Kingdom of Egypt Ⲧⲉⲕⲙⲉⲧⲟⲩⲣⲟ Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ Timeline: Differently | ||||||
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Location of Egypt (green)
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Capital | Thebes | |||||
Largest city | Alexandria | |||||
Official languages | Egyptian | |||||
Other languages | Greek, Arabic, Syriac, Persian (minority languages) | |||||
Religion | Coptic Church (40%) Kemetism (20%) Judaism (10%) Islam (10%) Non-religious (10%) Eastern Orthodox (5%) Other (5%) |
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Government | Federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy | |||||
- | Pharaoh | Nekauba II | ||||
- | Prime Minister | Tahemet Madbouly | ||||
Independence from the Empire of West Persia | ||||||
- | Declared | 20 April 1882 | ||||
Area | ||||||
- | Total | 2,565,001 km2 990,352 sq mi |
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Population | ||||||
- | Estimate | 121,241,451 (12th) | ||||
Currency | Neo-Stater (NST) | |||||
Drives on the | right |
Egypt (Egyptian: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, Khēmi), officially the Kingdom of Egypt (Egyptian: Ⲧⲉⲕⲙⲉⲧⲟⲩⲣⲟ Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, Tekmetouro Khēmi), is a country in northeastern Africa. It borders Cyrenaica and Kanem to the west, Bornu and Ethiopia to the south, Syria Palaestina to the northeast and is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea on the north and the Red Sea on the east.
With a surface area of over 2.5 million square kilometers, Egypt is the second-largest country in Africa and the 10th-largest in the world. Its population of 121 million inhabitants makes it Africa's second-most populous country, ranking 12th in the world. Egypt's capital is Thebes, its largest city is Alexandria and other important cities include Memphis and Tipersis.
Egypt is one of the oldest countries in the world, with a history that extends from the 6th millennium BC to the present day. The country was ruled by successive dynasties of pharaohs and resisted several episodes of foreign invasion and cultural assimilation, remaining an independent and prosperous country with a strong identity throughout much of its history. The only successful invasion of Egypt in ancient times was by Alexander the Great in 305 BC, which formed the Ptolemaic Kingdom. Afterwards, the country would only fall to foreign invaders in the 7th century, when it was occupied by Byzantium for a brief period, in 1421, when it was occupied by the Milanese Sforzas, and in 1516, when Sforza Egypt was occupied by the Second Sassanid Empire. In 1882, following a war between Britain and the Empire of West Persia (the sucessor of the Sassanids), Egypt was liberated and regained its independence. This is considered the birth of the modern Egyptian state.
Egypt's social liberalism stemming from ancient traditions has made it the foremost example of women's rights and sexual freedom in the world. It is one of the few nations where women could vote long before the suffragettes' movement and had virtually all other rights that men had. An even gender balance of important posts, including those of prime-ministers and more recently monarchs (pharaohs) is considered unique to Egypt. The Egyptian monarchy was also the first to adopt Absolute Primogeniture in 1980. Many sexual taboos found in other countries are not practiced in Egypt, even for some adherents of Abrahamic religions, whose Egyptian versions have become far more liberal than their foreign counterparts. This has been a subject of numerous sociological and anthropological studies on the Egyptian society.
The coexistence of numerous religions for millennia has also made Egypt a model of religious freedom and peace. No religion or cult has ever been persecuted or banned in the country since Akhenaten. The country's two traditional religions, Kemetism and Coptic Christianity, are known for their peaceful relationship, with very few and notable exceptions.
Egypt is a founding member of the League of Nations.
History[]
Egypt has one of the longest histories of any country, tracing its heritage along the Nile Delta back to the 6th–4th millennia BCE. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt saw some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanisation, organised religion and central government.
Iconic monuments such as the Giza Necropolis and its Great Sphinx, as well the ruins of Memphis, Thebes, Karnak, and the Valley of the Kings, reflect this legacy and remain a significant focus of scientific and popular interest. Egypt's long and rich cultural heritage is an integral part of its national identity, which has endured, and often assimilated, various foreign influences, including Greek, Persian, Roman, Arab, and Nubian.
