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  • egg white (food)
    The structural components of the egg are shown in Figure 1. They include the shell and shell membranes (10 percent); the albumen or white (60 percent), including the thick albumen, the outer thin albumen, the inner thin albumen, and the chalazae; and the yolk (30 percent). In a fertilized egg the yolk supplies the nutrients and the albumen supplies the water necessary for the development of the......
  • egg yolk (embryology)
    the nutritive material of an egg, used as food by a developing, embryonic animal. Eggs with relatively little, uniformly distributed yolk are termed isolecithal. This condition occurs in invertebrates and in all but the lowest mammals. Eggs with abundant yolk concentrated in one hemisphere of the egg are termed telolecithal. This occurs in many invertebrates and in all vertebrat...
  • egg-eating snake (reptile)
    any of the five species of the genus Dasypeltis of sub-Saharan Africa and Elachistodon westermanni of northeastern India. These nonvenomous snakes comprise the subfamily Dasypeltinae, family Colubridae. Members of Dasypeltis eat only bird eggs; E. westermanni sometimes consume the eggs and adult forms of other animals. The mouth is enormously distensible and t...
  • egg-laying topminnow (fish)
    any of a few hundred species of usually elongated fishes of the family Cyprinodontidae (order Atheriniformes), found worldwide, especially in the tropics of Africa and the New World. They inhabit brackish, salt, and fresh water, including certain desert hot springs. Killifish grow, at most, to a length of about 15 cm (6 inches); many are much smaller. They are surface feeders, taking either plant ...
  • egg-tempera painting
    Egg tempera is the most durable form of the medium, being generally unaffected by humidity and temperature. It dries quickly to form a tough film that acts as a protective skin to the support. In handling, in its diversity of transparent and opaque effects, and in the satin sheen of its finish, it resembles the modern acrylic resin emulsion paints....
  • Eggeling, Viking (German director)
    ...as incongruity and dissociation, a process that led the way to Surrealism. Finally and almost incidentally, they asked, if the presentation of movement is proper to art, why not movement itself? Viking Eggeling and Hans Richter, with animated drawings and film, made the first works in a kinetic tradition that even by the late 1980s showed no sign of abating....
  • Eggers, Dave (American author)
    ...grinding conditions of Irish slum life; Anne Roiphe’s bittersweet recollections of her rich but cold-hearted parents and her brother’s death from AIDS in 1185 Park Avenue (1999); and Dave Eggers’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000), a painful but comic tour de force, half tongue-in-cheek, about a young man raising his brother after th...
  • Eggertsen, Esther (American consumer advocate)
    American consumer advocate who worked to make product information available to the public....
  • eggfruit (tree)
    (Pouteria campechiana), small tree of the sapodilla family (Sapotaceae), native to northern South America and cultivated in other tropical regions. It grows 3–7.5 metres (10–25 feet) tall and has spreading branches, alternate leathery leaves, and small white flowers. The canistel fruit is oval in shape, 5–10 cm (2–4 inches) long, and orange-yellow in colour. Its ...
  • Eggihard (Frankish official)
    ...mountains to Aquitaine after Charlemagne, campaigning against the Muslims in Spain, had ravaged several towns south of the Pyrenees and had razed Pamplona. The Frankish army was led by the seneschal Eggihard, the count palatine Anselm, and Roland, prefect of the March of Brittany. The battle forms the basis of the legend of the hero Roland recounted in the epics La Chanson de....
  • Eggjum Stone (Norwegian artifact)
    inscribed stone that bears 200 runic characters. It is the longest known text in the old-style futhark (runic alphabet) and was discovered inside a tomb in western Norway in 1917. The runes are arranged in three unequal lines, separated by an engraving of a stylized horse’s head. The date is uncertain; archaeologists place it in the 7th century, whereas runologists, citing transitional run...
  • Eggleston, Edward (American writer)
    clergyman, novelist, and historian who realistically portrayed various sections of the U.S. in such books as The Hoosier School-Master....
  • Eggleston, Kristin Elaine (American writer)
    African-American novelist who examined black life and racial relations in the United States in both children’s stories and works for adults....
