98 Fun Facts About Egypt

Which queen was the last active ruler of Egypt's Ptolemaic dynasty?

Cleopatra: Octavian beat her and Mark Antony at Actium in 31 BC, and after her death Egypt became a province of Rome.

Which river runs the length of Egypt into the Mediterranean?

Nile: its yearly flood left fertile silt along its banks, turning dry land into farmland.

Which animal, sacred to the goddess Bastet, did ancient Egyptians mummify in huge numbers?

Cat: Herodotus wrote that when a household cat died, everyone living in the house shaved off their eyebrows in mourning.

Which scholar used the Rosetta Stone to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs?

Jean-François Champollion: he worked out that many of the signs stood for sounds, not only for ideas.

Which religion is Egypt's official state religion?

Islam: Egypt came under Muslim rule when Amr ibn al-As's Arab army took it from the Byzantine Empire between 639 and 642.

What is the currency of Egypt?

Pound: in 2016 Egypt let it float, as part of reforms backed by a $12 billion IMF loan.

Which Egyptian site is the only surviving Wonder of the Ancient World?

Giza Necropolis: its Great Pyramid was once cased in smooth white limestone, but nearly all of that casing has since been stripped away.

What is Egypt's second-largest city?

Alexandria: after Alexander the Great died, his general Ptolemy seized his body, and it was eventually entombed in the city Alexander had founded.

Egypt borders which country to the west?

Libya: a line of Libyan chieftains who had settled in Egypt later took its throne, founding the 22nd Dynasty.

Which Egyptian scored twice against Congo in 2017 to send Egypt to the World Cup?

Mohamed Salah: Congo had equalised with three minutes left, before his late penalty won the game 2–1.

Which sea along Egypt's east coast is famed for its coral reefs?

Red Sea: it fills a rift where the African and Arabian plates are slowly pulling apart.

Which goddess was the wife of Osiris and the mother of Horus?

Isis: her cult spread far beyond Egypt, and devotees across the Roman Empire worshipped her.

Which president was forced out by the 2011 Egyptian revolution?

Hosni Mubarak: a court sentenced him to life in prison in 2012 over protesters' deaths, but he was finally acquitted in 2017.

Who became president of Egypt in 2014?

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi: Mohamed Morsi had promoted him to defence minister in 2012, and a year later Sisi led the military's removal of Morsi.

Anwar Sadat signed a 1979 peace treaty with which country?

Israel: in response the Arab League suspended Egypt and moved its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis, readmitting Egypt only in 1989.

Which Cairo plaza was the focus of the 2011 protests?

The name means Liberation Square; it was briefly renamed for Sadat in 1981 but nobody used the new name.

Which Egyptian leader nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956, provoking the Suez Crisis?

Gamal Abdel Nasser: he vowed that canal tolls would pay for his dam, and the crisis left him a hero across the Arab world.

Who invaded Egypt in 1798 and won the Battle of the Pyramids?

Napoleon Bonaparte: within weeks Nelson destroyed his fleet at Aboukir Bay, leaving the French army cut off in Egypt.

Which Egyptian writer won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature?

Naguib Mahfouz: in 1994 an extremist stabbed him in the neck, but he survived the attack.

Egypt joined which country in 1958 to form the United Arab Republic?

Syria: it pulled out after a military coup in 1961, yet Egypt kept calling itself the United Arab Republic until 1971.

Which country helped Egypt build its High Dam, completed in 1970?

Soviet Union: Moscow stepped in after the United States and Britain withdrew their offer to finance the dam in 1956.

Mohamed Morsi, elected president in 2012, belonged to which movement?

Muslim Brotherhood: after the military removed Morsi in 2013, the government banned the movement and declared it a terrorist organisation.

The city of Luxor was formerly known by what name?

Thebes: once Egypt's capital, it was sacked in the 660s BC by the army of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal.

Whose penalty did Egypt save first in the 2006 Africa Cup of Nations final?

