Hello and welcome to ‘Map Monday’. This was inspired by the current pandemic and lockdowns and the inability to travel. I will share one book each week with you that is set somewhere different to where I live. I’ll chat a bit about the book and throw some interesting facts out there about the place. I hope you enjoy travelling through books with me…
This week I’ve picked ‘Death on the Nile’ by Agatha Christie – which is set in Egypt.
Book Synopsis:
Agatha Christie’s most daring travel mystery.
The tranquillity of a cruise along the Nile is shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway has been shot through the head. She was young, stylish and beautiful, a girl who had everything – until she lost her life.
Hercule Poirot recalls an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: ‘I’d like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.’ Yet in this exotic setting’ nothing is ever quite what it seems…
Interesting Facts about Egypt:
- One of the first things you’d associate with Egypt are its pyramids. Originally, the Ancient Egyptians built them as a final resting place for Egyptian royalty. Pyramids symbolize how light descends from the Sun to the Earth, the same way that a pyramid descends from its peak to the ground.
- The country shares borders Israel, Libya, Sudan and the Gaza Strip (Palestine).
- Egypt’s capital city, Cairo a population of roughly 21 million.
- The 365-day, solar-based calendar we use today is fundamentally the same as what the Ancient Egyptians used. The only difference is the name of the days and months of the year.
- The name Egypt comes from the ancient Greek name for the county ‘Aigyptos‘
- Egypt is three times larger in land area than New Mexico/USA or is slightly smaller in size than three times the size of Germany.
- Egypt is the country with the most Arab speaking people in the world. Some also refer to Egypt as the most populous country in the Arab world.
- Al-Azhar University is Egypt’s oldest university; founded in 975 AD.
- The Nile which is the longest river in the world enters the sea just north of Cairo.
- The highest mountain in Egypt is Gabal Katrîne, also called Mount Catherine at 2,629m, which is close to St Catherine’s Monastery one of the older working oldest working monasteries in the world.
- Almost all people in Egypt (99%) live on 5% of the land area of the country! Very few people live in oases in the desert.
- The main agricultural products of Egypt are fruits and vegetables, cotton, rice, corn and wheat. Egypt is known for its high quality Egyptian cotton.
- The country’s population is estimated to be 90% Muslim (primarily Sunni) and various Christian denominations make up the remaining 10%.
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