  • eggplant (plant)
    (Solanum melongena), tender perennial plant of the nightshade family (Solanaceae), closely related to the potato. Eggplant requires a warm climate and is grown extensively in eastern and southern Asia and in the United States. It is native to southern and eastern Asia, where it has been cultivated since remote antiquity for its fleshy fruit. For this purpose it is usually grown as an annua...
  • eggshell (zoology)
    Most insects begin their lives as fertilized eggs. The chorion, or eggshell, is commonly pierced by respiratory openings that lead to an air-filled meshwork inside the shell. For some insects (e.g., cockroaches and mantids) a batch of eggs is cemented together to form an egg packet or ootheca. Insects may pass unfavourable seasons in the egg stage. Eggs of the springtail ......
  • eggshell finish (paper)
    Uncoated book paper comes in four finishes: (1) antique or eggshell, (2) machine finish, MF, (3) English finish, EF, and (4) supercalendered. Antique has the roughest surface. High bulking pulps, such as soda pulp, are used and only slightly beaten in stock preparation. The sheet is lightly calendered (pressed between rollers) to provide a degree of surface smoothness while preserving the......
  • eggshell porcelain (Chinese pottery)
    Chinese porcelain characterized by an excessively thin body under the glaze. It often had decoration engraved on it before firing that, like a watermark in paper, was visible only when held to the light; such decoration is called anhua, meaning literally “secret language.”...
  • Egidiano, Juan Bautista (Flemish architect)
    The cathedral of Cuzco, built in the mid-1650s, includes a complex and ornate portal applied to an austere surface flanked by two bell towers. The project, which was attributed to Juan Bautista Egidiano, a Flemish Jesuit active in Cuzco from 1642 to 1676, created a typology that was the origin of what was later designated the Cuzco style. This style is defined by the placement of twin bell......
  • Egill Skalla-Grímsson (Icelandic poet)
    one of the greatest of Icelandic skaldic poets, whose adventurous life and verses are preserved in Egils saga (c. 1220; translated in The Sagas of Icelanders), attributed to Snorri Sturluson. The saga portrays Egill as having a dual nature derived from his mixed descent from fair, extroverted Viki...
  • Egill Skallagrímsson (Icelandic poet)
    one of the greatest of Icelandic skaldic poets, whose adventurous life and verses are preserved in Egils saga (c. 1220; translated in The Sagas of Icelanders), attributed to Snorri Sturluson. The saga portrays Egill as having a dual nature derived from his mixed descent from fair, extroverted Viki...
  • “Egils saga” (Icelandic literature)
    ...treated more romantically than in the others. Fostbraeda saga (“The Blood-Brothers’ Saga”) describes two contrasting heroes: one a poet and lover, the other a ruthless killer. Egils saga offers a brilliant study of a complex personality—a ruthless Viking who is also a sensitive poet, a rebel against authority from early childhood who ends his life as a....
  • Eginhard (Frankish historian)
    Frankish historian and court scholar whose writings are an invaluable source of information on Charlemagne and the Carolingian Empire....
  • egis (ancient Greek dress)
    in ancient Greece, leather cloak or breastplate generally associated with Zeus, the king of the gods, and thus thought to possess supernatural power. Zeus’s daughter Athena adopted the aegis for ordinary dress. Athena placed on her aegis a symbolic representation of the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa. The head itself had been a gift from the Gorgon’s slayer, Per...
  • egises (ancient Greek dress)
    in ancient Greece, leather cloak or breastplate generally associated with Zeus, the king of the gods, and thus thought to possess supernatural power. Zeus’s daughter Athena adopted the aegis for ordinary dress. Athena placed on her aegis a symbolic representation of the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa. The head itself had been a gift from the Gorgon’s slayer, Per...
  • Egisheim und Dagsburg, Bruno, Graf von (pope)
    head of the medieval Latin Church (1049–54), during whose reign the papacy became the focal point of western Europe, and the great East–West Schism of 1054 became inevitable....