Prehistoric Egypt[]
There is evidence of rock carvings along the Nile terraces and in desert oases. In the 10th millennium BCE, a culture of hunter-gatherers and fishers was replaced by a grain-grinding culture. Climate changes or overgrazing around 8000 BCE began to desiccate the pastoral lands of Egypt, forming the Sahara. Early tribal peoples migrated to the Nile River where they developed a settled agricultural economy and more centralised society.
By about 6000 BCE, a Neolithic culture rooted in the Nile Valley. During the Neolithic era, several predynastic cultures developed independently in Upper and Lower Egypt. The Badarian culture and the successor Naqada series are generally regarded as precursors to dynastic Egypt. The earliest known Lower Egyptian site, Merimda, predates the Badarian by about seven hundred years. Contemporaneous Lower Egyptian communities coexisted with their southern counterparts for more than two thousand years, remaining culturally distinct, but maintaining frequent contact through trade. The earliest known evidence of Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions appeared during the predynastic period on Naqada III pottery vessels, dated to about 3200 BCE.
Ancient Egypt[]
A unified kingdom was founded c. 3150 BCE by King Menes, leading to a series of dynasties that ruled Egypt for the next three millennia. Egyptian culture flourished during this long period and remained distinctively Egyptian in its religion, arts, language and customs. The first two ruling dynasties of a unified Egypt set the stage for the Old Kingdom period, c. 2700–2200 BCE, which constructed many pyramids, most notably the Third Dynasty pyramid of Djoser and the Fourth Dynasty Giza pyramids.
The First Intermediate Period ushered in a time of political upheaval for about 150 years. Stronger Nile floods and stabilisation of government, however, brought back renewed prosperity for the country in the Middle Kingdom c. 2040 BCE, reaching a peak during the reign of Pharaoh Amenemhat III. A second period of disunity heralded the arrival of the first foreign ruling dynasty in Egypt, that of the Semitic Hyksos. The Hyksos invaders took over much of Lower Egypt around 1650 BCE and founded a new capital at Avaris. They were driven out by an Upper Egyptian force led by Ahmose I, who founded the Eighteenth Dynasty and relocated the capital from Memphis to Thebes.
The New Kingdom c. 1550–1070 BCE began with the Eighteenth Dynasty, marking the rise of Egypt as an international power that expanded during its greatest extension to an empire as far south as Tombos in Nubia, and included parts of the Levant in the east. This period is noted for some of the most well known Pharaohs, including Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti, Tutankhamun and Ramesses II.
Frequent contacts with other nations brought new ideas to the New Kingdom. A strong military enabled Egypt to drive off several invasions of foreign peoples, including by Libyans, Nubians, Assyrians, and Achaemenid Persians.
Ptolemaic Egypt (332 BC–617)[]
Alexander the Great conquered an independent Egypt in 332 BC after finishing his campaigns against the Achaemenid Empire. This marked the first time all of Egypt was effectively conquered by a foreign power. After Alexander's death in 323 BC, his empire quickly unraveled amid competing claims by the diadochi, his closest friends and companions. Ptolemy, a Macedonian Greek who was one of Alexander's most trusted generals and confidants, won control of Egypt from his rivals and declared himself pharaoh.
The new Ptolemaic Kingdom was a powerful Hellenistic state, extending from southern Syria in the east, to Cyrene to the west, and south to the frontier with Nubia. Alexandria became the capital city and a centre of Greek culture and trade. To gain recognition by the native Egyptian populace, they named themselves as the successors to the Pharaohs. The later Ptolemies took on Egyptian traditions, had themselves portrayed on public monuments in Egyptian style and dress, and participated in Egyptian religious life.
From the mid third century BC, Ptolemaic Egypt was the wealthiest and most powerful of Alexander's successor states, and the leading example of Hellenistic civilization. Beginning in the mid second century BC, dynastic strife and a series of foreign wars weakened the kingdom, and it became increasingly reliant on the Roman Republic. Under Cleopatra VII, however, Ptolemaic power was restored and Egypt was heavily militarised, enabling the country to deter several subsequent Roman planned invasions and endure as the last Ptolemaic realm for centuries to come.
