortices in the area spinning with so much energy in cities like Asheville that the area has been nicknamed the Sedona of the South, in reference to the vortices and spiritual energy

The Coptic Church was founded on the teachings of the Apostle Mark, who introduced Christianity to Egypt in the first century during the Roman emperor Nero’s reign. Alex wondered how Father Boutros would view his quest to track down an alternative, and possibly blasphemous, version of the venerated saint’s sacred writings. Christianity spread rapidly throughout Egypt within fifty years of Mark’s arrival in Alexandria in about AD 68. A fragment of the Gospel of John, written using the Coptic language, was found in Upper Egypt and dated to the early second century. The Coptic Church was now more than nineteen centuries old. Copts liked to point out that their Church was the subject of prophecy in the Old Testament. The Prophet Isaiah foretold that “in that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt.

The Alexandria Bourse (the fourth largest worldwide) and the Cairo stock exchange were sizable, international markets. In fact, the story of the Alexandria Bourse – or the Alexandria Futures Exchange – is an interesting representation of Egyptian society's capitalism – and cosmopolitanism – in the first half of the twentieth century; the Bourse's board of directors included Muslim, Christian and Jewish Egyptians in addition to Egyptianized foreigners who had settled in the country.

vital historical fact: that Gamal Abdel Nasser signifies the only truly Egyptian developmental project in the country's history since the fall of the pharaonic state. There had been other projects: a Greek one in Alexandria, an Arab–Islamic one under the Ummayads (the first dynasty to rule the Islamic world after the end of the era of the ‘Rightly Guided Caliphs’), military–Islamic ones under Saladin and the grand Mamelukes, a French one under Napoleon's commanders and a dynastic (Ottoman-inspired) one under Mohamed Ali Pasha and Khedive Ismael. But this was different – in origin, meaning and impact. For Nasser was a man of the Egyptian soil who had overthrown the Middle East's most established and sophisticated monarchy in a swift and bloodless move – to the acclaim of the millions of poor, oppressed Egyptians – and ushered in a programme of ‘social justice’, ‘progress and development’ and ‘dignity’: a nation-centred developmental vision.

The liberal constitutional experiment that the Egyptian political scene had witnessed in the 1930s and 1940s remained the province of Cairo's and Alexandria's elite and upper middle class. The liberal cultural fashions of the same period were detached from the crushing living standards of the peasants in the Delta and Al-Saeed, as well as the poor in the country's urban areas. It was no surprise then that the vast majority of people on the Egyptian street cheered Nasser's repudiation of the ‘bygone era'(which conveniently lumped together the monarchy, the aristocrats, the landed gentry and the different political parties – from the liberal and secular to the conservative and religious). Nasser's political and socio-economic plans emerged as the country's sole and compelling project with a substantial, expansive mandate.

the expansionist Wahhabi project found fertile ground in Egypt. Three indigenous factors contributed to its favourable reception. First, between 1974 and 1985, more than 3 million Egyptians migrated to the Gulf, with the majority settling in Saudi Arabia. Most of them hailed from Egypt's lower (and lower middle) classes, and had had limited exposure to Egypt's old glamour. In part as a result, they quickly absorbed the cultures of their new home; and more slowly, the dominant social and cultural milieu of the Gulf's most austere centre found its way to Egypt's Delta and Saeedi villages, and later to the heart of Cairo and Alexandria.

The change can be measured in the increase in the proportion of women in Egypt wearing the veil, from less than 30 per cent to more than 65 per cent in two decades; by the early 1990s, the veil was established as the dress code on the Egyptian street rather than as an occasional choice. In the less-privileged villages of the Nile Delta, as well as in Cairo's and Alexandria's poorest neighbourhoods, the veil became the natural step for girls as young as twelve.5 There was also a general shift in the socially preferred pattern of gender roles, with the return to an emphasis on men's public role and women's domesticity.6

The Brotherhood gambled on the ‘pious wings in the movement’ (the words of Hassan Al-Tuhami, one of the closest members of the coup's leadership to the Brotherhood), and in so doing, positioned itself as a strategic opponent of Nasser (who at the time – the second half of 1953 – was sidelining all the coup's leaders who were not personally loyal to him). The chain of events led to a bitter confrontation between Nasser and the Brotherhood. In 1954 Nasser accused the Brotherhood's ‘secret apparatus’ of perpetrating an attempt on his life that had just taken place in Alexandria. Soon after, the Brotherhood was officially abolished, scores of its members were imprisoned and thousands were compelled to leave Egypt.

