ABSTRACT
Deserts border the two shorelines of the Red Sea. Along these shorelines are two countries whose verdant fringes have been struggling to resist the desert since the IVth millennium BC-two countries that are highly dependent on seasonal flood cycles. On the east there is Arabia Felix, present-day Yemen. On the west is Egypt, to which most of this chapter is devoted. The River Nile dominates and unifies the powerful and innovative Egyptian civilization. This civilization precedes the transition to the Hellenistic period and the flowering of Alexandria, described later in Part II of this book.1
