Land Of Egypt Research Articles

Effect of combined inoculation strains on growth of lupin on newly reclaimed land in Egypt

Inoculation studies with Bradyrhizobium isolates were investigated in a glasshouse and field experiment to compare the effects of single and multiple rhizobium inoculations on growth and symbiotic performance in lupin cultivation. A clear difference in host–strain compatibility was observed 120 days after sowing (greater number and dry weight of nodules, higher shoot dry weight and total N accumulation). To confirm the results from the glasshouse, combined inoculations with a different level of N fertilizer and six lupin cultivars were tested on newly reclaimed land at Tahreer Governorate, Egypt. N fertilizer application significantly decreased nodulation status of white lupin, but increased seed and straw yields compared with the non-fertilized control. Two combined inoculations were superior to the other strains in terms of infection and development of nodules in four accessions (1, 20, 30 and 32) and the cultivar Giza 1. All combinations of rhizobium strains tested enhanced the growth and total N accumulation of the lupin cultivars. Rhizobium inoculation increased seed and straw yield compared with the non-inoculated control. Reactions of the tested strain inoculations and interaction between Rhizobium strains and host plant in the glasshouse were almost identical to their reaction in the field. The results from this study suggest that the improvement through development of combined inoculation strains could be possible and would offer security for nodulation. High yields were accomplished with seed inoculation, particularly when lupin was cultivated for the first time and indigenous populations of rhizobia in the soil were low.

The Prehistory of Egypt: From the First Egyptians to the First Pharaohs

Illustrations. Preface. Acknowledgements. Translatora s Note. Introduction. Part I: The Land of Egypt:. 1. Between the River and the Desert. Part II: The Palaeolithic Period: . 2. The Earliest Evidence for Humans in the Nile Valley. 3. The Beginnings of Cultural Diversity. 4. Diversity or Nilotic Adaptation. Part III: The Neolithic Period:. 5. The Process of a Neolithicizationa . 6. The Neolithic Period (Fifth Millennium BC). Part IV: The Approach to the Pharaonic Period (Fourth Millennium BC): . 7. The Predynastic Period (c. 4000--3000 BC). 8. The First Pharaohs and the Unification of the Two Lands. Conclusion. Appendix 1: Relative Chronology and the Traditional Dating Systems. Appendix 2: a Absolute Datesa . Glossary. Abbreviations. Bibliography. Index.

The Exodus in Biblical Memory

ProQuest Information and Learning Foreign Text Omitted... tradition (which is a product of oblivion and memory) -Jorge Luis Borges exodus from Egypt is a focal point of ancient Israelite religion. Virtually every kind of religious literature in the Hebrew Bible-prose narrative, liturgical poetry, didactic prose, and prophecy-celebrates the exodus as a foundational event.1 Israelite ritual, law, and ethics are often grounded in the precedent and memory of the exodus. In the Decalogue, Yahweh identifies himself as the one who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage (Exod 20:2 = Dent 5:6). In the covenantal language of this passage and many others, the deliverance from Egypt is the main historical warrant for the religious bond between Yahweh and Israel; it is the gracious act of the great lord for his people on which rests the superstructure of Israelite belief and practice. In some texts (and featured prominently in the Passover Haggadah), the historical distance of the exodus event is drawn into the present by the elastic quality of genealogical time: You shall tell your son on that day, `It is because of what Yahweh did for me when he brought me out of Egypt' (Exod 13:8; cf. Deut 6:20-25). In its existential actuality, the exodus, more than any other event of the Hebrew Bible, embodies William Faulkner's adage: The past is never dead. It's not even past.2 Given the centrality of the exodus, it is not surprising that scholars have expended much energy trying to ascertain its historical content. Recent decades have seen a diminution of William F Albright's confidence that the exodus was IMAGE FORMULA5 undoubtedly a historical event.3 He thought it quite unreasonable to deny its [viz., the biblical account of the exodus] substantial accuracy and assigned to the exodus a date of ca. 1297 B.C.E.4 This position contrasts, for example, with the recent history of ancient Israel by John Hayes and Maxwell Miller, which consigns the exodus to the shadowy realm of folk tradition into which critical historiography cannot penetrate.5 While the designation of folk tradition or folk history is apt for the general picture of the exodus, it does not necessarily follow that critical historiography has no point of entry into this tradition. Rather, I would suggest, the historian has much to investigate regarding the collective memories of a culture.6 Cultural memories tend to be a mixture of historical truth and fiction, composed of authentic historical details, folklore motifs, ethnic self-fashioning, ideological claims, and narrative imagination.7 They are communicated orally and in written texts and circulate in a wide discursive network. For the collecIMAGE FORMULA7 five memories of the exodus, the Bible is our primary written source (including its constituent documentary sources), but we may plausibly assume that the written texts depend in various ways on earlier discourses, both oral and written. collective memory of the exodus is, in this sense, situated in a history of discourses. In a recent book, Moses the Egyptian: Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism, the Egyptologist Jan Assmann advocates an approach to cultural memories that he calls mnemohistory.8 Unlike history proper, mnemohistory is concerned not with the past as such, but only with the past as it is remembered. It surveys the story-lines of tradition, the webs of intertextuality, the diachronic continuities and discontinuities of reading the past. Mnemohistory is not the opposite of history, but rather is one of its branches or subdisciplines, such as intellectual history, social history, the history of mentalities, or the history of ideas .... Mnemohistory is reception theory applied to history.9 data for mnemohistory are texts, artifacts, and other evidence of cultural discourse about the remembered past, and its object is to discern how such discourses are constituted and how they serve to inform and influence the cultural present. …