Mansour earned the nickname "Al-Turbiny," from the air-conditioned express trains linking Cairo with Egypt's second city Alexandria, whose roofs were the favored location for his crimes. Police said he would to rape, torture, and chop up his victims on carriage roofs before tossing them on to the trackside, dead or barely alive.

But in 1954 the organization was banned, then almost annihilated by Nasser. He claimed they tried to assassinate him while he delivered a public speech in October that year in Alexandria, the shots heard live on Egyptian radio. The Brothers denied any involvement in the events of that day. Nasser, it should be noted, was not beyond conjuring up such spectacular crises to shore up his domestic support—having likely arranged, for instance, the bombing of the landmark coffee shop Groppi's in the heart of downtown Cairo in a bid to create instability at the height of his power struggle with the first figurehead leader of the republic.

Given this appalling social climate, the new Library of Alexandria, built at a cost of $230 million in an attempt to revive its fabled ancient predecessor (and resembling nothing so much as a giant satellite dish), has unsurprisingly failed to ignite a renaissance of scholarly acumen.

In any event, as a hint of what is now in store for Egypt, consider the city of Alexandria—for decades the Muslim Brotherhood’s stronghold. Once it was a cosmopolitan summer resort famous for its secular, carefree atmosphere. Now it is about the least fun place to live in North Africa. All Muslim women in the city are veiled, among the young often for fear of otherwise being labeled whores by the unemployed guardians of public morality; and violence between local Christians and Muslims is commonplace. Extremist Muslims rioted in the city when the postrevolutionary regime happened to appoint a local mayor who was a Christian. Most bars have stopped serving alcohol. The

Whereas in 1800 at least 90 per cent of Egyptians were poor peasants, by 1900 more than 25 per cent of the population of 10 million lived in Cairo, Alexandria and the Delta's main cities, and could be counted as lower middle class or working class.11 The economy was by and large in the hands of the royal family, its Turkish-Albanian-European entourage and the thousands of foreigners who had settled in Egypt from the mid- and late-nineteenth century; yet Egyptians, and especially the increasingly influential landowners, were rapidly climbing the political and socio-economic ladder.

At the beginning of the fourth century, in Alexandria in the north of Egypt, a theologian named Arius began teaching that the Son was a created being, and not truly God. He did so because he believed that God is the origin and cause of everything, but is not caused to exist by anything else. ‘Uncaused’ or ‘Unoriginate’, he therefore held, was the best basic definition of what God is like. But since the Son, being a son, must have received his being from the Father, he could not, by Arius’ definition, be God. The argument persuaded many; it did not persuade Arius’ brilliant young contemporary, Athanasius. Believing that Arius had started in the wrong place with his basic definition of God, Athanasius dedicated the rest of his life to proving how catastrophic Arius’ thinking was for healthy Christian living. Actually, I’ve put it much too mildly: Athanasius simply boggled at Arius’ presumption. How could he possibly know what God is like other than as he has revealed himself? ‘It is,’ he said, ‘more pious and more accurate to signify God from the Son and call Him Father, than to name Him from His works only and call Him Unoriginate.’2 That is to say, the right way to think about God is to start with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, not some abstract definition we have made up like ‘Uncaused’ or ‘Unoriginate’. In fact, we should not even set out in our understanding of God by thinking of God primarily as Creator (naming him ‘from His works only’) – that, as we have seen, would make him dependent on his creation. Our definition of God must be built on the Son who reveals him. And when we do that, starting with the Son, we find that the first thing to say about God is, as it says in the creed, ‘We believe in one God, the Father.’ That different starting point and basic understanding of God would mean that the gospel Athanasius preached simply felt and tasted very different from the one preached by Arius. Arius would have to pray to ‘Unoriginate’. But would ‘Unoriginate’ listen? Athanasius could pray ‘Our Father’. With ‘The Unoriginate’ we are left scrambling for a dictionary in a philosophy lecture; with a Father things are familial. And if God is a Father, then he must be relational and life-giving, and that is the sort of God we could love.

pre-millennialism was the standard teaching by the church fathers, and ranges from about AD 70 with Papias to Lactantius about AD 285. Back in Egypt, however, the amillennial heresy was beginning to develop. About the year 190, Clement of Alexandria, Egypt, started teaching that some prophesies were fulfilled at the destruction of the Temple in AD 70. This later led to the development of the amillennial view.