  • Egisto (opera by Cavalli)
    ...becoming maestro di cappella in 1668. During his lifetime he exercised a considerable influence on European taste. Didone (1641) is perhaps his most interesting work, but it was his Egisto, given in Paris in 1646, that initiated the rivalry between French and Italian styles. As a dramatic composer Cavalli wrote for a small string orchestra, and his operas require no trained...
  • Egk, Werner (German composer)
    German composer primarily of music for the theatre....
  • eglantine (plant)
    (Rosa eglanteria, or R. rubiginosa), small, prickly wild rose with fragrant foliage and numerous small pink flowers. Native to Europe and western Asia, it is widely naturalized in North America, where it grows along roadsides and in pastures from Nova Scotia and Ontario southwestward to Tennessee and Kansas....
  • Egle (work by Giraldi)
    ...audience, he supplied the requisite horror and violence, but he altered the Senecan model to provide a happy ending, thus producing tragicomedy. Giraldi tried to renew the pastoral drama with his Egle (1545). His Ecatommiti (1565), 112 stories collected according to the pattern of Boccaccio’s Decameron, aimed at stylistic distinction and, in the manner of Matteo Band...
  • Eglevsky, André (American dancer)
    Russian-born American ballet dancer and teacher widely regarded as the greatest male classical dancer of his generation....
  • Eglin Air Force Base (military base, Florida, United States)
    Eglin Air Force Base, established in 1935 and covering some 725 square miles (1,900 square km), is located north and west of the city and (together with adjacent Hurlburt Field) is a major factor in its economy. Tourism and manufacturing, particularly high-technology products, are also important. The Indian Temple Mound Museum is home to a Mississippian-period mound and a museum containing......
  • Église de Jésus-Christ sur la Terre par le Prophète Simon Kimbangu (African religion)
    (“Church of Jesus Christ on Earth Through the Prophet Simon Kimbangu”), largest independent African church and the first to be admitted (in 1969) to the World Council of Churches. It takes its name from its founder, Simon Kimbangu, a Baptist mission catechist of the Lower Congo region, who in April 1921 inaugurated a mass movement through his miraculous healings a...
  • Église Evangélique du Congo (church, Africa)
    About half of the population practices classical African religions. The Christian community is composed of about two-thirds Roman Catholics and one-third Protestants, including members of the Evangelical Church of the Congo. There are also independent African churches: the Church of Jesus Christ on Earth by the Prophet Simon Kimbangu, the largest independent church in Africa, is a member of the......
  • Église Reformée de France (French Protestant denomination)
    church organized in 1938 by merging several Reformed churches that had developed in France during and after the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. During the early part of the Reformation, Protestant movements made slow progress in France. Yet reforming movements within the Roman Catholic Church had appeared early. Before Martin Luther had emerged as a reformer in Germany, French humanists had c...
  • égloga (Spanish literature)
    ...(c. 1484) and at the University of Salamanca (before 1490), Encina entered the service of the Duke of Alba as a resident poet-dramatist-composer in 1492. He wrote for the court a number of églogas (short pastoral plays) incorporating music. Eight of his plays and most of his poetry were collected and published in Cancionero in 1496. Thereafter Encina lived much in......
  • Egmond, Lamoraal, count van (Dutch noble)
    leader in the early opposition to the policies of Philip II of Spain in the Netherlands. Although Egmond did not favour the overthrow of Spanish sovereignty, he became one of the first and most illustrious victims of the duke of Alba’s repressive regime (1567–73). He is the hero of J.W. von Goethe’s drama Egmont....
  • Egmont (tragedy by Goethe)
    ...(1774; Eng. trans. Clavigo), a tragedy on the Friederike theme, was written in a week, and the plays Stella and Egmont were begun. Stella (1776; Eng. trans. Stella), in a picturesque blend of realism and self-indulgence, shows a man in love with two......
  • Egmont, John Perceval, 2nd earl of, 1st Baron Lovel and Holland (British politician)
    eccentric British politician and pamphleteer, a confidant of George III....