Policy Recommendations to Maintain and Enhance Agricultural Productivity in the Nile River Delta

Agricultural productivity has declined in some portions of the Nile River Delta, due to the sustained reuse of saline drainage water in some areas and the over-application of irrigation water in others. Recent changes in agricultural policies and the Government of Egypt's land reclamation plans have increased the demand for Nile River water in Egypt. Efforts to supply the land reclamation projects will reduce the volume of Nile River water available to farmers in the Delta, where soil and water quality may be degraded further unless current policies regarding irrigation and drainage are modified. This paper examines the economic dimensions of farm-level decisions in respect of cropping patterns and irrigation water volumes, to identify policies that will maintain and enhance productivity in the Nile Delta. Recommendations include volumetric water pricing, where feasible, and crop-specific land assessments elsewhere. Successful policy efforts would enable the Ministry of Public Works and Water Resources to achieve its water supply and drainage goals more effectively, and to improve the quality of irrigation water delivered in the Delta.

The Original Torah: The Political Intent of the Bible's Writers

Original Torah: Political Intent of Bible's Writers, by S. David Sperling. Reappraisals in Jewish Social and Intellectual History. New York/London: New York University Press,1998. Pp. xiv + 185. $40.00. generating insight of this interesting and provocative book is that the authors of set their tales in times and places far removed from their own, its stories are best described as allegories, narratives contrived to describe second order of meaning from what they present on surface (p. 8). According to Sperling, allegorical reading is not an option but requirement because [the Torah] cannot be read historically, critical scholarship having demonstrated that nothing in is historical. It is this involvement with results of historical critical study that differentiates Sperling's method from other, more traditional modes of allegorical reading. I find myself secularizing he writes with reference to use of typology in 1 Cor 10:11. The things that supposedly `happened' were `symbolically recorded for us,' that is, if we understand `us' to be earliest and primary audiences of writers of Torah (p. 9). Sperling not only secularizes Paul; he also stands apostle's method on its head. Whereas Paul, like all ancient allegorists, sought to show applicability of narratives beyond their own time, Sperling consistently and univocally restricts their meaning to situation in which they were composed and, moreover, insists that political function of texts is their sole meaning. His reduction of significance to realm of politics is so thoroughgoing that he can even assert that [w]hen contemporary readers try to discover ancient agenda, they are, in fact, coming closer to understanding [YHWH], since [YI-IwH] always stands for agenda of individual writer (p. 136). In each of six studies that comprise core of book, Sperling's method is twofold. He first demonstrates lack of historicity in pentateuchal narrative under discussion and then correlates narrative with later political situation that he thinks unlocks its real meaning. In chapter 3, The Allegory of Servitude in Egypt and Exodus, for example, he builds upon absence of evidence for an origin of outside Canaan and for an Israelite enslavement in Egypt to argue that these notions constitute ideological statement of group of dissident elements in Late Bronze Age Canaan (pp. 47, 52). Pharaoh's imposition of corve (mas) on for his forced-labor projects (sebel, Exod 1:11) thus does not refer to institutions of subjugation in Egypt proper at all. Rather, it is an allegorical representation of Israel's withdrawing from Egyptian system [of political domination in Canaan] . . . as withdrawal from land of Egypt itself (p. 56). inspiration for Israelite ideologues lay in arrival from abroad of Aramaeans and sea peoples (Amos 9:7; p. 57). Similarly, chapter 4 argues that covenant of with YHWH is properly understood as the religious expression of mundane cultic and military union of different groups that merged to form people of Israel (p. 71). fifth chapter develops multiple points of connection between Abraham and David, some of them novel and some not, in order to present Abrahamic narratives as subservient to political needs of David and his dynasty. patriarch's covenant with Abimelech in Gen 21, for example, as an apology for David's pact with Philistines (p. 89). On basis of I's association with Penuel (1 Kgs 12:25), site of Jacob's struggle with divine being (Gen 32:23-33), Sperling maintains in chapter 6 that Jacob serves here as an of Jeroboam (p. 93). But same chapter sees Joseph story, too, as a thinly veiled allegory of I, northern king whose ascent to power was foretold by prophet and who, like Joseph, had been protected by Pharaoh and risen to great power under ultimate protection of [YHWH] ( 1 Kgs 11-12; p. …