Kabbalah (in Hebrew, literally “receiving”) refers to the mystical traditions that encompass the secrets of the Torah, the esoteric truths that reveal the most profound understanding of the world, of humankind, and of the Almighty himself. Philo was a Jewish mystic in Alexandria, Egypt, who wrote dissertations on the Kabbalah in the first century of the Christian era. He is commonly considered the central link between Greek philosophy, Judaism, and Christian mysticism. His triangles point either up or down to show the flow of energy between action and reception, male and female, God and humanity, and the upper and lower worlds. In fact, the Latin name for this kind of mosaic decor is opus alexandrinum (Alexandrian work) because it is filled with Kabbalistic symbolism originally taught by Philo of Alexandria.

Yet even when such languages did not face direct official sanction, speakers of older tongues knew that they had little chance of getting on in an Arabic world. By the eleventh century, Coptic and Syriac were declining as major languages, and the compiler of the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria translated the work into Arabic because “today Arabic is the language that the people of Egypt know…most of them being ignorant of Coptic and Greek.”18

throughout the whole of the Middle Ages Islamic culture ranked far above Christian culture. Of the three great areas of culture which inherited the Roman-Hellenic culture, the Roman-German, the Greek-Slav, and the Egyptian-Syrian, Arab culture, the latter took over the whole of the knowledge of antiquity in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, mechanics and medicine; it was not Rome and not Constantinople but Alexandria which was the centre of science in the Roman Empire. Now the religious expression of the Germanic-Roman sphere of culture was the Roman church, and that of the Greek-Slav sphere was the Greek Church, but that of the Arab Egyptian-Syrian sphere was Islam.

The kalam cosmological argument originated in the efforts of ancient Christian philosophers like John Philoponus of Alexandria to refute Aristotle’s doctrine of the eternity of the universe. When Islam swept over Egypt, it absorbed this tradition and developed sophisticated versions of the argument. Jews lived alongside Muslims in medieval Spain and eventually mediated this tradition back to the Christian West, where it was championed by St. Bonaventura. Since Christians, Jews, and Muslims share a common belief in creation, the kalam cosmological argument has enjoyed great intersectarian appeal and helps to build bridges for sharing one’s faith with Jews and especially Muslims.

When I was in America, everything was about color. Where you could eat. Where you had to ride. Where you could live or sleep. When I got back to Egypt, I couldn’t believe I’d not noticed it before. With my friends, my family. In the Alexandria EFS, none of the officers were darker than me. At our protests, Nubian

UBIQUITOUS SCOTS As the British Empire grew, Scots found themselves scattered to the corners of the Earth – an experience which often profoundly changed them. Few changed as much as Thomas Keith. Born in Edinburgh, he enlisted in the 78th (Highlanders) Regiment of Foot and was sent to Egypt as part of the Alexandria expedition of 1807. Captured near Rosetta, he was bought as a slave by Ahmad Aga, and he and his compatriot, William Thompson, decided to convert to Islam. Thomas became Ibrahim Aga and William, Osman. After fighting a duel with an Egyptian soldier, Thomas sought the protection of the wife of a powerful figure, Muhammad Ali Pasha, and she sent him into the service of her son, Tusun Pasha. In 1811 he joined an expedition to fight the Wahhabis of what is now Saudi Arabia, and four years later he was appointed Acting Governor of the holy city of Medina, the burial place of the Prophet Mohammed.