  • Egmont, Lamoraal, count van (Dutch noble)
    leader in the early opposition to the policies of Philip II of Spain in the Netherlands. Although Egmond did not favour the overthrow of Spanish sovereignty, he became one of the first and most illustrious victims of the duke of Alba’s repressive regime (1567–73). He is the hero of J.W. von Goethe’s drama Egmont....
  • Egmont, Lamoraal, graaf van (Dutch noble)
    leader in the early opposition to the policies of Philip II of Spain in the Netherlands. Although Egmond did not favour the overthrow of Spanish sovereignty, he became one of the first and most illustrious victims of the duke of Alba’s repressive regime (1567–73). He is the hero of J.W. von Goethe’s drama Egmont....
  • Egmont, Mount (mountain, New Zealand)
    mountain, west-central North Island, New Zealand, on the Taranaki Peninsula. The symmetrical volcanic cone rises from sea level to 8,260 ft (2,518 m) and has a subsidiary cone, 6,438-ft Fanthams Peak, 1 mi (1.5 km) south of the main crater. Both have been dormant since the early 17th century. Streams issuing from the snowfields at the summit have carved deep gorges down the slop...
  • Egnatia, Via (Roman road, Europe)
    ...united of any time in their history, with a common legal system, a single ultimate arbiter of political power, and absolute military security. In addition, a vibrant commerce was conducted along the Via Egnatia, a great east-west land route that led from Dyrrhachium (modern Durrës, Albania) through Macedonia to Thessalonica (modern Thessaloníki, Greece) and on to Thrace. The......
  • Egner, Thorbjørn (Norwegian author)
    ...in air force adventures; the prolific, widely translated Aimée Sommerfelt, whose works range from “puberty novels” to faraway stories set in Mexico City and northern India; Thorbjørn Egner, who is the author of, among other books, a tiny droll fantasy, Karius and Baktus (1958; Eng. trans. 1962), which will actually persuade small children to brush their......
  • Egnor, Virginia Ruth (American actress)
    American comic actress (b. Nov. 29, 1921, Logan, W.Va.—d. Oct. 9, 2001, Ceredo, W.Va.), portrayed a stereotypical sexy dumb blonde in early 1950s television, most notably on the late-night talk show Broadway Open House, the prototype for The Tonight Show and similar programs. With a repertoire of silly poetry and mangled-language lectures—which she called treasises...
  • ego (philosophy and psychology)
    in psychoanalytic theory, that portion of the human personality which is experienced as the “self” or “I” and is in contact with the external world through perception. It is said to be the part that remembers, evaluates, plans, and in other ways is responsive to and acts in the surrounding physical and social world. According to psychoanalytic theory,...
  • Ego and His Own, The (work by Stirner)
    ...This drove original thought underground or abroad in the persons of refugees such as the poet Heine and later Karl Marx. At home, the prevailing mood was despair. Max Stirner in his book The Ego and His Own (1845) recommended, instead of social reform, a ruthless individualism that should seek satisfaction by any means and at whatever risk. A small group of other individualists,......
  • Ego and Mechanisms of Defense, The (work by Anna Freud)
    Publication of Anna Freud’s Das Ich und die Abwehrmechanismen (1936; The Ego and Mechanisms of Defense, 1937) gave a strong, new impetus to ego psychology. The principal human defense mechanism, she indicated, is repression, an unconscious process that develops as the young child learns that some impulses, if acted upon, could prove dangerous to himself. Other mechanisms she.....
  • ego ideal (psychology)
    ...by which the ego operates. The superego’s criticisms, prohibitions, and inhibitions form a person’s conscience, and its positive aspirations and ideals represent one’s idealized self-image, or “ego ideal.”...
  • Ego-Centric Predicament, The (work by Perry)
    Over against these internal disputes stand the criticisms of the anti-Idealists. The wide-ranging Realist Ralph Barton Perry’s (1876–1957) article “The Ego-Centric Predicament” (1910) is a widely discussed criticism. Perry admitted that the primary approach of every philosopher to the problem of ultimate reality must be through his own thought, using his own ideas; but ...
