Blog — Egyptian History

A cartouche (pronounced ‘kar-toosh’) is an ancient Egypt nameplate or seal. Every pharaoh, king and queen had their name spelled in hieroglyphs in the oval shaped cartouche. This was meant to protect them and their name for eternity.

The hieroglyphic language contains more than two thousand symbols, some representing words, others representing full ideas, and others representing sounds (phonetic). Depending on how the symbols is used, the same symbol might represent an idea in one hieroglyphic sentence, and a sound in a different sentence!    Since it is a phonetic language, the symbols represent sounds.  For example. the Basket symbol is a hard “C” sound, used to start the name Carla, or Cleopatra, but  it would not be the correct choice for the name Cindy, since the English letter ‘C’ now represents the soft C, or ‘S’ sound,...

Ramadan Mubarak means Blessed Ramadan.   Every night, for the 4 weeks of the Islamic month called Ramadan, Muslims around the world fast during the time between sunrise and sunset (not even drinking any water). It is a time to reflect on all the gifts of normal life, and also to think of those less fortunate.   They break their day-long fast at sundown with a meal called "Iftar". It is very common to have 20 people or more at the table. In Egypt, many local businesses set up tables open to anyone passing by. The Ramadan of 2020 is certainly a big...