Tea at Trianon: Was Ancient Egypt a Desert?

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, October 14, 2022

Was Ancient Egypt a Desert?

From Live Science:

Thanks to modern images of Egypt's iconic pyramids towering over a vast sandscape, many people assume this area is, and always has been, a desert. But considering that climates and landscapes can change over time and that humans have been known to alter natural environments, was ancient Egypt a desert? And is Egypt still considered a desert today?
The simple answer is no. Not all of Egypt, ancient or modern, qualifies as a desert. Areas near the Nile River tend to be lusher, and Egyptians — in both ancient and modern times — have had a thriving system of agriculture. However, the environment has changed over Egypt's history, and the construction of the Aswan High Dam across the Nile between 1960 and 1970 altered the landscape substantially.
Some areas of Egypt that are now desert were wetter in the past. One famous example is the "Cave of Swimmers" on the Gilf Kebir plateau in southwestern Egypt. Today, the area is very arid, but thousands of years ago, it was moister, and some of the rock art found in caves in the area appears to show people swimming, according to the British Museum (opens in new tab). (Read more.)