The fate of the books and all their vast numbers, is epitomized in the greatest library in the ancient world, a library located not in Italy but in Alexandria, the capital of Egypt and the commercial hub of the Eastern Mediterranean. The city had many tourist attractions, including an impressive theater and red light district. But visitors always took note of something quite exceptional, in the center of the city, at the lavish site known as "the museum" most of the intellectual inherits of Greek, Latin, Babylonian, Egyptian and Jewish cultures ad been assembled at enormous costs and carefully archived for researched. Starting as early as 300BCE, the Ptolemaic Kings who ruled Alexandria had the inspired idea of luring leading scholars, scientists and poets to their city by offering them life appointments at their museum...The recipients of this largess established remarkably high intellectual standards. Euclid developed his geometry in Alexandria, Archimedes discovered Pi and laid the foundation of calculus.

A Quotation of the Foreword of Sheikh Hasan ‘Abdul-Bassir ‘Arafah (General Manager of the Islamic Da‘wah, the Ministry of Awqaf of Egypt in Alexandria): For the present, there is a ferocious attack on our Islamic heritage. Modernity Thoughts and radical groups still misunderstand and impugn the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. Besides, to offend the companions of the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ had witnessed to them with fairness. They were like the stars in the heavens. The book’s contents are simple but not easy, written down by Eng.: Ahmad ElYamany. The author was affected by his father’s upbringing; I mean that his father educated him according to the Thought of Al-Azhar Ash-Sharif (1). His father did his best upon a pulpit of Masjid(s) for standing up for the Sunnah until his death. Now, the author does follow the example of his father. He did write down this book to explain The Study of Tradition Terminology (2) for ordinary people in simple words. Besides, he does show how the previous Imams of the ‘Ummah took care of The Study of Tradition Terminology. This book geared-towards an obstacle against those who make a ferocious attack on the Sunnah and the heritage. __________________ (1) The Thought of Al-Azhar Ash-Sharif: I do mean the Sunni Madhab. The Sunni Madhab is a term generally applied to the large sect of Muslims, which consists of: • Regarding Fiqh: who follows one of these authorised Madhabs: - Madhab of Imam Abu Hanifah (مذهب أبو حنيفة), Madhab of Imam Malik (مذهب مالك), Madhab of Imam Ash-Shafi‘i (مذهب الشافعي), or Madhab of Imam Ahmad son of Hanbal (مذهب أحمد بن حنبل). • Regarding Creed: who follows one of these authorised Theologies: - The Ash‘arism Theology (Ash‘ariyah: Arabic المدرسة الأشعرية) or The Maturidism Theology (Maturidiyah: Arabic: المدرسة الماتُريدية). • Regarding Sufism: who follows one of any authorised Orders or Schools (Tariqah: Arabic: الطريقة الصوفية) of Sufism, such: - Al-Ghazzaliyah (الغزَّالية), Al-Qadiriyah (القادرية), Ash-Shazliyah (الشاذلية), Ar-Rifa‘iyah (الرفاعية), and so on. (2) The Study of Tradition Terminology: (Arabic: علم مصطلح الحديث), pronounced in the Roman Transliteration: ‘Ilm Mustalah Al-Hadith. The word Al-Hadith or Hadith means Communication or Narration. In the Islamic context, it has come to denote the record of what the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said, did, or tacitly approved.

Greeks in a Greek city – well into the Roman period it was referred to as ‘Alexandria by Egypt’ not ‘in Egypt

Augustus connected his villa on the Palatine hill to the temple of Apollo with a portico representing the mythological Danaids, Egyptian-born Greeks. The Greeks had integrated Egypt into their ideological landscape through the gadfly-tormented Io, thought to be Isis, who shed her bovine shape in Egypt when she married the pharaoh. Hellenized Egypt, through Alexandria, found its way to Rome, where it was integrated into the fabric of Rome’s founding location.

