Middle Egypt

R.), both of whom wrote long after the original divisions had been modified, the Seven Nomes were the following: (1) Memphites; (2) Heracleopolites; (3) Crocodilopolites, renamed Arsinoites; (4) Aphroditopolites; (5) Oxyrhynchites; (6) Cynopolites; and (7) Hermopolites.

The capitals of the Nomes, whose names are sufficiently indicated by the respective appellations of the divisions themselves, e.g. Hermopolis of the Nomos Hermopolites, etc., were also the chief towns of the Middle Land.

Thus, near Hermopolis at the southern extremity of this region, the eastern hills approach very near the river, while those on the western or left bank recede to a considerable distance from it.

Again, in latitude 29° north, the Libyan hills retire from the vicinity of the Nile, bend toward northwest, and sharply return to it by a curve to east, embracing the province of Arsinoë (formerly Crocodilopolis, now the city of Al Fayyum).

Between the hills on which the Pyramids stand and the corresponding elevation of Gebel-el-Mokattam on the eastern bank of the river, the Heptanomis expands, until near Cercasorum it acquires almost the breadth of the subjacent Delta.

Nine miles lower down are the grottoes of Kom el-Ahmar, and in the Arabian Desert, on the east, quarries of the beautiful veined and white alabaster, which the Egyptians employed in their sarcophagi, and in the more delicate portions of their architecture.

Under the later Caesars in the 3rd century, the five northern Nomes, Memphites, Heracleopolites, Arsinoites, Aphroditopolites, and Oxyrhyncites, together with the Nomos Leptopolites, constituted the province of Arcadia Ægypti, which subsequently became a metropolitan episcopal see.

Its population also was less modified by Greek or Nubian admixture than that of either Lower or Upper Egypt; although, after the 4th century, the Heptanomis was overrun by Arabian marauders, who considerably affected the native racial mix.