Didier Drogba: he had also sent a late chance over from six yards, and Egypt went on to win the shootout 4–2 in Cairo.

Which university in Cairo grew out of a 10th-century mosque?

Al-Azhar: in 2019 its Grand Imam, Ahmed el-Tayeb, signed a joint declaration on human fraternity with Pope Francis.

Which king abdicated after the Free Officers coup of 1952?

Farouk: he abdicated in favour of his son, but within a year the monarchy was abolished and Egypt became a republic.

Which Egyptian dish of lentils, rice and pasta is UNESCO-listed heritage?

Koshary: it started out as cheap, filling food for the poor, and today it is often called Egypt's national dish.

Which Frenchman formed the Compagnie de Suez in 1858 to dig the Suez Canal?

Ferdinand de Lesseps: his later attempt to dig a Panama Canal collapsed amid disease and debt, and the company was wound up.

Amr Shabana, Ali Farag and Ramy Ashour were world number ones in which sport?

Squash: in 2017 Ali Farag and his wife, Nour El Tayeb, won the US Open men's and women's titles on the same day.

Who became the first president of Egypt in 1953?

Muhammad Naguib: he lost a power struggle with the other Free Officers and was forced out of the presidency in 1954.

The Ottomans conquered Egypt in 1517 by defeating which rulers?

Mamluk Sultanate: the Mamluks kept local power under the Ottomans until Muhammad Ali had their leaders massacred at Cairo's Citadel in 1811.

Cairo became the capital of which caliphate in the 10th century?

Fatimid: their caliphate ended in 1171, when Saladin took over Egypt and restored allegiance to the Sunni caliph in Baghdad.

Mount Sinai is Egypt's most famous peak, but which nearby mountain is its highest?

Mount Catherine: by Christian tradition, angels carried the martyred St Catherine's body to these Sinai heights.

Which singer, nicknamed the 'Star of the East', gave famous concerts on the first Thursday of each month?

Umm Kulthum: after Egypt's 1967 defeat in the Six-Day War, she toured abroad and gave her concert proceeds to the war effort.

On which day is the spring festival Sham Ennessim observed?

Easter Monday: Egyptians of all faiths mark it with picnics in parks and by painting and swapping boiled eggs.

Which Egyptian actor played the title role in Doctor Zhivago?

Omar Sharif: born Michel Chalhoub, he changed his name and his religion to marry the Egyptian film star Faten Hamama.

Which Egyptian-born scientist won the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry?

Ahmed Zewail: his ultrashort laser flashes let chemists watch atoms move during a chemical reaction as it happened.

Where did the 2021 Golden Parade take 22 royal mummies?

Museum of Egyptian Civilization: officials staged the televised parade in hopes of reviving Egypt's tourism industry.

Which Egyptian diplomat served as UN Secretary-General from 1992 to 1996?

Boutros Boutros-Ghali: he sought a second term, but the United States vetoed his reappointment in the Security Council.

Which British prime minister ordered Egypt's occupation in 1882?

William Gladstone: in his Midlothian campaign he had attacked Disraeli's foreign policy, yet his own government then seized Egypt.

Which country left joint Anglo-Egyptian rule to become independent in 1956?

Sudan: the condominium followed Kitchener's 1898 victory at Omdurman, where Anglo-Egyptian forces crushed the Mahdist army.

Which composer wrote Aida, the opera set in ancient Egypt that premiered in Cairo in 1871?

Giuseppe Verdi: the Franco-Prussian War held up the sets and costumes in Paris, so the Cairo premiere was delayed.

Which king tried to make a single sun god the centre of Egyptian worship?

Akhenaten: the kings who came after him treated him as an enemy and tried to erase him from history.

Which plant did ancient Egyptians turn into sheets to write on?

Papyrus: an old tale, passed on by Pliny, says Pergamon developed parchment because it couldn't get papyrus, though historians doubt the story.

The British exiled Saad Zaghloul to which island in 1919, sparking a revolution?