Christianity was brought to Egypt by Saint Mark the Evangelist in the 1st century. The New Testament had by then been translated into Egyptian, and after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, a distinct Egyptian Coptic Church was firmly established. Despite an initially strained relationship with the traditional pagan religion, the two groups eventually learned to respect their differences and both sides discouraged attacks or forceful conversions of each other, making Egypt a notable peaceful exception on the sea of religious tensions that the classical world was. Some few groups and individuals at the time even declared themselves syncretic, combining elements and beliefs of both Coptic Christianity and Egyptian paganism, a tradition that is maintained to this day by some families.
Byzantine Egypt (617–648)[]
In 617, the Ptolemaic Kingdom was conquered by an expanding Byzantine Empire, becoming one of the empire's themes (provinces). The period of Byzantine rule was marked by a cultural shock between two groups of Greeks: the former Ptolemaic rulers, now heavily "Egyptianised" in language and custom, and the Byzantines, equally influenced by Roman culture. Egypt under Byzantium was able to resist the Rashidun invasion by Umar in 642. During a second Arab invasion by Uthman in 648, a new Egyptian dynasty called the Hurumhibs seized the opportunity to rebel against the weakened Byzantines, whose army was dealing with invasions both in Egypt and from the north. The rebellion was successful and Egypt regained its independence under the Hurumhibs, driving off both invading Arabs and Byzantines in the process.
Medieval Egypt: Golden Age (648–1170)[]
Owning to its long tradition of religious tolerance, the re-established Egyptian kingdom did not ban Islam like Byzantium and the Sassanids did, allowing the new religion to have a small presence in some cities after the Rashidun Caliphate was disbanded. Although it never achieved a status similar to that of the dominating Kemetic and Coptic faiths, Islam was never officially persecuted in Egypt.
During the Middle Ages, the Egyptian city of Alexandria with its library became the cultural and scientific center of the world. Egyptian scientists with access to Aristotelian and other writings led many advancements and discoveries in chemistry, mathematics, and astronomy, matching and often even outperforming Christian Europe. (To this day, many elements in those sciences have Egyptian names.) This was known as the Egyptian Golden Age. Medieval Egypt entered a prosperous and hegemonic era that lasted for centuries and the Hurumhibs were respected in both the Christian and Zoroastrian worlds.
During this period, the Egyptians showed a strong interest in assimilating the scientific knowledge of other civilizations. Many classic works of antiquity that might otherwise have been lost were translated from Greek, Persian, Indian, Chinese, Arabic, and Phoenician civilizations into Egyptian, and later in turn translated into Syriac, Hebrew, and Latin.
Christians, especially the adherents of the Church of the East (Nestorians), contributed to Egyptian civilization during the reign of the Hurumhibs by translating works of Greek philosophers and ancient science to Syriac and afterwards to Egyptian. They also excelled in many fields, in particular philosophy and theology. For a long period of time the personal physicians of the pharaohs were often Assyrian Christians. Many of the most important philosophical and scientific works of the ancient world were translated, including the work of Galen, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy and Archimedes, and many scholars of Alexandria were of Christian background.
By this time, the Ancient Egyptian religion, which would become known as Kemetism centuries later, adopted many elements of Christianity. Kemetic temples were modelled after churches, adopting the congregational model, and small statuettes of Egyptian gods started to be produced and commercialized near temples, just like statuettes of saints in the Christian world. Kemetic theology and philosophy also flourished during that period.
With the introduction of paper, information was democratized to the extent that, for probably the first time in history, it became possible to make a living from only writing and selling books. The use of paper spread from China into the Middle East and Egypt in the eighth century. It was easier to manufacture than parchment, less likely to crack than papyrus, and could absorb ink, making it difficult to erase and ideal for keeping records. Egyptian paper makers devised assembly-line methods of hand-copying manuscripts to turn out editions far larger than any available in Europe for centuries. It was from Medieval Egypt that the rest of the world learned to make paper from linen.
