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KEMET WAS THE NAME OF ANCIENT EGYPT 〰🔺

In Egypt, or Kemet, the name given to it in Ancient Egypt, one of the most advanced civilizations on the planet settled and developed. Among his great advances are written language (3,300 B.C.), medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and construction.

The word "EGYPT" with which we refer to the African country cradle of pharaohs, has its origin in the ancient Greek word "Aígyptos". A widely accepted explanation is that the Greek form derives from the Egyptian term "Hikuptah", which in turn derives from an earlier Egyptian word: "Hwt-ka-Ptah" (Ha-ka-Ptah). This Egyptian word translates as "the house of the soul of Ptah". The Egyptians referred by this name to the city of Memphis, where the potter god Ptah, considered the "Lord of magic", with healing powers, and the "Master builder", inventor of masonry, patron saint of architects, was venerated and artisans.

Another explanation regarding the origin of the word Egypt is that the Greek term "Aígyptos" was once a compound term, "Aigaiou huptiōs", which would mean "beyond the Aegean". However, the ancient Egyptians called their country "KeMeT", not Egypt.

☆ KeMeT, the land of the ancient Egyptians ☆

KeMeT is the transliteration of KM.T and this was the way the ancient Egyptians called the land they lived in. Hieroglyphs show this and we can find them in many places designating the country. There are two ways to write the name of KeMeT in hieroglyph. The translation of one of these hieroglyphs sparked controversy among historians. For all of them it was evident that KeMet contains the word "black", but from there some, specifically the so-called "afrocentrists", translated the hieroglyph as "land of blacks" and others saw a feminine ending and read "black land" . Currently practically all linguists support the second thesis.

The origin of the name would be in the periodic floods that took place on the banks of the Nile and that left the land covered by a layer of blackish silt that enriched the soil and was the source of its agricultural prosperity.

KeIn Kemet, the color black, in addition to fertility, was related to the night, with the afterlife, with the resurrection and rebirth.
This black color offered a great visual contrast with the desert lands that were reddish in color and whose name was DeSheReT (DSR.T) which means "red earth". Historians also believe that the correct translation is "Black Earth" due to the typically Egyptian dualism that KeMeT presents regarding DeSheRet: black and red, fertility and aridity, Osiris -which is black, green and regeneration- versus Seth - which is red and desolation or death. Another argument that supports this thesis is that in the Ptolemaic era the Egyptians referred to themselves as "km.tauy" that Egyptologists etymologically interpret as "the inhabitants of the black land".

In texts of the Koran written in classical Arabic, Egypt is known as Misr (Arabic: مصر), which is the current name of the country. In Egyptian Arabic, the name is pronounced "Masr". The name "Misr" is related to the Hebrew word "Mitzráyim", which includes the dual suffix -āyim, which means "two straits", perhaps referring to the ancient dynastic separation between the two Egyptians: Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt.

This word also originally had a connotation close to "civilization", "metropolis", "country" or "border land".


On the other hand, in the Akkadian Semitic language, Egypt was known as "Misru". This word is the oldest Semitic language related verification of the current name Misr, and is related to other words such as "misru", "misirru" and "misaru". ⚫All of them refer to “border” or “border”, which would make sense if we consider that EGYPT could be described as a border between continents.🌍

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