Malta: within weeks Britain freed him and his colleagues, and they sailed from Malta to Paris to press Egypt's case.

Which energy company discovered the giant Zohr gas field in 2015?

The find helped end the six-hour daily blackouts Egypt had suffered in the summer of 2014.

The Siwi language of Siwa Oasis belongs to which language family?

Berber: Siwi has no official recognition and isn't taught in schools or used in the media, so it is classed as endangered.

Which Egyptian resort city hosted the 2022 COP27 climate summit?

Sharm El Sheikh: the summit ended with a deal to set up a fund for loss and damage suffered by vulnerable countries.

Which American landmark did Bartholdi create after Egypt rejected his giant lighthouse for the Suez Canal?

The Statue of Liberty followed his Suez design of a robed woman holding a torch aloft, which Egypt's ruler declined as too costly.

Which giant container ship ran aground in March 2021 and blocked the Suez Canal for six days?

Ever Given, a 400-metre vessel, was wedged across the waterway by strong winds. The jam held up goods worth an estimated $9.6 billion a day.

The iron blade of a dagger buried with Tutankhamun was forged from metal that came from which source?

Meteorite iron explains why the blade is so rich in nickel. Iron smelted from ore on Earth before the 19th century never held more than 4%.

Which cloudy, nutritious drink was such a staple in ancient Egypt that it was even used as currency?

Beer in ancient Egypt was thick with solids, closer to gruel than to a modern lager, and was drunk daily. Brewers shared their yeast with the bakers working beside them.

Which organ did ancient Egyptian embalmers leave inside a mummy, believing it to be the seat of thought?

The heart stayed in place because the dead would need it in the afterlife. The brain was drained out through the nose and thrown away.

Which pair of rock-cut temples in southern Egypt was moved to higher ground in the 1960s to escape a rising reservoir?

Abu Simbel was taken apart into huge blocks and rebuilt inside an artificial hill. The move was part of an international campaign to save the monuments of Nubia.

Wadi al-Hitan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site south-west of Cairo, is famous for fossil skeletons of which animals?

Whales in their earliest forms lie fossilised in the desert there, caught midway between land animal and ocean-going mammal. The site's Arabic name means valley of the whales.

Which British archaeologist found the nearly intact tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings in 1922?

Howard Carter's backer had grown dissatisfied after years of finding little when a worker uncovered a step in the rock on 4 November 1922.

Which actor became the first of Egyptian heritage to win the Best Actor Oscar, for a 2018 music biopic?

Rami Malek was born in California to Egyptian immigrant parents and spoke Egyptian Arabic at home until he was four. He won for playing Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.

Cairo's long-standing nickname calls the Egyptian capital the city of a thousand what?

Minarets earned Cairo the name because so many mosques crowd its historic centre, which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

The Great Sphinx, carved from limestone bedrock, pairs a human head with the body of which animal?

A lion's body gives the Sphinx its crouching shape. Tool traces on the face show its missing nose was deliberately broken off with rods or chisels.

Which ancient Egyptian god, usually shown with the head of a jackal, was a protector of graves and an embalmer?

Anubis was lord of the underworld until Osiris replaced him in that role by the Middle Kingdom.

Which insect did ancient Egyptians shape into countless amulets and seals as a symbol of the morning sun?

Scarab amulets were tied to the god Khepri and had become enormously popular by about 2000 BC. Many were inscribed for use as personal seals.

Egypt gives its name to a prized market class of which fibre, valued for its extra-long staple?

Cotton of this kind went into commercial production in 1820, after a French engineer named Jumel spotted the plant growing as an ornamental in a Cairo garden.

For which Fourth Dynasty pharaoh, also known as Cheops, was the Great Pyramid built as a tomb?

Khufu's pyramid first stood 146.6 metres high and was the tallest human-made structure on Earth for more than 3,700 years.

Which organisation of states was founded in Cairo in 1945 and has its headquarters in the Egyptian capital?

