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Ask Amenophis:
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If you look at a map of Egypt, Lower Egypt is above Upper Egypt. That causes a lot of confusion because it seems to be backwards. On the map, Upper Egypt is lower than Lower Egypt.
Most people and books will tell you that "Upper Egypt" is called that because the land is higher up in the mountains. The land in "Lower Egypt" is lower down at the coast.
That may be true, but MummyFriends thinks there is a simpler explanation: in ancient times, maps were upside down! They weren't really upside down, of course, but they were drawn with South at the top rather than North, which is always at the top of our maps.
There are very few examples of ancient maps, but many of those that do exist have South at the top. Maps varied over time and North didn't become the universal standard until after Columbus's voyages.
If you look at a map of Egypt upside down, you will see that problems are immediately solved:
(1) Upper Egypt is now in the upper part of the map and Lower Egypt in the lower part;
(2) The "Nile Delta" now looks like a delta!
Delta is the Greek letter "D". It looks like a triangle, with a flat bottom. The Greeks called the part of the Nile that reached the sea the "Delta" because it breaks into several smaller rivers than fan out. That part of Egypt is still called the "Nile Delta" today. But on our maps, it doesn't look like a delta: it looks like an upside-down delta. |
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