  • ego-defense mechanism (human psychology)
    in psychoanalytic theory, any of a group of mental processes that enables the mind to reach compromise solutions to conflicts that it is unable to resolve. The process is usually unconscious, and the compromise generally involves concealing from oneself internal drives or feelings that threaten to lower self-esteem or provoke anxiety. The concept derives from the psychoanalytic ...
  • egocentrism (psychology)
    ...is preoccupied with his physical self in a world of new stimuli, so the adolescent may be preoccupied with his own thinking in a world of new ideas. Such preoccupation often leads to a kind of egocentrism, which can manifest itself in two ways: First, the individual may presume that his own concerns, values, and preoccupations are equally important to everyone else; second, the urgency of......
  • egoism (philosophy)
    (from Latin ego, “I”), in philosophy, an ethical theory holding that the good is based on the pursuit of self-interest. The word is sometimes misused for egotism, the overstressing of one’s own worth....
  • Egoist (British literary review)
    ...attention to current scientific work; and New Society (founded 1962), concentrating on sociology. Literary magazines came and went, but not without leaving their mark. They included the Egoist (1914–19), associated with Ezra Pound and the Imagists; the London Mercury (1919–39), started by J.C. (later Sir John) Squire, one of the Georgian poets; the......
  • Egoist, The (novel by Meredith)
    The next two novels of consequence, The Egoist (1879) and Diana of the Crossways (1885), marked the beginning of Meredith’s acceptance by a wider reading public and a more favourable reception by critics. Both are comedies, full of Meredithian wit and brilliant dialogue and notable for women characters who prove their right to be accepted as individuals, equal with men, rather...
  • Egorevsk (Russia)
    city, Moscow oblast (province), western Russia. It lies along the Glushitsy River southeast of the capital. The city of Yegoryevsk was formed in 1778 from the village of Vysokoye and became an important trading centre, especially for grain and cattle from Ryazan province. In the 19th century it became a textile centre and now manufactures textile machinery, clothing, and footwear. It also p...
  • Egotism in German Philosophy (work by Santayana)
    ...World War I began, Santayana was in Oxford, and he settled there for the duration. Though he enjoyed the friendship of several eminent people, the war saddened him, and he led a secluded life. Egotism in German Philosophy appeared in 1916, making clear his strong allegiance to the Allied cause; he also wrote a number of popular essays centring on the English character and countryside.......
  • Egoyan, Atom (Canadian film director)
    Canadian film director Atom Egoyan, no stranger to the awards podium, cemented his reputation in 1997 when his latest movie, The Sweet Hereafter, won the Grand Jury Prize, the International Film Critics Award, and the Ecumenical Prize at the Cannes (France) International Film Festival. In December it won Canada’s Genie Award as the year’s best movie, and Egoyan won as best dir...
  • egret (bird)
    any member of several species of herons (family Ardeidae, order Ciconiiformes), especially members of the genus Egretta. Most egrets have white plumage and develop long ornamental nuptial plumes for the breeding season. Their habits are generally like those of other herons, but some perform elaborate mating displays involving the plumes. The name egret, or aigre...
  • egret (plumage)
    tuft of long, white heron (usually egret) plumes used as a decorative headdress, or any other ornament resembling such a headdress. Such plumes were highly prized as ornaments in Middle Eastern ceremonial dress. Jeweled aigrettes, at first made in the form of a tuft of plumes, became an adornment for turbans in Turkey, particularly during the Ottoman period (1281–1924)....
  • Egretta (bird genus)
    any member of several species of herons (family Ardeidae, order Ciconiiformes), especially members of the genus Egretta. Most egrets have white plumage and develop long ornamental nuptial plumes for the breeding season. Their habits are generally like those of other herons, but some perform elaborate mating displays involving the plumes. The name egret, or aigrette, is also used to......
  • Egretta alba (bird)
    The great white egret, Egretta (sometimes Casmerodius) alba (see photograph), of both hemispheres, is about 90 cm (35 inches) long and bears plumes only on the back. The American populations of this bird are sometimes called American, or common, egrets....
