ound, which however, would
probably be included in the term Kemi in its widest sense. Egypt is
called in Hebrew Mizraim, [Hebrew: Mizraim], possibly a dual form
describing the country in reference to its two great natural and
historical divisions of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt: but Mizraim
(poetically sometimes Mazor) often means Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt being
named Pathros, "the south land." In Assyrian the name was Musri, Misri:
in Arabic it is Misr, [Arabic: Misr], pronounced Masr in the vulgar
dialect of Egypt. These names are certainly of Semitic origin and
perhaps derive from the Assyrian with the meaning "frontier-land" (see
MIZRAIM). Winckler's theory of a separate Musri immediately south of
Palestine is now generally rejected (see, for instance, Ed. Meyer, _Die
Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstamme_, 455). The Greek [Greek: Aigyptos]
(Aegyptus) occurs as early as Homer; in the _Odyssey_ it is the name of
the Nile (masc.) as well as of the country (fem.): later it was confined
to the country. Its origin is very obscure (see Pietschmann in
Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopadie_, s.v. "Aigyptos"). Brugsch's
derivation from Hakeptah, a name of the northern capital, Memphis,
though attractive, is unconfirmed.

Egypt normally included the whole of the Nile valley from the First
Cataract to the sea; pure Egyptians, however, formed the population of
Lower Nubia above the Cataract in prehistoric times; at some periods
also the land was divided into separate kingdoms, while at others Egypt
stretched southward into Nubia, and it generally claimed the
neighbouring Libyan deserts and oases on the west and the Arabian
deserts on the east to the shore of the Red Sea, with Sinai and the
Mediterranean coast as far as Rhinocorura (El Arish). The physical
features in ancient times were essentially the same as at the present
day. The bed of the Nile was lower: it appears to have risen by its own
deposits at a rate of about 4 in. in a century. In the north of the
Delta, however, there was a sinking of the land, in consequence of which
the accumulations on some of the ancient sites there extend below the
present sea-level. On the other hand at the south end of the Suez canal
the land may have risen bodily, since the head of the Gulf of Suez has
been cut off by a bank of rock from the Bitter lakes, which were
probably joined to it in former days. The banks of the Nile and the
islands in it are subject to gradual but constant alteration--indee