Lagidic era (1170–1421)[]
In 1170, the last Hurumhib king died and was succeeded by a new cadet dynasty called the Lagidic dynasty, a name given in reference to Ptolemy's father. Although Egypt remained a relatively advanced and well-respected kingdom in the first Lagidic centuries, the destruction of the Library of Alexandria in 1230 and several other factors from the mid-13th century such as political crisis and environmental disasters led to it being gradually outpaced by Western Europe and losing its former prestige, meaning the end of the Egyptian Golden Age.
During the Zoroastrian-Christian conflicts, Egypt functioned as a barrier that prevented either side from attacking the other directly by land. Egypt did not partake in the war, the only exception being between 1353 and 1354, when pharaoh Caesarion XIX sided briefly with the Seljuk Empire, allowing for a mostly successful Seljuk invasion of Carthage. The alliance proved disastrous as it was immediately responded with embargoes by almost all European nations on Egypt, causing a severe economic and diplomatic crisis. The pharaoh quickly reverted his decision and withdrew the Egyptian troops from the war, but this was too late as the invasion had already taken place and caused a severe setback for the Christian side. For this mistake, Caesarion XIX became known as one of the worst pharaohs, and good relations with Europe would only be restored when his son Caesarion XX ascended the throne in 1369. A gradual economic recovery that lasted until the end of the century followed.
Sforza era (1421–1535)[]
In 1416, after a diplomatic failure caused by a Mediterranean territorial dispute, France declared war on Egypt. During the war, the French were aided by the Duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza, whom they supported as king of Egypt. The Franco-Milanese alliance eventually occupied Egypt. In exchange for Cyprus, Byzantine emperor Manuel II recognized the Sforza as legitimate rulers of Egypt.
The Sforza era, which lasted for over a century, was a turbulent one. Since the royalty refused to adopt Egyptian customs and regalia, unlike previous dynasties, they were seen as foreign, arrogant and oppressive. The period was very unstable and marked by many revolts.
Persian occupation and Lagidic restoration (1535–1882)[]
In 1535, the expansive and ambitious Second Sassanid Empire invaded and occupied Egypt, expelling the Sforzas back to Milan and establishing a new rule. Egypt became a viceroyalty of the Empire and was allowed to have its own pharaoh. Unlike the Sforzas, who sought "Europeanization", the Persians allowed the local culture, law, and customs to continue and thrive, while the viceroyalty model gave an impression of autonomy, bringing back stability to the nation and allowing the Persian sovereignty over Egypt to continue discreetly for centuries. The 16th and 17th centuries were marked by Egypt being redefined as part of the larger Persian world while still keeping its own culture, resulting in a mixed society with both Persian and Egyptian influences.
In 1712, the Second Sassanid Empire split in two, with the western part (including Egypt) becoming the Empire of West Persia.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Empire, which already controlled Egypt and Syria, engaged in an exhaustive expansionist campaign, further conquering parts of Rhomania, northern Africa, and Arabia, becoming one of the largest political unions in the world by the mid-19th century. From that time, the British sought to weaken the Persian threat by fomenting separatist rebellions in Syria Palaestina and Egypt. Although the revolts were crushed, Britain finally decided to declare war on the Empire in 1876, beginning the Perso-British War. The war ended in 1882 with a Persian defeat and a liberation of Egypt and Syria Palaestina.
Kingdom of Egypt (1882–present)[]
The new Kingdom of Egypt was established as a British-styled constitutional monarchy, much like Syria Palaestina. The Lagidic dynasty continued to rule until 1889, when the powerful and wealthy Nektebef dynasty, a claimed descendant of the last native pharaoh of Egypt, Nectanebo V, took power.
Egypt fought in the Great War on the Entente side. The Egyptian and Rhomanian navies engaged in many battles during the conflict, and Egypt also fought land battles against its former occupant, the Empire of West Persia.
Egypt was one of the main countries that made up the First World during the Cold War, supporting the democratic and capitalist model. Since 1975, it has been considered one of the most developed countries in Africa, thriving with tourism.
Geography[]
Extreme aridity defines most of the current Egyptian climate, with population concentrated along the narrow Nile Valley and Delta, meaning that about 99% of the citizens use about 5.5% of the total land area, and that 98% live on 3% of the territory.
