The river Nile was always a great center of ancient dancing. Egyptian tomb paintings from as far back as 14 century BC portray partially dressed dancers whose dancing positions appear to be very similar to those used in belly dancing. In the Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom, women wore very short skirts and danced bare breasted. They often danced quite nude, except for the hip belts and perhaps jewelry. Henna was used to stain the hands and nails for beauty, and for its medicinal and magical properties. 

Ancient texts and tomb paintings showed that ancient Egyptians had the acrobatic type of dances and pair dances.  The hands movement were portrayed to be relaxed and open. But there were also movements where the fist was clenched, or the palms were rigid and geometrical. Documents showed that they played the lute, the lyre, and the harp. Acrobatic dancing were characterized by dancers jumping about in all directions, mounting on the shoulders and the heads, forming pyramids, reaching to the ceiling of the hall. 

In pair dancieces, man and woman danced with wooden castanets: These two dancers danced separately or together, parting and again approaching each other, the young dancer running after his mate with expressions of tender desire, while she run away from him, rotating as if refusing his approaches. 

Dancers were portrayed to dance holding a short curved stick carved with little gazelle heads. Modern Egyptian dancers also do a "cane dance", this is a very interesting connection to ancient Egyptian culture. In Egyptian dance, the feet were always bare. The body movements the forward trunk- inclines, reclines, sideways inclines, hip, belt, waist and shoulder circulation. It is obvious that the early Egyptian dances had a much larger range of movement that allowed by traditional belly dance. - http://webpages.csus.edu/~sac52808/countries.htm