^*According to Herodotus, an Egyptian sandstorm could be bad enough to bury an entire army. The Persian King Cambyses sent fifty thousand men into the desert, “but,” Herodotus wrote, “they never returned . . . As theywere at their midday meal, a wind arose from the south, strong and deadly, bringing with it vast columns of whirling sand, which entirely covered up the troops, and caused them wholly to disappear.” (back to text)

^*The result, I was several times told, of Bosnian soldiers having traveledhere with Yavuz Sultan Selim’s Turkish army in 1517 and mixing with Nubians. In Nubia, the southernmost region of Egypt, Amelia Edwards had been frightened by the sight of these redheads who “though in complexion as black as the rest, had light blue eyes and frizzy red hair.” (back to text)

^*As you know, the Nile flows from south to north. Since one must travel upriver to reach the south of Egypt, the south is commonly referred to as “Upper Egypt” and the north, therefore, as “Lower Egypt.” (back to text)

^*Sonnini’s assessment of 1777 was blunt: “Slavery, and stupidity, its inevitable consequence, have filled the place of power and grandeur. Superstitious ignorance has succeeded to the love of the sciences, to the exercise of the arts; and perfect civilization has disappeared, to make way for brutality and savageness of manners.” (back to text)

^*The journalswere never published and have since been lost. (back to text)

^*French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette. (back to text)

^*He said he went. In modern times, there has been much debate about whether Herodotus ever set foot out of Greece. (back to text)

^*French actress Marie Dorval. (back to text)