Egypt's landscape consists almost entirely of desert, apart from the Nile Valley and few oases scattered about. Winds create prolific sand dunes over 30 m (100 ft) high. Egypt includes parts of the Sahara desert and of the Libyan Desert, both of which were referred to as the "red land" in ancient Egypt, when they protected the Kingdom of the Pharaohs from western threats.
At one time Egypt had a cooler, wetter climate than it has today, with ancient tomb paintings showing animals such as giraffes, hippopotamuses, crocodiles and ostriches, and the petroglyphs on the upper Nile showing African bush elephants, white rhinoceroses, gerenuk and more ostriches, a fauna akin to that of present-day East Africa.
Egypt has a population of about 120 million inhabitants of different ethnicities. The ten most populous cities in Egypt are the following:
# | City | Population |
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1 | Alexandria | 9,500,000 |
2 | Memphis | 5,200,000 |
3 | Tipersis/Giza | 4,200,000 |
4 | Heliopolis | 4,000,000 |
5 | Thebes | 2,500,000 |
6 | Ptolemais | 1,900,000 |
7 | Abydos | 750,000 |
8 | Hermopolis | 650,000 |
9 | Akhetaten | 480,494 |
10 | Tanis | 475,000 |
Languages[]
The national, sole official and most widely spoken language in the country is Egyptian. Some minorities across the country speak Arabic, Greek, Persian and Syriac.
Egyptian language[]
Egyptian is a very old Afro-Asiatic language that has been in constant evolution since 2600 BC. It is written mainly with the Coptic alphabet but Egyptian hieroglyphs, which evolved and changed significantly over time, have a small usage as well. Egyptian and the languages that use Chinese characters (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) are the only major languages that currently use logograms.
The periods and subperiods of the language are the following:
- Ancient Egyptian (c. 2600 to 1350 BC)
- Archaic Egyptian (before 2600 BC)
- Old Egyptian (2600 to 2000 BC)
- Middle Egyptian (2000 to 1350 BC)
- Classical Egyptian (1350 BC to 400 AD)
- Early Classical Egyptian (1350 to 664 BC)
- Middle Classical Egyptian (664 to 332 BC)
- Late Classical Egyptian (332 BC to 400 AD)
- Medieval Egyptian (400 AD to 1516)
- Modern Egyptian (since 1516)
- Early Modern Egyptian (1516 to 1882)
- Contemporary Egyptian (since 1882)
Classical Egyptian was influenced by Greek, and Modern Egyptian was influenced by Persian, since Egypt was a Sassanid territory at the time. As both were Indo-European languages, Egyptian has considerable Indo-European lexical and grammatical influences despite being essentially an Afro-Asiatic language.
Religion[]
Egypt is a multireligious country. About 40% of the country's population are Coptic Christians, about 20% are adepts of the traditional pagan religion (sometimes called Kemetism), 10% are Jews, 10% are Muslim, 10% are non-religious and the remaining 10% represents adepts of other religions and faiths (mainly Zoroastrianism).
Egyptian has a long history of religious tolerance. Not only have Kemetism and Coptic Christianity coexisted since ancient times, but the country has also been a crossing point between several religious backgrounds, including the Jews and Muslims in the east, the Zoroastrians who arrived during Persian rule, the Orthodox Rhomanians in the north, and the Catholics across Cyrenaica in the west, not to mention tribal Bantu traditions brought from Bornu and Kanem in the south. The historical and present religious variance in Egypt is such that mutual tolerance and even some forms of syncretism among those many faiths became unavoidable.
A brief description of some of Egypt's main religious traditions:
- Coptic Christianity (40%): The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, one of the earliest Christian denominations, is the majority faith in Egypt. It is in communion with other churches of Oriental Orthodoxy, which are also dominating in Syria, Ethiopia, and Armenia. They adhere to Miaphysite Christology (the belief that divinity and humanity are united in a single nature in Christ).
- A small number of dissident Coptics, judged heretic by the mainstream ones, believe in syncretism with other religions, particularly Kemetism. They have a foundational temple called the "Open Coptic Church".
