Lower Egypt

Lower Egypt is the northernmost region of Egypt, which consists of the fertile Nile Delta between Upper Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, from El Aiyat, south of modern-day Cairo, and Dahshur. Historically, the Nile River split into seven branches of the delta in Lower Egypt. Lower Egypt was divided into nomes and began to advance as a civilization after 3600 BC. Today, it contains two major channels that flow through the delta of the Nile River – Mahmoudiyah Canal (ancient Agathos Daimon) and Muways Canal (, "waterway of Moses"). Name In Ancient Egyptian, Lower Egypt was known as mḥw which means "north". Later on, during Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Greeks and Romans called it Κάτω Αἴγυπτος or Aegyptus Inferior both meaning "Lower Egypt", but Copts carried on using the old name related to the north – Tsakhet or Psanemhit meaning the "Northern part". It was further divided into a number of regions or nomes – Niphaiat in the west, Tiarabia in the east, Nimeshshoti in the north-east and Bashmur (Bashmuric ) in the north. Champollion adds another region in the middle of the Delta which he calls Petmour based on mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium, but it is unclear if this is a separate region or just a Greek rendering of the name Bashmur. After the Muslim conquest, the middle part of the Delta was called al-Rif which means "countryside, rural area" and which is derived from Ancient Egyptian r:Z1-pr*Z1:niwtr-pr, "temple", because the rural areas were administered by them. The eastern part roughly comprising the ancient Tiarabia was called al-Hawf meaning "edge, fringe".