RECONSTRUCTING EGYPT'S HISTORY 



The Work of the Egypt Exploration Fund 

 By Wallace N. Stearns 



A THOUSAND miles of river in 

 /\ the midst of a valley of varying 

 /V width — at the most 13,000 square 

 miles of arable land. That was the physi- 

 cal basis of ancient Egypt. Nowhere is 

 there to be found a finer instance of a 

 country snatched from the sea by the 

 gradual silting up of a channel: a flow- 

 ing stream, a belt of green, a strip of 

 upland, foothills and gullied slopes pre- 



faced and interspersed by arid waste, 

 the boundless desert. 



Through the genius of the engineer 

 Egypt is being born again. In her 

 awakening the land of the Pharaohs is 

 again to play a role among the nations. 

 The filling up of the Assouan dam began 

 November 26, 1906. Statistics attest the 

 usefulness of the construction. In 1877, 

 in which year low Nile occurred, over 



Photo from Egypt ^Exploration Fund 

 A CAKE OF BREAD, PROBABLY 3,500 TO 4,000 YEARS OLD, EROM DEIR-^SL-BAHARI 



102 1 