The Arab League began with seven members and has grown to 22. Its headquarters spent the 1980s in Tunis while Egypt was suspended, returning to Cairo in 1990.

Egyptian falafel, known locally as ta'ameya, is most often made from which legume instead of chickpeas?

Fava beans are the usual base in Egypt, where the fritter most likely originated before spreading through Middle Eastern cooking.

Which decoration, known in Egypt as a fanous, fills streets and homes during the month of Ramadan?

Lantern displays for Ramadan go back to medieval Egypt, where crowds are said to have carried them to welcome a caliph into Cairo.

Which 1942 battle in Egypt saw Montgomery's Eighth Army defeat Rommel and end the Axis threat to the Suez Canal?

El Alamein was only a railway halt, yet the victory there was the western Allies' first large success against the Axis since late 1941.

Which Christian feast, celebrated in Egypt in early January under an older calendar, became a national holiday in 2003?

Christmas for Egypt's largest church usually falls on 7 January, the day that 25 December lands on in the older Julian calendar.

Which female pharaoh, who began as regent for her stepson Thutmose III, built a famous temple at Deir el-Bahari?

Hatshepsut's memory came under attack after her death: her monuments were defaced and many of her achievements credited to other pharaohs.

Which official of King Djoser, later worshipped as a god, is traditionally credited with designing the Step Pyramid?

Imhotep was one of fewer than a dozen non-royal Egyptians ever deified after death, a process that unfolded over some 3,000 years.

In Egyptian hieroglyphs, which oval ring drawn around a group of signs shows that they spell a royal name?

The cartouche shrank as writing changed: the later Demotic script reduced it to a pair of brackets and a vertical line.

Which temple complex at Luxor, sacred to Amun, has a great hall whose roof once rested on 134 columns?

Karnak's hall has lost its roof, but the columns stand: 122 of them carry capitals shaped like closed flower buds, while the 12 taller ones in the middle open like blooms.

The painted bust of Queen Nefertiti, dug up at Amarna in 1912, is displayed in which European city?

Berlin first put the bust on public show in 1924, and Egypt has demanded its return ever since.

Which pharaoh fought the Hittites at Kadesh and later agreed with them the oldest peace treaty known to survive?

Ramesses II's treaty was first set down on silver tablets, and a copy hangs on a wall at the United Nations headquarters.

Which Roman conquered Egypt in 30 BC after winning the Battle of Actium?

Octavian, soon to rule as the emperor Augustus, made Egypt a province that became a major producer of grain for the empire and stayed under Roman rule until AD 642.

Which Greek historian, who travelled in Egypt in the 5th century BC, gave it the whole second book of his Histories?

Herodotus wrote that embalmers drew the brain out through the nose with an iron hook; modern studies of mummies suggest a rod was used instead.

By tradition, which Gospel writer brought Christianity to Egypt in the 1st century and founded its main church?

Mark gives his name to the Cairo cathedral where the church's pope presides, and that pope is said to sit on the saint's own apostolic seat.

Which language of Egyptian church services, written in a Greek-based alphabet, descends from ancient Egyptian?

Coptic has no native speakers left, having given way to Arabic over the centuries. Its alphabet adds seven letters taken from an older Egyptian script to the Greek ones.

Which Ottoman commander of Albanian origin took power in Egypt in 1805 and is widely called the founder of modern Egypt?

Muhammad Ali was the son of a tobacco and shipping merchant, and the dynasty he founded ruled Egypt for over a century, until the revolution of 1952.

Which Egyptian diplomat shared the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize with the nuclear watchdog agency he led at the time?

Mohamed ElBaradei ran the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1997 to 2009, through the weapons inspections in Iraq, and later served as Egypt's interim vice president.

Which star of French popular song was born Iolanda Gigliotti in Cairo in 1933 to a family of Italian origin?

Dalida grew up in Cairo's Shubra district, where her father played first violin at the city's opera house.

Which Cairo sports club, whose name means 'the national', has won a record number of African Champions League titles?

