Egypt was probably a nice place 2800 years ago pre islam.
It says in a Smithsonian article that modern Egyptians have more sub-Sahara Africa in their DNA. Wonder if that was from Ethiopians because they were mentioned in ancient literature and in the Bible. Ethiopia seems to have DNA from about everywhere you can think of (except Australia and the Americas), and they have ancient ties to Egypt and Israel.
Alexandria had a pretty decent library. No internet though...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria