Upper Egypt

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Upper Egypt (Arabic: صعيد مصر Ṣaʿīd Miṣr, shortened to الصعيد, arz, locally: [es.sˤɑ.ˈʕiːd]) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the Nile River valley south of the delta and the 30th parallel North. It thus starts at Beni Suef and stretches down to Lake Nasser (formed by the Aswan High Dam).^[1]

In ancient Egypt, Upper Egypt was known as tꜣ šmꜣw,^[2] literally "the Land of Reeds" or "the Sedgeland", named for the sedges that grow there.^[3]

In Arabic, the region is called Sa'id or Sahid, from صعيد meaning "uplands", from the root صعد meaning to go up, ascend, or rise. Inhabitants of Upper Egypt are known as Sa'idis and they generally speak Sa'idi Egyptian Arabic.

In Biblical Hebrew it was known as פַּתְרוֹס Paṯrôs and in Akkadian it was known as Patúrisi.^[4] Both names originate from the Egyptian pꜣ-tꜣ-rsj, meaning "the southern land".^[5]

Upper Egypt is between the Cataracts of the Nile beyond modern-day Aswan, downriver (northward) to the area of El-Ayait,^[6] which places modern-day Cairo in Lower Egypt. The northern (downriver) part of Upper Egypt, between Sohag and El-Ayait, is also known as Middle Egypt.

Upper Egypt
Hedjet
Capital	Thinis
Common languages	Ancient Egyptian
Religion	Ancient Egyptian religion
Government	Monarchy
King
• c. 3400 BC	Scorpion I (first)
• c. 3150 BC	Narmer (last)
Preceded by Succeeded by Prehistoric Egypt Early Dynastic Period (Egypt)
Today part of	Egypt

It is believed to have been united by the rulers of the supposed Thinite Confederacy who absorbed their rival city states during the Naqada III period (c. 3200–3000 BC), and its subsequent unification with Lower Egypt ushered in the Early Dynastic period.^[7] Upper and Lower Egypt became intertwined in the symbolism of pharaonic sovereignty such as the Pschent double crown.^[8] Upper Egypt remained as a historical region even after the classical period.

The early megalithic complex of Nabta Playa located in the Aswan Museum, Upper Egypt has exhibited close resemblances to Sub-Saharan and Sahelian ceremonial centres including structures found in Ethiopia, Senegal, regions north to Morocco and West Africa.^[9] Anthropological studies have indicated linkages to Sub-Saharan and North African populations.^{[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]}

The main city of prehistoric Upper Egypt was Nekhen.^[18] The patron deity was the goddess Nekhbet, depicted as a vulture.^[19]

By approximately 3600 BC, Neolithic Egyptian societies along the Nile based their culture on the raising of crops and the domestication of animals.^[20] Shortly thereafter, Egypt began to grow and increase in complexity.^[21] A new and distinctive pottery appeared, related to the Levantine ceramics, and copper implements and ornaments became common.^[21] Mesopotamian building techniques became popular, using sun-dried adobe bricks in arches and decorative recessed walls.^[21]

In Upper Egypt, the predynastic Badari culture was followed by the Naqada culture (Amratian),^[22] being closely related to the Lower Nubian;^{[23][24][25][26]} with some affinities with other northeast African populations,^[27] coastal communities from the Maghreb,^[28][29] some tropical African groups,^[30] and possibly inhabitants of the Middle East.^[31]

According to bioarchaeologist Nancy Lovell, the morphology of ancient Egyptian skeletons gives strong evidence that: "In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas", but exhibited local variation in an African context.^[32] S. O. Y. Keita, a biological anthropologist also reviewed studies on the biological affinities of the Ancient Egyptian population and characterised the skeletal morphologies of predynastic southern Egyptians as a "Saharo-tropical African variant". Keita also added that it is important to emphasize that whilst Egyptian society became more socially complex and biologically varied, the "ethnicity of the Niloto-Saharo-Sudanese origins did not change. The cultural morays, ritual formulae, and symbols used in writing, as far as can be ascertained, remained true to their southern origins."^[33]

The proto-dynastic kings emerged from the Naqada region.^[34] Excavations at Hierakonpolis (Upper Egypt) found archaeological evidence of ritual masks similar to those used further south of Egypt, and obsidian linked to Ethiopian quarry sites.^[35] Frank Yurco stated that depictions of pharonic iconography such as the royal crowns, Horus falcons and victory scenes were concentrated in the Upper Egyptian Naqada culture and A-Group Lower Nubia. He further elaborated that "Egyptian writing arose in Naqadan Upper Egypt and A-Group Lower Nubia, and not in the Delta cultures, where the direct Western Asian contact was made, further vitiates the Mesopotamian-influence argument".^[36]

An anthropological study by Eric Crubézy (2010) on a Adaïma predynastic cemetery from 3700 CE, contained 6,000 skeletons, found affinities with a southerly African population.^[37] According to the study, 25% of the sampled children's teeth had "Bushmen" upper canines typical of people from Khoi-San which "confirmed the African origin of the Adamia population." ^[38]

Similarly, Christopher Ehret, historian and linguist, stated that the cultural practice of sacral chiefship and kingship which emerged in Upper Egypt in the fourth millennium had originated centuries earlier in Nubia and the Middle Nile south of Egypt. He based this judgement on supporting, archaeological and comparative ethnographic evidence.^[39]

Stan Hendrick, John Coleman Darnell and Maria Gatto in 2012 excavated petroglyphic engravings from Nag el-Hamdulab to the north of Aswan, in southern Egypt, which featured representations of a boat procession, solar symbolism and the earliest known depiction of the White Crown with an estimated dating range between 3200 BCE and 3100 BCE.^[40]

In 2025, the UNESCO International Scientific Committee members for drafting the General History of Africa Volumes IX-XI reached the view that Egypt had African and Eurasian populations, with Upper Egypt now repositioned as the origin of pharaonic unification, with close genetic, linguistic, archaeological and anthropological affinities identified between the Upper Egyptian populations and Sub-Saharan groups.^[41]

These cultural advances paralleled the political unification of towns of the upper Nile River, or Upper Egypt, while the same occurred in the societies of the Nile Delta, or Lower Egypt.^[21] This led to warfare between the two new kingdoms.^[21] During his reign in Upper Egypt, King Narmer defeated his enemies on the delta and became sole ruler of the two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt,^[42] a sovereignty which endured throughout Dynastic Egypt.

In royal symbolism, Upper Egypt was represented by the tall White Crown Hedjet, the flowering lotus, and the sedge. Its patron deity, Nekhbet, was depicted by the vulture. After unification, the patron deities of Upper and Lower Egypt were represented together as the Two Ladies, to protect all of the ancient Egyptians, just as the two crowns were combined into a single pharaonic diadem.

Several dynasties of southern or Upper Egyptian origin, which included the 11th, 12th, 17th, 18th and 25th dynasties, reunified and reinvigorated pharaonic Egypt after periods of fragmentation.^[43]

For most of Egypt's ancient history, Thebes was the administrative center of Upper Egypt. After its devastation by the Assyrians, the importance of Egypt declined. Under the dynasty of the Ptolemies, Ptolemais Hermiou took over the role of the capital city of Upper Egypt.^[44]

Shomarka Keita reported that a 2005 study on mummified remains found that "some Theban nobles had a histology which indicated notably dark skin".^[45]

In the eleventh century, large numbers of pastoralists, known as Hilalians, fled Upper Egypt and moved westward into Libya and as far as Tunis.^[46] It is believed that degraded grazing conditions in Upper Egypt, associated with the beginning of the Medieval Warm Period, were the root cause of the migration.^[47]

In the twentieth-century Egypt, the title Prince of the Sa'id (meaning Prince of Upper Egypt) was used by the heir apparent to the Egyptian throne.^{[Note 1]}

Although the Kingdom of Egypt was abolished after the Egyptian revolution of 1952, the title continues to be used by Muhammad Ali, Prince of the Sa'id.

Genetic analysis of a modern Upper Egyptian population in Adaima by Eric Crubézy had identified genetic markers common across Africa, with 71% of the cases carrying E1b1 haplogroup and 3% carrying the L0f mitochondrial haplogroup.^[49] A secondary review published in 2025 noted the results were preliminary and need to be confirmed by other laboratories with new sequencing methods.^[50]

The following list may not be complete (there are many more of uncertain existence):

Name	Image	Comments	Dates
Elephant			End of 4th millennium BC
Bull			4th millennium BC
Scorpion I		Oldest tomb at Umm el-Qa'ab had scorpion insignia	c. 3200 BC?
Iry-Hor		Possibly the immediate predecessor of Ka.	c. 3150 BC?
Ka[51][52]		May be read Sekhen rather than Ka. Possibly the immediate predecessor of Narmer.	c. 3100 BC
Scorpion II		Potentially read Serqet; possibly the same person as Narmer.	c. 3150 BC
Narmer		The king who combined Upper and Lower Egypt.[53]	c. 3150 BC

Nowadays, Upper Egypt forms part of these 7 governorates:

• Beni Suef
• Minya
• Asyut
• Sohag
• Qena
• Luxor
• Aswan

Large cities located in Upper Egypt:

• Beni Suef
• El Fashn
• Beni Mazar
• Minya
• Mallawi
• Dairut
• Asyut
• Tahta
• Sohag
• Girga
• Nag Hammadi
• Qena
• Luxor
• Edfu
• Aswan

• Sa'idi people
• Nubian people
• Beja people
• Upper and Lower Egypt
• Geography of Egypt

• Edel, Elmar (1961) Zu den Inschriften auf den Jahreszeitenreliefs der "Weltkammer" aus dem Sonnenheiligtum des Niuserre Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, OCLC 309958651, in German.

• References to Upper Egypt in Coptic Literature—Coptic Scriptorium database

1. REDIRECT Template:Upper Egyptian cities

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