Interesting Facts about Egypt

Did You Know?

13 curious facts about Egypt.

• When a child loses a tooth they put their tooth in a pouch, throw it into the sun and say "The sun, the sun, the setting sun, take this awful donkey tooth and bring me a princess one". They also get money from their parents.
• The Great Temple of Abu Simbel In 1257 BCE, Pharaoh Ramses II (1279-13 BCE) had two temples carved out of solid rock at a site on the west bank of the Nile south of Aswan in the land of Nubia and known today as Abu Simbel. Long before Ramses II, the site had been sacred to Hathor of Absek. The temple built by Ramses, however, was dedicated to the sun gods Amon-Re and Re-Horakhte. Because of their remote location near the Sudanese border in sourthern Egypt, the temples were unknown until their rediscovery in 1813. They were first explored in 1817 by the Egyptologist Giovanni Battista Belzoni. The sacred area, marked out as a forecourt and bounded on the north and south sides by brick walls, occupied a place between the sandstone cliffs and the river. Ramses' temple was cut into the face of the cliff, before which is a rock-cut terrace. The temple is approached across this terrace up a flight of steps with an inclined plane in the middle, and enclosed on either side by a balustrade behind which stood a row of hawks and statues of Ramses in various forms. The rock-cut fa açade of Ramses' temple represents the front of a pylon in front of which are four colossal seated figures of Ramses. This facade is one 119 feet wide, and 100 feet high, while the colossal statues are 67 feet in height. At the top of the pylon, above the cornice, is a row of baboons, who, as Watchers of the Dawn, are shown with their hands raised in adoration of the (rising) sun. The Egyptians believed baboons played a role in helping the sun god Ra defeat the darkness of night and so were believed sacred to the worship of the rising sun.
• Tutankhamen was only 10 years old when he became pharaoh. When he died at 18, gold jewelry, statues, thrones, beds and a golden face mask were buried with him. Unlike the majority of other pharaohs, tomb robbers never uncovered his tomb. Archeologists unearthed it in the 1920s.
• Egyptians fear the evil eye, which is believed to bring bad luck. Envy is often associated with the evil eye. It is considered rude to show open admiration for another person's possessions.