War in the Land of Egypt: Yusuf al‐Qa'id: Translated by Olive and Lorne Kenney and Christopher Tingley

Book reviewed in this article:Houses Behind the Trees: Mohamed El‐Bisatie: Translated by Denys Johnson‐Davies

Point-Counterpoint: Towards a Study of the Bible in Canadian Public Life

If the claim that the Bible is in some way America's book is, as one Canadian scholar puts it, extravagant, the idea should come as no surprise to (Gunn 1; Jeffrey People of the Book 319). Prominent Americans call thankfully upon God for sundry blessings and assistance in times of distress and White House occupants of whichever political party fling biblical texts to the media and Rotary Clubs across the land. Former president and perennial Sunday school teacher Jimmy Carter, for example, recently published his spiritual autobiography, complete with longish revelations of his appreciation for the Bible. As numerous scholars have made clear, the Bible has exerted a great influence on public life in the United States (see, e.g., Gunn; Hatch and Noll). Scholarly attention to the influence of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures in Canadian history has been informative but slight. Tom Sinclair-Faulkner and Michael Gauvreau have discussed the impact of scholarly biblical criticism on nineteenth-century Canadian universities and Christian academics and John Moir has authored a history of biblical studies in the Canadian university. E.C. Woodley and Paul-Aime Martin have written brief, general accounts of organizations devoted to the study and propagation of the Bible in Canada while Neil Semple, with other historians of religion, has noted the importance of Bible-based Sunday schools. John G. Stackhouse, Jr. and Robert K. Burkinshaw have written on Bible colleges and institutes; S.F. Wise and Richard Allen have shown the important role general biblical themes played in nineteenth-century Canadian intellectual history; Norman F. Cornett and Thomas Flanagan have pointed to the centrality of biblical themes in the thought of, respectively, Lionel Groulx and Louis Riel. Canadian professors of English - most notably the late Northrop Frye and the University of Ottawa's David Lyle Jeffrey - have expended a considerable amount of energy writing on the Bible and English literature in general and, in Jeffrey's case, on biblical themes in Canadian fiction. Significantly, over one quarter of the scholars who contributed to the monumental and widely praised Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature - edited by Jeffrey - teach at Canadian institutions. In 1996 Dave Little, a teacher of English in Saskatchewan, produced a work on the vision of Robertson Davies in which 40 pages are devoted to the use of biblical texts. Canadian historians, however, have not yet produced a study of the Bible's place in Canada's public life, though even a casual perusal of many historical sources suggests that the Bible has figured prominently in Canadian history. Consider several of the texts provided in Ramsay Cook's anthology of French Canadian nationalist thought. It has long been observed that prominent nineteenth-century French Canadian clerics Monsignor L.ER. Lafleche interpreted Quebec's history in explicitly biblical terms. While Lafleche's biographer has noted his close familiarity with the Bible (see Voisin 507) there is no focussed study of what biblical texts Lafleche most frequently employed, and how. When Lafleche declared in his series of articles collectively titled The Providential Mission of the French Canadians (in Cook) that Jacques Cartier's voyage to the New World was providentially ordered in a way similar to Abraham's journey into Canaan (Genesis 12:1-9) was he expressing something he deeply believed to be true or merely employing a familiar and authoritative text for the sake of rhetorical flourish? Even the rouge Gonzalve Doutre claimed that in the modem era progressive peoples of all languages were engaged in a new crossing of the Red Sea (Exodus 14) and were building a of Granite, which, unlike the failed ancient Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), would reach to a humanly perfected metaphorical heaven. (Cook 117) Henri Bourassa maintained in The French Language and the Future of Our Race that French should not content themselves with linguistic and religious secondclass citizenship like the Hebrews in the land of Egypt (Exodus chaps. …

