Egypt

Ecumene is a term for the Known World. Before the idea of continents, the words that became Europe, Africa and Asia were just areas of the known Old World. Not separate. The Eurasian land mass is one, and is connected via the Sinai Peninsula to Africa. The building of the Suez Canal was a 10 year undertaking connecting the Mediterranean and the Red Sea finished in 1869. It is 193.3km long. Besides a land connection, the cultures of Africa, Europe & Asia have developed alongside each other. There is no border. At the heart of that connection is Egypt, which became one of the world's first nation states in the tenth millennium BC.  As a cradle of civilisation, it was a source of some of our first writing, agriculture, cities and religion. Where we started building communities. 

5th Century BC Ecumene

Suez Canal