  • Egretta garzetta (bird)
    The little egret (E. garzetta), of the Old World, about 55 cm long, is white with firm plumes on the head and lacy plumes on the back....
  • Egretta thula (bird)
    The reddish egret, Hydranassa (or Dichromanassa) rufescens, of warm coastal regions of North America, has two colour phases: white and dark. The snowy egret, E. (or Leucophoyx) thula, ranging from the United States to Chile and Argentina, is white, about 60 cm long, with filmy recurved plumes on the back and head. ...
  • Eğridir (Turkey)
    ...father, Ilyas, was a frontier ruler under the Seljuqs and who named it after his grandfather; Dündar governed the Hamid principality jointly with his brother Yunus, with two capitals, one at Eğridir and one at Antalya (Attalia). Dündar was defeated and killed (1324) by Demirtaş, the Il-Khanid governor of Anatolia. Eğridir was restored by Dündar’s...
  • Egry, József (Hungarian artist)
    Hungarian painter and graphic artist. Egry primarily painted landscapes, and his style emphasized a close study and rendering of the effects of light....
  • Egry József (Hungarian artist)
    Hungarian painter and graphic artist. Egry primarily painted landscapes, and his style emphasized a close study and rendering of the effects of light....
  • Egstrom, Norma Delores (American singer and songwriter)
    American popular singer and songwriter, known for her alluring, delicately husky voice and reserved style....
  • Egungun (African masking society)
    ...close-fitting head and body coverings, which permit rapid, staccato movements while dancing at the “second burial” (i.e., the post-burial celebrations) of a leader of the community. The Egungun ancestral masqueraders of Yorubaland appear in a wide variety of loosely flowing cloth or palm-leaf costumes, often with carved headpieces. The heavier the mask, the less freedom for dance....
  • Egungun Elewe (African masking society)
    ...of ritual leadership. Masked stilt dancers, such as those of the Makonde of Tanzania, are largely restricted to rhythmic strides and gestures; in contrast, the simple cloth costumes of ancestral Egungun Elewe of the Igbomina-Yoruba allow for a dance of acrobatic skill, and the light raffia Igo masks of the neighbouring Edo people enable them to lift their costumes above their heads in a......
  • Eguren, José María (Peruvian poet)
    poet considered one of the leading post-Modernist poets of Peru....
  • Egwanga (Nigeria)
    port town, Akwa Ibom state, southern Nigeria. The town lies near the mouth of the Imo (Opobo) River. Situated at a break in the mangrove swamps and rain forest of the eastern Niger River delta, it served in the 19th century as a collecting point for slaves. In 1870 Jubo Jubogha, a former Igbo (Ibo) slave and ruler of the Anna Pepple house of Bonny (28 miles [45 km] west-southwes...
  • Egy ember élete (work by Kassák)
    Kassák published several novels and volumes of poetry, but his most important work is his long (eight-volume) autobiography, Egy ember élete (1928–39; “A Man’s Life”). He generally found favour with the communist government of post-World War II Hungary, although this government deleted from later editions of Kassák’s autobiography the ...
  • Egypt
    country located in the northeastern corner of Africa. Egypt’s heartland, the Nile River valley and delta, was the home of one of the principal civilizations of the ancient Middle East and, like Mesopotamia farther east, was the site of one of the world’s earliest urban and literate societies. Pharaonic Egypt thrived for some 3,000 years through a series of native d...
  • Egypt, ancient
    civilization in northeastern Africa dating from the 3rd millennium bc. Its many achievements, preserved in its art and monuments, hold a fascination that continues to grow as archaeological finds expose its secrets. This article focuses on Egypt from its prehistory up to the Islamic conquest in the 7th century ad. For subsequent history through the contemporary period, ...
  • Egypt, flag of
    ...
  • Egypt, history of (7th century AD to present)
    This section presents the history of Egypt from the Islamic conquests of the 7th century ad until the present day. For a discussion of Egypt’s earlier history, see Egypt, ancient....