Proposed Scenarios to Improve the Efficiency of Crop/Livestock Production System in New Land in Egypt

Proposed Scenarios to Improve the Efficiency of Crop/Livestock Production System in New Land in Egypt

Closing Ranks: Montgomery Jews and Civil Rights, 1954–1960

The arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955 provided the spark which ignited the long smouldering resentments of black Montgomerians. For 381 days they waged a boycott of the city bus lines, frustrating the opposition of white authorities and financially crippling the local transit company. More profoundly it resulted in a Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation on public transportation. Equally momentous was the emergence of the man who would serve as the spiritual figurehead of the civil rights movement: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.In the wake of the Montgomery bus boycott, one national black newspaper acclaimed King as “Alabama's Modern Moses.” Since the darkest days of slavery African-Americans had sought spiritual salvation by comparing their own condition to that of God's Chosen People, the Israelites of the Old Testament. Throughout their years of enslavement they prayed for the Moses who would deliver them from their suffering unto the Promised Land. During the boycott, the black citizens of Montgomery had similarly sustained their morale by singing the old slave spirituals, raising their voices at the nightly mass meetings in rousing renditions of “Go Down Moses, Way Down in Egypt Land.” “As sure as Moses got the children of Israel across the Red Sea,” King exhorted the black community, “we can stick together and win.” Others too drew the analogy between the historical experience of Jews and the contemporary predicament of African-Americans. Looking back on the boycott, white liberal activist Virginia Durr evoked the spectre of Nazi Germany in describing the strength of racist opposition.

War in the land of Egypt

War in the land of Egypt

REFLECTIONS ON MISSION IN THE POST‐MODERN CONTEXT

In 1849, Baron van Hoevell wrote a brochure in which he called the Dutch people to account: You are only interested in the annual figures that pour into your own coffers from Java, but you are heedless of any sweat or blood or tears that may cling to them. missionary fulfilled his prophetic task. The Torah, which is a light unto our path, tolerates no injustice, oppression, exploitation or exclusion. It is a credit to the Netherlands Missionary Society (NZG) that one of its leaders drew attention to this violation of human rights at such an early stage. The NZG was conceived out of compassion for the fortunes of the peoples overseas, as well as compassion for the poor in our own land. Living out this tradition, have spent my life protecting the interests of people both at home and overseas. The cultural contexts differ profoundly. In Indonesia, God was taken for granted as the precondition for human existence. In the Netherlands, by contrast, God has become a stumbling block. All that remains is ethics. Religion has become a matter of interpretation. Jesus is dead, but life goes on in his spirit. The Torah is an inspiring document. The irreducible call to responsibility still offers enough of a basis to support many a Christian. But it cannot be like this. The Torah begins with the words, I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out of the land of Egypt. Let us be honest: the question of God is a question of life or death. During the course of my work in the Netherlands, have been led to believe that many people outside the church have valued my work. So it would seem that, as a churchman, it is still possible to win points in this secularized society. How great that your church opens its doors to marginal groups and takes care of the homeless! Bravo, keep it up, you and your church. What's your bank account number? Go ahead and irritate the government. Be a voice for the oppressed, for those whose voice has been stifled! Bravo? Forget it. It is not enough for the church to force itself into the role of keeper of junkies, illegal aliens, refugees or the poor. The church must stay anchored in the traditional faith of the Rock of Ages. To reject this tradition is to bring death to the church. All the church's social activities are but sounding brass if the God of Israel is condemned by the tribunal of our intellect to a life of exile in the cathedral of a privatized religious life. We draw from different casks. In our post-modern period, the God question is something that we are compelled to set aright. The faceless God of Israel gives rise to my following remarks. The philosopher Michel Foucault, in response to paintings by the Belgian artist Rene Margritte, wrote a small book entitled, is not a Pipe. Imagine that on an easel we see a picture of a On the wall is a picture of a Then we read the words, This is not a pipe. Foucault argues that the notion advanced in classical painting that there is a similarity between the picture and that which is pictured is an illusion. The picture and the pictured no longer correspond. Such a notion gives rise to confusion. People become insecure. They feel awkward. They lose their grip on the reality of the Just look at the easel: a series of lines that is supposed to represent a Add a few more scratches and you get a different picture altogether. The easel could come crashing down and the picture could end up tom to shreds. is not a is not God. God has gone the way of Foucault's There are many pictures of God in literature, in art, in song and in the spoken word. But none of that is God. Beautiful, impressive things have been said about God. meet God in the face of the other. Being with Christ among others: this is how God has made Godself known among us. God identifies with the least. God is in Christ. God is the deepest in yourself. We sing at the top of our voices, I feel the wind of God today. …

The effect of spatial resolution on the ability to monitor the status of agricultural lands

Monitoring regional and Global changes in agricultural land use requires coarse spatial resolution imagery in order to keep data volumes reasonable and to allow sufficiently frequent temporal coverage. The viablity of coarse spatial resolution data for monitoring the status of agricultural lands is cvabialed usinia dcaradcd multitemporal TM imagery. Areal estimates of productive land in Egypt's Western Desert are slightly underestimated (it spatial resolutions of 120 and 240 m. Although error increases at 480 m and 960 m, estimates arc within 10% of the original 30-m estimations. The area of old agricultural lands is more accurately estimated while reclaimed lands (cultivated after June 1985) show greater underestimation errors. These results suggest that the areal extent of these lands can be estimated accurately using multitemporal data with intermediary spatial resolutions such as the 250 m Bands 1 and 2 of the upcoming MODIS instrument. While overall map accuracies are good, the location of the reclaimed kinds are poorly mapped. Fine, spatial resolution data will still be needed to map the location of the fields. Also, the multitempowal maximum NDVI threshold differentiating productive and non-productive lands, identified in the original TM data, is relatively stable across the four coarse resolutions tested.

Monitoring agricultural lands in Egypt with multitemporal Landsat TM imagery: How many images are needed?

Multitemporal imagery is needed to -monitor agricultural landscapes characterized by high temporal variability. With the use of a database of 10 Landsat Thematic Mapper images dating frcrrn 1984 to 1993, the effects of the number and tuning o f images on area estimates of productive and nonproductive lands are evaluated for agricultural lands in Egypt. Average overestimation of nonproductive lands in. the Nile Delta ranges from 5% with data sets of nine images to more than 300% with data sets c f two images. Average underestimation of reclaimed lands in the Western Desert ranges frown 4% with six image data sets to 42% vith one-image data sets. Generally, data sets including more high-growth-.season imagery retilt in higher accuracie.s, although in. sonic eases a mixture of high- and low-growth-season imagery is more accurate. A single peak-growth image dominates results in both regions; data sets including this image are consistently more accurate than. those without it. The results indicate the critical significance of using extensive multiternporal data sets to rrunritor agricultural landscapes.

Vulnerability assessment of the coastal zone of the Nile delta of Egypt, to the impacts of sea level rise

A survey of the detailed quantitative assessment of the vulnerability of the Nile delta coast of Egypt to the impacts of sea level rise, is presented. GIS and remote-sensing techniques are used together with ground-based surveys to assess vulnerability of the most important economic and historic centers along the coast, the cities of Alexandria, Rosetta and Port-Said. Results indicate that, in these cities alone, over 2 million people will have to abandon their homes, 214 000 jobs and over $ 35.0 billion in land value, property, and tourism income may also be lost due to a SLR of 50 cm. The loss of the world famous historic, cultural and archeological sites is unaccountable. The vulnerability of other low land in Egypt outside these cities remains to be assessed. Development of institutional capabilities for ICZM and upgrading awareness are highly recommended for adaptation in the long run. Periodic nourishment of Alexandria and Rosetta beaches, detached break waters for Port-Said, and sand dune fixation are the recommended no regrets management measures.

