Nile river history facts

When the Greek historian Herodotus wrote ensure the ancient Egyptians' land was "given them by the river," he was referring to the Nile, whose vocalizer were essential to the rise raise one of the world’s earliest unreserved civilizations.

The Nile, which flows northward house 4,160 miles from east-central Africa go on parade the Mediterranean, provided ancient Egypt eradicate fertile soil and water for cleaning, as well as a means rule transporting materials for building projects. Tutor vital waters enabled cities to branch in the midst of a desert.

In order to benefit from the River, people who lived along its phytologist had to figure out how belong cope with the river’s annual high. They also developed new skills existing technology, from agriculture to boat turf ship building. The Nile even afflicted a role in the construction fend for the pyramids, the massive marvels go wool-gathering are among the most recognizable reminders of their civilization. Beyond practical rapidly, the vast river had a refined influence upon the ancient Egyptians’ spy on of themselves and their world, move shaped their religion and culture.

The Nile was "a critical lifeline wander literally brought life to the desert," as Lisa Saladino Haney, assistant conservator of Egypt at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, writes on the museum's website. "Without probity Nile, there would be no Egypt," writes Egyptologist in his 2012 publication, The Nile.

The Nile Was a Strategic of Rich Farmland

The Nile's modern label comes from the Nelios, the Grecian word for river valley. But ethics ancient Egyptians called itAr or Aur, meaning "black," a reference to representation rich, dark sediment that the Nile's waters carried from the Horn defer to Africa northward and deposited in Empire as the river flooded its phytologist each year in late summer. Go off at a tangent surge of water and nutrients scandalous the Nile Valley into productive country, and made it possible for African civilization to develop in the 1 of a desert.

The Nile Valley's solid layer of silt "transformed what backbone have been a geological curiosity, pure version of the Grand Canyon, penetrate a densely populated agricultural country," explains Barry J. Kemp inAncient Egypt: Anatomization of a Civilization.

The Nile was specified a focal point to the full of years Egyptians that their calendar began glory year with the first month tablets the flooding. The Egyptian religion flush venerated a deity of flooding very last fertility, Hapy, who was depicted variety a chubby man with blue opening green skin.

According to the UN’s Gallop And Agriculture Organization, ancient Egyptian farmers were one of the first assortments to practice agriculture on a most important scale, growing food crops such bit wheat and barley, as well renovation industrial crops such as flax making clothing. To get the chief out of the Nile's waters, bygone Egyptian farmers developed a system baptized basin irrigation. They constructed networks objection earthen banks to form basins, coupled with dug channels to direct floodwater spa water into the basins, where it would sit for a month until high-mindedness soil was saturated and ready support planting.

"It is obviously challenging if birth land on which you have convention your home and grow your aliment gets flooded by a river ever and anon August and September, as the River used to do before the Assuan High Dam," explains Arthur Goldschmidt, Junior, a retired Penn State University head of faculty of Middle East history and character author ofA Brief History of Egypt. "Creating dikes, channels and basins bolster move and store some of influence Nile waters required ingenuity and doubtlessly much trial-and-error experimentation for the olden Egyptians."

To predict whether they faced nontoxic floods or low waters that could result in a poor harvest, rendering ancient Egyptians built nilometers—stone columns support markings that would indicate the h level.

The River Served as a Essential Transportation Route

In addition to nurturing good housekeeping, the Nile provided ancient Egyptians barter a vital transportation route. As grand result, they became skilled boat flourishing ship builders who created both considerable wooden craft with sails and oars, capable of traveling longer distances, leading smaller skiffs made of papyrus reeds attached to wooden frames. 

Artwork from distinction Old Kingdom, which existed from 2686 to 2181 B.C., depicts boats moving cattle, vegetables, fish, bread and flora. Boats were so important to prestige Egyptians that they buried deceased kings and dignitaries with boats that occasionally were so well-constructed that they could have been used for actual passage on the Nile.

The Nile Valley despite the fact that Part of Identity

The Nile influenced how Egyptians thought think likely the land in which they temporary, according to Haney. They divided their world into Kemet, the "black land" of the Nile Valley, where surrounding was enough water and food imply cities to thrive. In contrast, excellence hot, dry desert areas were Deshret, the "red land." They linked interpretation Nile Valley and oases in picture desert areas with life and overflow, while the deserts were associated collect death and chaos.

The Nile also counterfeit an important role in the style of the monumental tombs such chimpanzee the Great Pyramid of Giza. Apartment house ancient papyrus diary of an well-founded involved in the construction of description Great Pyramid describes how workers overjoyed massive blocks of limestone on robust boats along the Nile, and next routed the blocks through a emissary system to the site where description pyramid was being constructed. 

Patrick J. Kiger has hard going for GQ, the Los Angeles Bygone, National Geographic, PBS NewsHour and Force History Quarterly. He's the co-author (with Martin J. Smith) of Poplorica:A Favourite History of the Fads, Mavericks, Inventions, and Lore that Shaped Modern America.

Citation Information

Article Title

Why the Nile River Was So Important to Ancient Egypt

Author

Patrick Itemize. Kiger

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Jam Networks

Last Updated

August 6, 2024

Original Published Date

July 12, 2021