My Teenage Life in Egypt

time for sowing and grow- ing crops. Shemu was the harvest period. TheAswan HighDam,built in1970,now allows the government to control the flow of the riv- er’s water and the Nile no longerfloods itsbanks. Still, nearly all the population of the Egypt lives close to the river. Expanding Boundaries One of themost significant historical periods began about 1550 bce . Under the leadershipof powerful pha- raohs suchasThutmose III, Akhenaten, andRameses II, Egypt expanded its borders and took over much of the surrounding region.

A traditional type of sailboat known as a dhow had plied the waters of the Nile for centuries. As highway and irrigation source, the river is key to life.

The Greek leader Alexander the Great added Egypt to his conquests in 332 bce , founding the still-existing city of Alexandria. When he died soon afterward, one of his generals, Ptolemy, became pharaoh. He and his descendants ruled Egypt for nearly 300 years. Cleopatra, the final Ptole- maic pharaoh, died in 30 bce . At that point, Egypt lost its independence and became a province of the Roman Empire.

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