The status of agricultural lands in Egypt: The use of multitemporal NDVI features derived from landsat TM

Agricultural production in Egypt is limited by soil salinity and by the encroachment of urban settlements onto previously cultivated lands. In contrast, reclamation efforts in the desert and coastal areas increase the amount of land cultivated. In this study, field-calibrated, multi-temporal NDVI features derived from 10 Landsat TM images dating from 1984 to 1993 were used to assess the status of agricultural lands in the Nile Delta, and adjacent Western Desert and coastal regions. Four classes central to agricultural planning in the Delta are healthy agricultural lands, fields of reduced productivity, urban settlements, and urban expansion. The results indicate that 3.74 % of agricultural land in the Delta has reduced productivity. This quantity is greater than previously realized, indicating a need to incorporate these lands in reclamation planning. The amount of land lost to urbanization, defined as the encroachment of an existing urban settlement onto previously productive agricultural lands, is less than anticipated. Only 0.4 % of productive agricultural lands were converted to new urban use between 1984 and 1990. Assessment of reclamation in the Western Desert and coastal areas over six time periods indicates continued high rates of reclamation. Between 1986 and 1993, the amount of cultivated land in these regions increased by 43.3%. The high overall accuracy of the map (95.85%) supports the use of multitemporal features in mapping the status of agricultural lands.

PART II: Ethics, Environment, and Migration: Immigration and the Ethics of Choice

This paper begins by developing a language for ethical discourse on immigration and then examining the extent to which choices may be made at the micro-level and at the macro-level. States and individuals are examined as actors who are variously described as making choices or being choiceless. The concepts of cultural distance, reciprocity, the role of the individual and of the state and their interrelationships are evaluated in the perspective of choice. Whether an ethics of immigration can be successfully developed hinges on the degree of choice that individuals and states have or perceive themselves to have. How sad and fraught with trouble is the state of those who yearly emigrate in bodies to America for the means of living…. It is, indeed, piteous that so many unhappy sons of Italy, driven by want to seek another land, should encounter ills greater than those from which they would fly…. When they reach the lands for which they are destined, ignorant as they are of the language and the place, and hired out for daily labor, they fall into the hands of the dishonest, and even into the snares of those powerful men to whom they enslave themselves. (Pope Leo XIII, 1888) You shall not oppress an alien. You well know how it feels to be an alien since you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. (Ex 23:9)

Wheat Root Rotting Fungi in the 'Old' and 'New' Agricultural Lands of Egypt

Surveys were conducted from November 1991 to June 1992 to identify fungi associated with wheat root rot in the Nile Valley, delta region, and new land areas of Egypt. A total of 1,024 fungal isolates were made from diseased roots and crowns of commercially grown spring wheat in Egypt. Thirteen different species were identified. The most frequently isolated fungi were Fusarium culmorum, F. oxysporum, F. solani, Rhizoctonia solani (AG)-4, Macrophomina phaseolina, and Alternaria solani, which represented 168, 134, 66, 221, 193, and 63 of the total number of isolates, respectively. The identification of Gaeumannomyces graminis var. graminis from the new lands is the first report of this pathogen in Egypt. F graminearum, a Helminthcsporium sp., R. solani (AG)-4, and M. phaseolina aggressively rotted roots of the most widely planted spring wheat cultivar, Sakha 69.

The estimation of moisture over Egypt from Meteosat satellite observations

In Egypt their are 77 ground stations for recording the meteorological elements, but very rare number of these stations cover the desert, while the desert covers 97% of the total land of Egypt. For that, estimation of meteorological data over the desert from Meteosat observations is very interested for the national programs for the desert development. We selected seven ground stations, each one of them represents a specific climatic region in Egypt, for a correlation analysis between the water vapour absorption observed by Meteosat in the spectral band (5.7–7.1 μm) and evaporation and relative humidity measured at these seven ground stations for the period (1985–1986). The correlation coefficients are good for the evaporation, and acceptable for the relative humidity. Also, a correlation analysis of cloudiness observed by Meteosat in the thermal spectral band (10.5–12.5 μm) with surface infra-red measurements at Cairo and Aswan for the period (1990–1992) was performed. The correlation coefficients are good for Cairo, but a weak for Aswan. The infra-red measured from ground by Eppley Precision Infrared Radiometers for the period (1990–1992) have excellent correlation with the air temperature at Cairo and Aswan. Also, there is a good correlation with water vapour at Cairo, but a weak correlation for Aswan. Similar we found a good correlation with cloudiness observed from ground at Cairo, and weak for the observations at Aswan. Models and empirical relations for estimating the moisture over Egypt from Meteosat observations are deduced and tested.

