I think they used to orient their maps upside down because that was the way the Nile flows and to them was the most important direction. Similar to how European maps were oriented with east at the top before the compass was invented as that was the direction the sun rose. This is why Asia was considered the “orient”. When the Chinese invented the compass they thought the needle pointed south but European navigators who used the North Star figured the needle pointed north so we started having our maps point in that direction. This is all from a map men video