Cleopatra the Alchemist, who is believed to have lived in Alexandria around the third or fourth centuries CE, is one of four female alchemists who were thought to have been able to produce the rare and much-sought-after philosopher’s stone. She is a foundational figure in alchemy, and made great use of original imagery which reflects conception and birth — representing the renewal and transformation of life. She also experimented with practical alchemy (the forerunner of modern chemistry) and is credited by some with having invented the alembic, an apparatus used for distillation. Her mentor was Maria the Jewess, who lived in Alexandria sometime between the first and third centuries CE; she is similarly credited with the invention of several kinds of chemical apparatuses and is considered to be the first true alchemist of the Western world. In 1964, the great surrealist artist Leonora Carrington painted Maria, depicting her as a woman-lion chimera with breasts exposed and hair wildly flailing around her, as she weaves magical gold-summoning spells. Actually, female alchemists in Greco-Roman Egypt weren’t uncommon, though they were mostly preoccupied with concocting fragrances and cosmetics. In fact, it was a collective of female alchemists in ancient Egypt who invented beer, setting up an unsurprisingly booming business by the Nile. This is all a far cry from the popular image of an alchemist: that of a lavishly dressed and usually bearded man in a medieval laboratory, bending over a fire and surrounded by all manner of arcane contraptions, trying to turn lead into gold.

The Library of Alexandria Being a student of Aristotle himself,

imagine instead that you’re a fifth-century AD student of philosophy. You have come to the great center of learning that is the city of Alexandria in Egypt. (Don’t forget to visit the lighthouse, I hear it’s wonderful.) You already have a good education under your belt—you are literate, and have studied some rhetoric—and now you are going to try to master philosophy. What’s the first thing you will study? Of course it will be Aristotle. In late antiquity even Platonists introduced their students to philosophy through Aristotle, saving Plato’s texts for more advanced research.

Allegorical interpretation was first developed in Greece in the third century B.C. to make the embarrassing elements in Homer and Hesiod philosophically correct. "The stories of the gods, and the writings of the poets, were not to be taken literally. Rather underneath is the secret or real meaning. .. ."48 This method of interpretation spread to Alexandria, Egypt, where the Jewish scholar Philo (ca. 20 B.C.-A.D. 54) used it to demonstrate that the Septuagint was consonant with Plato and the Stoics. And from Philo it spread to the Christian church via Clement of Alexandria and Origen.

It is obvious that this violence was not only one’s Christian duty; it was also, for many, a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. Those carrying out the attacks sang as they smashed the ancient marble and roared with laughter as they destroyed statues. In Alexandria, ‘idolatrous’ images were taken from private houses and baths, then burned and mutilated in a jubilant public demonstration. Once the assault was complete, the Christians ‘all went off, praising God for the destruction of such error of demons and idolatry’. Broken statues themselves were another cause for hilarity, their fragmented remains an occasion for ‘laughter and scorn’. Chants appeared celebrating these attacks. Coptic pilgrims who visited the city of Hermopolis in Egypt could join with fellow faithful as they sang a local hymn to the destruction. The humorously apposite insult was much enjoyed by God’s warriors. In Carthage, there was an annual religious ceremony in which the beard of a statue of Hercules was ceremonially gilded; at the beginning of the fifth century some Christians mockingly ‘shaved’ the statue’s beard off. It was, for them, a moment of much hilarity. For the watching polytheists it was a desecration.

On 14 September 1869, one hundred years after his birth, Alexander von Humboldt’s centennial was celebrated across the world. There were parties in Europe, Africa and Australia as well as the Americas. In Melbourne and Adelaide people came together to listen to speeches in honour of Humboldt, as did groups in Buenos Aires and Mexico City. There were festivities in Moscow where Humboldt was called the ‘Shakespeare of sciences’, and in Alexandria in Egypt where guests partied under a sky illuminated with fireworks. The greatest commemorations were in the United States, where from San Francisco to Philadelphia, and from Chicago to Charleston, the nation saw street parades, sumptuous dinners and concerts. In Cleveland some 8,000 people took to the streets and in Syracuse another 15,000 joined a march that was more than a mile long. President Ulysses Grant attended the Humboldt celebrations in Pittsburgh together with 10,000 revellers who brought the city to a standstill. In New York City the cobbled streets were lined with flags. City Hall was veiled in banners, and entire houses had vanished behind huge posters bearing Humboldt’s face. Even the ships sailing by, out on the Hudson River, were garlanded in colourful bunting. In the morning thousands of people followed ten music bands, marching from the Bowery and along Broadway to Central Park to honour a man ‘whose fame no nation can claim’ as the New York Times’s front page reported. By early afternoon, 25,000 onlookers had assembled in Central Park to listen to the speeches as a large bronze bust of Humboldt was unveiled. In the evening as darkness settled, a torchlight procession of 15,000 people set out along the streets, walking beneath colourful Chinese lanterns. Let us imagine him, one speaker said, ‘as standing on the Andes’ with his mind soaring above all. Every speech across the world emphasized that Humboldt had seen an ‘inner correlation’ between all aspects of nature. In Boston, Emerson told the city’s grandees that Humboldt was ‘one of those wonders of the world’. His fame, the Daily News in London reported, was ‘in some sort bound up with the universe itself’. In Germany there were festivities in Cologne, Hamburg, Dresden, Frankfurt and many other cities. The greatest German celebrations were in Berlin, Humboldt’s hometown, where despite torrential rain 80,000 people assembled. The authorities had ordered offices and all government agencies to close for the day. As the rain poured down and gusts chilled the air, the speeches and singing nonetheless continued for hours.

In the 8th Century, the Greek philosopher Homer thought that the Earth was flat. Many of the less educated people in the 15th Century still held on to that concept when Columbus set sail, following the setting sun west. The less informed warned Columbus and his crew of the danger of sailing right off the edge of the Earth. However, navigators and mathematicians knew better, since Greek philosophers in the 5th Century such as Parmenides, Empedocles and Pythagoras had already proved, by using various scientific methods, that the Earth was round. In about 200 BC Eratosthenes, who lived along the Nile near Alexandria, Egypt, calculated the circumference of the Earth to within a very close tolerance. Later in Prussia, Copernicus presented his concept that the Sun was the center of the Solar system and theorized that the planets revolved around it. It was not coincidental that Copernicus did this shortly after Columbus discovered the new continent. Although the ancients did not have radio and television, they could communicate by various means, and definitely knew what was going on. However there were those who remained superstitious, believing that there were monstrous sea creatures near the edge of the Earth. But Columbus and other relatively educated people knew better!

The word Jerusalem did not originally refer to a location. It referred to a company of the Magi united by their common knowledge of nature and the heavens. The word is probably a corruption of derusalem, darusalem or djerusalem connoting the Druids. It is found in the Greek as Hierosolyma, meaning “high” or “sacred.” The root hieros (meaning sacred) gives us hierophant and hierarchy. It referred to the wise ones, the elect, the keepers of knowledge. The letter “H” was later pronounced as a “J,” and thus we arrive at Jerus-alem. In Arabic Aleim means “the gods” and gives us the Hebrew word Elohim that connotes a plurality of gods. Jerusalem would, in its simplest form, mean “place of the godly or godlike men.” The Roman mythographers cunningly took words like “Jerusalem,” “Hebrew,” “Jew,” “Israelite” and “Phoenician,” etc, and attributed them where they did not belong. They massacred those who once bore these titles, so honoring and respecting mere names and words was not a major concern. The sacred language had, by deliberate design, been successfully eradicated, and soon the world would believe whatever the new Romish hegemony dictated concerning world history and religion. Ireland’s great civilization was erased and Egypt’s civilization obliterated. Alexandria was burned to the ground and many other colleges and libraries smoldered to ash. Eventually, the world would forget the role of Athens, and time would not spare Rome’s vast empire. It too would eventually diminish and cease to exist. Those who sought to erase traces of Ireland’s contribution and tradition were most successful in their diabolical and sacrilegious undertaking.

Despite the short amount of time he had been ensconced at the library—courtesy, again, of his daughter’s clever maneuverings—everything he had gleaned so far had only exacerbated his fears and suspicions. Many of the papyri referred to a period, roughly three hundred years after the death of Christ, in which the barbarous Roman emperor Diocletian had initiated what was commonly known as the Great Persecution. It was from this era that most of the well-known stories of Christians martyred in the arena to ravenous beasts, of saints being roasted over slow fires, of endless roads lined with teetering crosses bearing the bodies of the crucified, sprang. Diocletian himself had come to Egypt on one of his triumphal tours, and in Alexandria had torn down all of the Christian churches and burned thousands of holy texts. Anyone who refused to renounce this new and traitorous faith had had his right eye put out with a sword, and the tendons on his left foot severed, before he was enslaved and shipped off to die in the copper mines. “In these conflicts,” according to a scroll Dr. Rashid attributed to the church polemicist Eusebius, “the noble martyrs of Christ shone illustrious over the entire world . . . and the evidences of the truly divine and unspeakable power of our Saviour were made manifest through them.

The ancient Egyptian religion lasted from somewhere around 3100 BCE until the suppression of ‘pagan’ religion in the country was apparently accomplished during the 6th century CE, meaning that there was only about a century of unquestioned Christian dominion over Egypt before the Muslim conquest in 639-46 CE. Damascius, the Platonist philosopher and pagan activist who died in 538 CE, in his memoirs recounting his time studying in Alexandria, indicates that the native religion, though embattled, was still vibrant and resistance to Christian hegemony was militant. We have evidence of pagan worship continuing at and around certain Egyptian temples as late as 567 CE, in the face of enforcement action. The last known hieroglyphic inscription, the graffito of Esmet-Akhom, is dated to 394 CE, and is a moving testament of devotion to the God Mandulis by a priest of Isis. Inscriptions from the temple of Isis at Philae indicate that it was staffed by a Nubian priesthood well into the fifth century CE, when Proclus, another Platonic philosopher, wrote a hymn, no longer extant, to Isis of Philae, likely because the cult was an outstanding example of polytheist resistance. Procopius tells us of an agreement with the Blemmyes, a tribe in the region, permitting them to host the sacred icon of Isis from this temple for annual rites; this tribe is the ancestors of today’s Beja people, who still speak a language closely related to ancient Egyptian

Damietta was one of Egypt’s three great cities, along with Alexandria, to the west, and Cairo,

But we have evidence that John must have belonged to a certain religious movement, current in those days, which must have been something like the Essenes, also called the Therapeuts, who were chiefly occupied in healing the sick and interpreting dreams. [...] Then we know from Philo Judaeus of Alexandria that monasteries existed in those days and that there were considerable settlements on the Dead Sea and in Egypt, and they naturally had a body of teaching. There are still disciples of John in the neighborhood of Basra and Kut-el-Amara in Mesopotamia; they have a collection of sacred books, one of them has been translated recently, the Mandaean Book of John. The Mandaeans were disciples of John and they were Gnostics. Peculiarly enough, the Gnostic Evangel is also called the Evangel of St. John; this is obscure, but since it was written only at the beginning of the second century, it is possible that the name of John covers the Gnostic side of Christian origins. [...] So we are almost forced to assume that Christ received Gnostic teaching and some of his sayings — like the parable of the Unjust Steward which we recently mentioned, and particularly the so-called "Sayings of Jesus" which are not contained in the New Testament — are closely related to Gnosticism. Also those Evangels which were not accepted by the church, and therefore mostly destroyed, contained Gnostic teaching; we can substantiate this from the knowledge of the fragments which we still possess, the Gospel of the Egyptians, for instance, and among the Apocrypha of the New Testament, the Acts of St. Thomas, where the Holy Ghost is called Sophia and where she is the blessed mother. So already in its origins, Christianity was so closely surrounded by Gnostic and by Alexandrian wisdom that it is more than probable that Christ received a Gnostic initiation and possessed a rather profound understanding of the human soul and the peculiarities of spiritual development. One could say that he himself was the ripe fruit of antiquity; he gathered up in himself the essence of the wisdom of the Near East, contained the juice of Egypt and of Greece, and came together with the mob. And that caused a great whirlwind which moved masses and formed them, which brought about that form which we call Christianity. Jung, C. G.. Nietzsche's Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar given in 1934-1939. Two Volumes: 1-2, unabridged (Jung Seminars) (p. 1031-1032). Princeton University Press.

It was said that Budge smuggled the bulkier antiquities out of Egypt to the British Museum by organizing funeral flotillas, complete with mourners, down to Alexandria. This no doubt took place to the reward and amusement of the villagers concerned. He taught my father many useful things, including how to enter an already opened tomb: “Always send a native in first to absorb the fleas.