Al Ahly was founded in 1907 as a meeting place for high school students, and football was not among its founders' aims: they wanted somewhere to hold political discussions.

Karkadeh, the deep-crimson drink raised in toasts at Egyptian weddings, is an infusion of which flower?

Hibiscus tea is made from the crimson sepals of the roselle flower and can be served hot or chilled with ice. Street vendors and open-air cafés sell it all over Cairo.

Ancient Egyptians tied the start of their year to the dawn return of which bright star, herald of the annual flood?

Sirius returned to the dawn sky in mid-July, about when the river began to rise each year. Egyptians called the star Sopdet.

What is the official Arabic name of Egypt, a cousin of the Hebrew word used for the country in the Bible?

Misr, said as Masr in everyday speech, is also what Egyptians often call Cairo, a sign of how much the capital dominates the country.

Which English earl bankrolled the search for Tutankhamun's tomb and died in Cairo months after it was opened?

Lord Carnarvon died after a mosquito bite became infected in 1923, and newspaper speculation turned his death into the legend of the mummy's curse.

Which ancient capital of Egypt, said to have been founded by King Menes, lay under the protection of the god Ptah?

Memphis was the capital through the Early Dynastic Period and the Old Kingdom. Its ruins lie near the modern village of Mit Rahina.

Which board game, played on a grid of thirty squares, was among the objects buried in Tutankhamun's tomb?

Senet boards had three rows of ten squares known as houses, and the oldest intact examples date to the Middle Kingdom.

Which pharaoh, first king of the Fourth Dynasty, built the oddly angled Bent Pyramid at Dahshur?

Sneferu's builders finished the Bent Pyramid at a gentler slope, perhaps because the steep lower part was showing signs of instability. His next pyramid used the gentler angle from the base up.

Which English polymath, who showed that light acts as a wave, translated the Rosetta Stone's demotic text by 1814?

Thomas Young also found the sound values of six hieroglyphic signs but never worked out the grammar, and a rival scholar completed the decipherment in 1822.

Which foreign rulers held northern Egypt as the Fifteenth Dynasty until Ahmose I defeated them around 1550 BC?

The Hyksos are often credited with bringing the horse and chariot to Egypt, though how much they introduced is disputed. Their name comes from an Egyptian phrase for rulers of foreign lands.

Which French king was captured in Egypt in 1250 while leading the Seventh Crusade and released for a vast ransom?

Louis IX bought his freedom for a sum close to the French crown's yearly income, plus the port of Damietta. He is the only king of France to be made a saint.

Which title of Persian origin did the Ottoman government officially recognise for Egypt's ruler Ismail in 1867?

Khedive stayed the title of Egypt's rulers until 1914, when Britain deposed the last holder, declared a protectorate and installed his uncle as sultan instead.

Which Egyptian hermit, whose temptations in the desert inspired many painters, is known as the Father of All Monks?

Saint Anthony's fame spread through a biography by the bishop Athanasius, whose Latin translations carried the idea of monastic life to Western Europe.

What did Egyptian engineers use in the 1973 war to cut passages through the sand wall lining the Suez Canal?

Water cannons fed by small petrol pumps opened the first passage in under an hour. Trials with explosives and a bulldozer had needed five to six hours for each gap.

Which pioneering Egyptian feminist publicly removed her veil on returning home from a women's suffrage congress in Rome?

Huda Sha'arawi's gesture first shocked the women who had come to greet her, then drew applause, and some removed their own veils. In 1923 she founded the Egyptian Feminist Union.

Which blind Egyptian writer, author of the autobiography The Days, earned the title Dean of Arabic Literature?

Taha Hussein was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature more than a dozen times without winning. As education minister from 1950 he pressed for free schooling for all.

Which cosmetic, ground from the mineral galena, was worn by ancient Egyptians of every social class?

Kohl was first worn as protection against eye ailments, and Egyptians also believed that darkening the skin around the eyes shielded them from the sun's harsh rays.