First impressions as we fly in our Petroleum Airlines Embraer en route to Abu Simbel airport from Aswan. The Nile was impounded first in 1902 by the British, whose history in the Middle East have volumes to lead one to dismay. Displacements to locals at that time were one thing but with the development of the High Dam in 1961, they became totally another thing. Nubia was gone, drowned beneath the Lakes of Lake Nasser. Egypt finally gained its revenge for the 25th Dynasty.
Continue reading
Peter Burnett lived a full life. From a Tennessee childhood; to a legal career in Missouri; to captain of a wagon train to Orgeon; to incipient government positions in Oregon and California where in both cases he played major roles in the development of those governments. His governmental experience in Oregon capped as Supreme Judge for the Provisional Government. In California, he served as the State’s first Governor, later becoming an associate judge on the State’s Supreme Court. For all of that, Burnett remains best known for his stance against most non-Caucasian people allowed to live in either Oregon or California.
Because of his attitudes on race – he was from Tennessee, after all – Burnett has become a sidenote in history for the most part. One recent biography has chronicled his life, otherwise his +400-page autobiography – still found online – suffices to fill out some of his varied wanderings.
Continue reading
Egypt was ruled for 300 years by the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty. For the Land of the Two Kingdoms, foreign domination was not a new phenomenon. The secret to rule is on display at the Temple of Dendara lying a few miles to the west of the Nile riverside town of Qena. Letting locals keep running things for a large part – as long as taxes were sent to Alexandria – the Ptolemies also co-opted the indigenous gods, goddesses and myths with their own. By trying to impose a foreign culture upon Egypt, internal disorder was kept to a minimum. Dendara, Edfu and Philae (near Aswan) are all examples of Ptolemaic admiration for the local religious hierarchy.
Continue reading
Problems of Land Claims without a Government – illustrated by the case of Dr. John McLoughlin. How does one stake out land claims in lieu of a functioning government?
Before 1812, most of the Pacific Coast north of today’s San Francisco, featured a landscape claimed by several Euro-centric countries. To the north, Imperial Russia slowly crept southward. Spain maintained claims on much of the coastline from California northwards to today’s Vancouver Island. Both the United Kingdom and the United States focused on the region drained by the Columbia River and its tributaries, though that focus stretched far beyond the drainage basin. The various claims based themselves upon discoveries made by explorers of the various nations. Ideas that the land somehow was owned by local Native Americans was put aside for the most part by the nations in question.
Continue reading
Rule in ancient Egypt was always a top-down affair. Absolute power lay absolutely in the hands of the divine Pharaohs seen as gods on earth. The demise of the New Kingdom with its assortment of Ramses (I and II during the Nineteenth Dynasty and III through IX with the Twentieth) eventually led to foreign invasions bringing in foreigners to rule the Land of the Two Kingdoms. Most successful were the Greeks in the form of one of the favorite generals of Alexander, Ptolemy I. They would rule Egypt for 300 years before the Romans would take their own turn. Here, on the east bank of the Nile, about fifteen miles downstream from Aswan in southern Egypt, at the town of Kom Ombo, a temple exists in good, restored condition showing off a bit of how the Greeks were able to successfully pull off leadership of the country for three centuries.
Continue reading
To say Egyptian mythology and the pantheon of gods and goddesses presents itself in a straightforward, easy to understand approach means you have probably already given up trying. No god presents themselves in a more confused manner than the falcon-headed Horus. The particular Horus getting worshipped depends on where in Egypt you visited. But even here in Edfu, local rules do not apply.
Continue reading
Most tourist visits to Egypt include life, death and the afterlife, or at least an ancient Egyptian look at how all intertwine. The Necropolis of Thebes, much like that seen further north in the Giza-Saqqara-Dashur necropolis of Memphis, extends for many miles beyond the main attraction, the Valley of the Kings. Mortuary temples built by New Kingdom pharaohs front the desert mountains rising to the west. Mortuary temples arose as early as the Old Kingdom. The temples commemorated a specific king who reigned during the construction of the temple. Most prominent of all was to the peculiar Queen-King Hatshepsut.
Continue reading
For over the nation’s first century, defense of America for various wars, stayed in the hands of state militias – War of 1812, Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish American War, World War 1 and even to a significant role in World War 2. The US Congress always remained desirous to maintain a small regular army during peacetime which could change in times of war with massive influx of militia brought in from the states. This led to a series of problems in each war America involved itself in. One of the major problems became that of leadership. Captains went from commanding company-sized groups – 100-250 men – to commanding generals leading armies of several thousands. On the job learning in warfare costs lives. Here, we will focus mainly on Civil War generals.
Continue reading
Before the advent of “The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England, trading into Hudson’s Bay” – the Hudson’s Bay Company or HBC – there was another royally sponsored affair known as the “Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa” – better known as the Royal Africa Company or RAC. The key man in both ventures was one Prince Rupert of the Rhine, cousin to the Stuart King Charles II.
Continue reading
The west side of the Nile at Thebes – Waset to the Egyptians, like further upstream at Memphis, was reserved for the next life. At both sites, the bank of the setting sun became the home for the Afterlife. Cemeteries predominately lay on the west side of the river as Egyptians believed human life paralleled the path of the sun, rising in the east and setting in the west. In the land of the setting sun lie the underworld. Line up with the others to witness the Egyptian version of eternity.
Continue reading