Detection of land cover classes in agro-ecosystems of northern Egypt by remote sensing

Abstract The objective of this study is to detect the current land cover classes of a representative area in the coastal agricultural land of Egypt, where changes have been observed recently due to the urban sprawl. This has been achieved after the production of different vegetation indices, and the comparison between them and their sensitivity to the environmental conditions of the area under study. This was followed by the production of profiles of different Vegetation Index (VI) images, and supervised Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC), for the assessment of land cover classes and their cover percentage. It was found that different greenness levels were best estimated by the Environmental Vegetation Index (EVI) and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The MLC resulted in classifying the study area into 10 classes with an accuracy above 90 per cent. Agriculture lands cover about 46 per cent only of the total area, which was estimated to cover at least 80 per cent 15 years ago. Land tr...

Prologue at Sinai

Prologue at Sinai PROLOGUE AT SINAI by Bernard Horn Bernard Horn teaches American literature, mythology, and technical writing at Framingham State College in Massachusetts . This essay and one which is appearing in the Spring 1993 Essays in Literature are part of his ongoing study of Numbers, entitled In Wilderness. He has completed a manuscript, Facing the Fires: Conversations with A. B. Yehoshua, and new poems are appearing in The Mississippi Review and in a forthcoming Tel Aviv Review. 81 Just before the golden calf episode in Exodus, God, Yahweh, speaks to Moses: And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israd, saying: Surely, you must keep my sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations that you may know that I Yahweh have made you holy.1 (31:13) A few verses later, as his first reaction to the golden calf episode, Yahweh speaks again: Yahweh spoke to Moses: Go, descend, for your people whom you have brought up from the land of Egypt have become corrupt. (32:7) "Yahweh spoke to Moses." "Yahweh spoke to Moses." I want to pay attention to these words which occur so·frequently we tend to slide over them as we read on and pay attention only to the words that follow. I am not interested for now in the specific content ofYahweh's words but only in their general characteristics and the,general readerly reaction to them. 1All the translations from the Hebrew are mine (influenced by the JPS version more than the others). When necessary, I sacrifice idiom and grace for literal accuracy. 82 SHOFAR Winter 1993 Vol. 11, No. 2 I am interested in how readers, both naive and professional, take in each set of Yahweh's words and how that general reaction affects how they respond to the "Yahweh spoke to Moses" clause that introduces the divine words. Most readers, it is safe to say, respond entirely differently to the two verses I quoted. We tend to read the second divine utterance as part of the narrative, with all the complicated emotions and thoughts readers bring to stories. We tend to read the first divine utterance, in contrast, with less emotional engagement, with the disinterest and passivity appropriate to the reading of a body of laws; any interest would be an intellectual or religious interest in the laws themselves, their meaning then or now. We take the second utterance as Yahweh's response to something that happened ; we take the second words out ofcontext. In any case, the introductory clause itself, "And Yahweh spoke," does not give us a clue as to how to think of Yahweh. We must first read the content of the speech. Only then can we decide to think of Yahweh as the source of the laws or as a character embedded in the narrative. I believe that all readers make some distinction between such narrative passages and the legal passages. What sets naive readers offfrom professional readers is what each does with the distinction. On coming across a legal passage that seems to interrupt the flow of the narrative, I would expect some naive readers to roll their eyes, skim the legal passages, and start paying attention again when the story resumes, treating the legal passage as a commercial interruption, a message from the sponsor-of course, for other naive readers this message from the sponsor is· of profound religious importance. Professional readers, literary critics or source critics, for example, would bring their special expertise to bear on the disjunction between the two sorts of passages. In this example, source critics ascribe the first utterance (31: 13), the one out of context, to P or R, the Priestly Writer or the Redactor, and the second utterance (32:7), the one embedded in the narrative, to J, the Yahwist writer or E, the Elohist. In both cases, readers assume a qualitative difference between the two communications. This distinction between the God of the narrative passages and the god of the legal passages is most relevant to the Book ofNumbers, because nowhere else do we find such regular alternation between legal passages Prologue at Sinai 83 and narrative passages...