  • Egypt, the Soudan and Central Africa (book by Petherick)
    ...through the southern Sudan, notably the Baḥr-al-Ghazāl. In 1853 he reached the borders of the Zande nation. Following the publication of his accounts of his travels, Egypt, the Soudan and Central Africa (1861), the Royal Geographical Society appointed him to meet John H. Speke and James A. Grant on their return from discovering the source of the Nile.......
  • Egyptian (people)
    ...through the southern Sudan, notably the Baḥr-al-Ghazāl. In 1853 he reached the borders of the Zande nation. Following the publication of his accounts of his travels, Egypt, the Soudan and Central Africa (1861), the Royal Geographical Society appointed him to meet John H. Speke and James A. Grant on their return from discovering the source of the Nile.........
  • Egyptian architecture
    Arches were known in Egypt and Greece but were considered unsuitable for monumental architecture. In Roman times the arch was fully exploited in bridges, aqueducts, and large-scale architecture. New forms and uses were found in medieval and particularly Gothic architecture (flying buttress, pointed arch), and Baroque architects developed a vocabulary of noncircular forms for expressive reasons.......
  • Egyptian art
    the ancient architectural monuments, sculptures, paintings, and decorative crafts produced mainly during the dynastic periods of the first three millennia bc in the Nile valley regions of Egypt and Nubia. The course of art in Egypt paralleled to a large extent the country’s political history, but it depended as well on the entrenched Egyptian social system. A hierarchical clas...
  • Egyptian calendar (chronology)
    dating system established several thousand years before the Christian era, the first calendar known to use a year of 365 days, approximately equal to the solar year, or year of the seasons. Until the creation of the Julian calendar, about 46 bc, the Egyptian was also the only civil calendar in which years and months were of fixed duration rather than being established by ad hoc procl...
  • “Egyptian Childhood, An” (work by Ṭāhā Ḥusayn)
    ...in Arabic, include novels, stories, criticism, and social and political essays. Outside Egypt he is best known through his autobiography, Al-Ayyām (3 vol., 1929–67; The Days), the first modern Arab literary work to be acclaimed in the West....
  • Egyptian Church
    principal Christian church in predominantly Muslim Egypt. The people of Egypt before the Arab conquest in the 7th century identified themselves and their language in Greek as Aigyptios (Arabic qibṭ, Westernized as Copt); when Egyptian Muslims later ceased to call themselves Aigyptioi, the term became the distinctive name of the Christian minority. From the 5th cen...
  • “Egyptian Church Order” (work attributed to Hippolytus)
    ...for baptism at the Paschal vigil. For several weeks they received intensive instruction, each session followed by prayer and exorcism. The earliest detailed account of these ceremonies is in the Apostolic Tradition (c. 200) of Hippolytus. At the conclusion all the faithful joined the catechumens (inquirers for instruction) in a strict fast on the Friday and Saturday before Easter....
  • Egyptian cobra (snake)
    ...in Africa, are spitters. Venom is accurately directed at the victim’s eyes at distances of more than two metres and may cause temporary, or even permanent, blindness unless promptly washed away. The Egyptian cobra (N. haje)—probably the asp of antiquity—is a dark, narrow-hooded species, about two metres long, that ranges over much of Africa and eastward to Ar...
  • Egyptian cotton stainer (Oxycarenus hyalinipennis)
    ...called the chinch bug family because one species, the destructive chinch bug (q.v.), feeds on the sap of plants. Other important members of the family include the Old World, or Egyptian, cotton stainer (Oxycarenus hyalinipennis) and the Australian Nysius vinitor, both of which are destructive to fruit trees, and the predatory Geocoris punctipes, which feeds on......
  • Egyptian Delegation, The (political party, Egypt)
    (Arabic: “Egyptian Delegation”), nationalist political party that was instrumental in gaining Egyptian independence from Britain. Organized by Saʿd Zaghlūl on Nov. 13, 1918, as a permanent delegation of the Egyptian people, it demanded a voice in London and at the peace conferences following World War I. In March 1919 the British temporarily exiled i...
