Egypt

Egypt was united under one king around 3100 BC, and within five centuries its builders raised the Pyramids of Giza; the Great Pyramid of Khufu was the tallest building on earth for nearly four thousand years. In the New Kingdom the pharaohs ruled from Thebes, today's Luxor, building the temples of Karnak and Luxor and cutting their tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Ramesses II carved the temples of Abu Simbel into the cliffs of Nubia.

Alexander the Great founded Alexandria in 331 BC, and under the Ptolemies, ending with Cleopatra VII, it became the intellectual capital of the ancient world, with its Library and its Lighthouse. Roman and Byzantine Egypt followed, when the Coptic Church took root. From 641 Egypt was part of the Islamic world; the Fatimids founded Cairo in 969, and its Mamluk mosques and madrasas make it one of the great medieval cities. The Suez Canal opened in 1869.