nd so this is Egypt, land of the pharaohs, land of the ptolemys, home of Cleopatra.

In the Paleolithic era, before the explosion of Egyptian civilization, the Mediterranean Sea was cut into to great basins by a tongue of land that joined Tunisia and Italy, passing through the island of Malta.

An immense ring of forests surrounded it on all sides with vast lagunas and forests scattered in a chain over the area later to be identified with the nile, reaching all the way to the sea.

European and North African fauna lived side by side, with Mediterranean and Somalian alpine growing intermingled in a sort of boundless Eden.