  • Egyptian goose (bird)
    ...(Anser cygnoides) of eastern Asia has also been domesticated, with three varieties. Other species, such as the Canada goose (Branta canadensis), the mute swan, and the Egyptian goose (Alopochen aegyptiacus), have been kept in semidomestication for ease of exploitation but without intensive breeding to change their forms. A remarkable form of......
  • Egyptian gray mongoose (mammal)
    ...cobras. The 37 species belong to 18 genera. The most common and probably best-known are the 10 species of the genus Herpestes, among which are the Egyptian mongoose, or ichneumon (H. ichneumon), of Africa and southern Europe and the Indian gray mongoose (H. edwardsii), made famous as Rikki-tikki-tavi in......
  • Egyptian labyrinth (ancient building)
    ...the Al-Fayyūm depression southwest of Cairo. The resulting stabilization of the water level also drained some of the marshes that had surrounded the old lake. As part of this great work, the labyrinth described by the Greek historian Herodotus was probably built nearby, south of one of Amenemhet’s pyramids at Hawara, in Al-Fayyūm. It was probably a multifunctional......
  • Egyptian language
    extinct language of the Nile valley that constitutes a branch of the Afro-Asiatic language phylum. The Semitic, Cushitic, Chadic, Omotic, and Amazigh (Berber) language groups constitute the remaining members of the phylum....
  • Egyptian law
    the law that originated with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under King Menes (c. 2925 bc) and grew and developed until the Roman occupation of Egypt (30 bc). The history of Egyptian law is longer than that of any other civilization. Even after the Roman occupation, elements of Egyptian law were retained outside the major urban areas....
  • Egyptian lock (lock)
    The lock originated in the Near East; the oldest known example was found in the ruins of the palace of Khorsabad near Nineveh. Possibly 4,000 years old, it is of the type known as a pin tumbler or, from its widespread use in Egypt, an Egyptian lock. It consists of a large wooden bolt, which secures the door, through which is pierced a slot with several holes in its upper surface. An assembly......
  • Egyptian lotus (plant)
    The Egyptian lotus is a white water lily, Nymphaea lotus (family Nymphaeaceae). The blue lotus (N. caerulea) was the dominant lotus in Egyptian art. The sacred lotus of the Hindus is an aquatic plant (Nelumbo nucifera) with white or delicate pink flowers; the lotus of eastern North America is......
  • Egyptian Museum (museum, Vatican City, Europe)
    ...in 1836 by Pope Gregory XVI (reorganized in 1924), houses a collection of objects from Etruscan excavations and objects from the Regolini-Galassi tomb with its collection of Etruscan jewelry. The Egyptian Museum (Museo Gregoriano Egizio), also founded by Gregory XVI, was opened to the public in 1839. The Pinacoteca, founded by Pope Pius VI in 1797, has been housed in its present gallery......
  • Egyptian Museum (museum, Cairo, Egypt)
    museum of Egyptian antiquities in Cairo, founded in the 19th century by the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette and housing the world’s most valuable collection of its kind. The museum was founded in 1858 at Būlāq, moved to Giza, and moved to its present site in 1897–1902. It is unique in its presentation of the whole history of Egyptian civilization, especially of ant...
  • Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection (museum, Berlin, Germany)
    museum located in Berlin, Ger., noted for possessing one of the world’s leading collections of artifacts and texts of ancient Egypt....
  • Egyptian mythology
    museum located in Berlin, Ger., noted for possessing one of the world’s leading collections of artifacts and texts of ancient Egypt.......
  • Egyptian Nights (work by Pushkin)
    ...The anguish of his spiritual isolation at this time is reflected in a cycle of poems about the poet and the mob (1827–30) and in the unfinished Yegipetskiye nochi (1835; Egyptian Nights)....
  • Egyptian Plants, Book of (work by Alpini)
    Alpini was appointed professor of botany at the University of Padua (1593), where he cultivated several species of Oriental plants described in his De plantis Aegypti liber (1592; “Book of Egyptian Plants”). Included in this work were the first European botanical accounts of coffee, banana, and a genus of the ginger family (Zingiberaceae) that was later named Alpinia....
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