- Kemetism (20%) (a name that only started to be widely used after Persian rule) is the oldest religious tradition in Egypt, going back to as far as 3000 BC or earlier. It focuses on entities called neteru (masculine singular: neter, feminine singular: netert), which are sometimes translated to "gods", with Kemetism typically being described as polytheistic in the west. Most Kemetic denominations, however, state that they believe the neteru to be different manifestations of a single god, in a manner similar to the Holy Trinity in Christianity. In ancient times, religion was inseparable of civic life, but this started to change as new religions arrived in Egypt, when syncretism and even irreligion started to develop.
- Most denominations of Kemetism allow syncretism with other religions, particularly Christianity, while on the other hand syncretism is only allowed by some Coptic denominations. The resulting Kemetic-Coptic syncretism has been compared to the syncretism of Buddhism with Hinduism in India or with Shinto in Japan.
- Pure Kemetism, the denomination that does not allow syncretism, has some following in Memphis and Dendera.
- Judaism (10%): The second-oldest religion in Egypt. Tradition links it back to the biblical figure of Moses (about 1200 BC), but reliable historicity points to an arrival of the religion at about 600 BC.
- Islam (10%): Even after the fall of the Rashidun Caliphate after its attempted conquest of neighboring nations, Islam was never persecuted in Egypt. It remains a sizeable minority to this day.
- Zoroastrianism (~3%): The long West Persian rule brought Zoroastrianism to Egypt. The largest fire temple is still standing in Thebes and has a significant following.
National symbols[]
Flag[]
The flag of Egypt is a vertical tricolour of yellow, white, and blue, with the Eye of Horus, a millennia-old symbol of Egypt, in the central bar. Yellow represents the desert's sand, white represents the country's peaceful and self-defensive nature and blue represents the Nile.
Emblem[]
The official Emblem of Egypt is an Egyptian falcon holding two Ankhs.
Politics[]
The politics of Egypt take place within a framework of a federal, parliamentary, representative democratic monarchy. The current monarch, Nekauba II, is the country's head of state. Together with New Holland, Haiti, the United Kingdom and Belgium, Egypt is one of only five nations to have absolute primogeniture, having adopted it in 1980.
The bicameral parliament, composed of the National Assembly and the Higher Assembly, is responsible for passing laws, adopting the state's budgets, and exercising control of the executive government through its elected representative, the Prime Minister, currently Tahemet Madbouly.
There are three major tendencies (parties) in the National Assembly:
- Perfect/Beautiful Egypt (ⲛⲟⲩϥⲉ ⲭⲏⲙⲓ) - Social democracy, center left.
- Kingdom Party (ⲧⲉⲕⲙⲉⲧⲟⲩⲣⲟ) - Liberal conservatism, protectionism, Egyptian nationalism, center to center-right.
- Equality/Truth/Justice Party (ⲙⲉⲓ) - Ma'at, Socialism, Environmentalism, communism, Egyptian nationalism, left wing to far left.
The Prime Minister is of the Beautiful Egypt Party as is the Grand Vizier but the Chancellor is from the Justice Party and the defense minister is from the Kingdom Party. The Beautiful Egypt Party gets most of its support from Coptic Christians, Jews, Muslims, intellectuals and from large cities, especially Alexandria and Thebes. The Kingdom Party gets its support from rural areas and cities such as Armarna, Hierenkopolis and Elephantine. They also have support from Coptic Christians and other Abrahamic religions. The Justice party gets support from mainly Kemetists, workers, farmers and some intellectuals. They have a lot of support in Nubia and rural areas and cities like Heliopolis, Memphis, Dendera, Adydos and various workers sites like in Armarna and Giza.
In addition to the major Tendencies (parties) there are two regionalist ones in Nubia they are:
- The Nubian People's Party - Center to center-right, liberal conservatism, protectionism, Nubian nationalism.
- United Front - Left wing, socialism, Nubian nationalism.
They have a small presence in the National Assembly but a large presence in the Nubian Regional Assembly.
Sports[]
Association football (soccer) is relatively popular in Egypt. The country notably hosted the 1945 FIFA World Cup, and their national team got to the final in the 2010 edition, in which it lost to the Netherlands in the penalty shoots.
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