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The importance of Nile to Egypt
The importance of Nile to Egypt
The importance of the Nile to ancient Egypt
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Agriculture and Food Production in the Old Kingdom Egypt
Agriculture and food production are quite literally the skills that feed a civilization. Old Kingdom Egypt excelled in this area. Egypt’s high success in agriculture was due to many things, ranging from a near constant climate, to the Nile and its annual inundations causing the land to be inexhaustible, to Egypt’s vast amount of other natural resources.
This paper will only give a general overview of the more popular resources yielded by agriculture and food production in Old Kingdom Egypt. The Nile is of particular importance, as it was the source of life in Egypt. Egypt’s crop fields are the product of the fertile kamat soil. Egypt’s primary concern was on cereal crops that’s yields had various functions. Egypt’s marshlands provided Egypt with plants that could provide oil as well as building materials. It was also a source of a wide range of species of fish. Animal husbandry was particularly important in Old Kingdom Egypt, especially when dealing with cows. Cattle were a source of milk, of meat, and of prize animals. Both practically and religiously functional, the cow had a special place in Old Kingdom Culture. As previously stated, one cannot look at agriculture in Egypt without first examining the source of life, the Nile River.
II. The Nile
The Nile waters made farming and food production possible in Egypt. These waters provided the minerals, humidity, and irrigation that the Egyptians needed to grow their fields, as well as the drinking water necessary for animals. Literally speaking, the Nile made life possible in Egypt. The Nile tended to follow a constant cycle of flooding and receding. This pattern was particularly important for Egyptian agriculture.
II.A) Inundation
Inundation was a process pivotal to the success of an Egyptian’s field crop. Inundation was the annual flooding of the Nile. It was caused by rainfall in “Central Africa and melting snow in the Ethiopian highlands.” The Inundation could be both a harbinger of wealth or death. If the inundation was too low, there was famine, if the inundation was to high, there was destruction of land and property. An inundation of seven to eight metres was the ideal. The inundation was very important because it was the vehicle which brought minerals, and thus fertility to the Egyptian soil. As the waters gathered and grew high,...
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... examples of cow cults found in the Old Kingdom.
Egypt was a thriving agricultural civilization during the Old Kingdom; however, one must keep in mind that none of this would have been possible without the Nile River. The Nile was the source of all life in Egypt. It provided the minerals, humidity and water for the field crops, it provided the grazing grounds for the cattle, it was an area that yielded various species of fish and birds, and it was the source of life.
Bibliography
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Budge, Sir E.A. Wallis. The Dwellers on the Nile. New York/London: Benjamin Blom Inc, 1972.
Erman, Adolf. Life in Ancient Egypt. New York/London: Benjamin Blom Inc, 1969.
Giroux, Farirar Straus. An Introduction to Ancient Egypt. New York/London: British Museum Publications Limited, 1979.
Montet, Pierre. Everyday Life in Egypt – in the Days of Rameses the Great. London: Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd, 1958.
Kees, Hermann. Ancient Egypt: A Cultural Topography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961
Final Word Count: 3,732 (not including footnotes text)
Water, flood seasons, Ancient Egypt. The Nile was a very important in shaping Ancient Egypt. There would be nothing without the Nile. There wouldn't be people, civilizations, or really anything if the Nile wasn't there. People used the Nile for everything from season to transportation to drinking water. The Nile shaped Ancient Egypt in population distribution, Economics, and Spiritual life.
Scott, N. The Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series, Vol. 31, No. 3, The Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians (Spring, 1973), pp. 123-170
Geography affected the River Valley of Ancient Egypt in many ways. The flooding of the Nile River left behind a rich black silt along its river banks, that was used for farming. The Nile River was very predictable and flooded every year from June to September. This lead to a food surplus and a stable society. Also, it was easy to travel on the Nile which helped King Mene unify Egypt for the first time in 3100 BCE. Egypt had the best natural boundaries of all the river valleys. They were surrounded by the Saharan desert to the east, west, and south. To the north lay only the Mediterranean Sea. This lead to protection from attackers. Egypt had bountiful natural resources. They had gold, metals, stone and salts. But they lacked fine wood. There resources gave them the ability to trade away some of their resources for what they lacked. Egypt had great geographical conditions and th...
Hause, S., & Maltby, W. (2001). The Ancient Near East: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Phoenicia and Israel. Essentials of Western Civilization (pp.7-15). California: Wadsworth.
Agriculture- farming in Egypt was completely depended on the Nile River. If you were to go a couple miles farther away from the Nile River you would see nothing but bone dry desert so the Nile was very important to the Egyptians. Flooding season lasted from June to September, depositing a layer of silt beside the river. After the flooding season was over growing season lasted from October to February Egypt had very little rain fall so farmers made canals and ditches to the field.
Conscious of the geographical region, Egyptians settled around the Nile, as the Nile provided substance (agriculture, irrigation, trading routes, etc.). The Egyptians noticed that the Nile would flood regularly, and exploited this natural flooding by building an irrigation system to support their agriculture, as well as their society. “Hymn to the Nile” depicts this prosperous age of agriculture, “Lord of the fish, during the inundation, no bird alights on the crops. You create the grain, you bring forth the barley, assuring perpetuity to the temples.” ("Ancient History Sourcebook: Hymn to the Nile, c. 2100 BCE."). However, the Nile might have contributed to the eventual collapse of ancient Old Kingdom Egyptian civilization. The Nile partially destroyed the society that it had once nurtured. A series of low or high floods over the course of a few years immensely impacted their agriculture, which in turn created epidemics of famine and civil unrest. The Egyptian civilization eventually prospered once more, only centuries later and with new social
Dracula is “un-dead”, once human before his vampire state and clearly separate from human form, establishing his frightening allure. His fangs, hands and sharp nails are horrifying up close. He is not corpse at first look, mysteriously resisting the decay of death. Dr. Seward comments, “she was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever; and I could not believe she was dead” on Lucy’s vampire state (Stoker 200). At several points in the novel Dracula is life like, “simply gorged with blood; he lay like a leech, exhausted with his repletion” (Stoker 52). The monstrous life in death is an “essential gift of Stoker’s vampires to the twentieth century; a reminder, not of the dreadfulness of death, but the innate horror of vitality” ( Auerbach 95). Edward is opposite in appearance to Dracula. The venom from the bite that transforms human into vampire freezes their appearance forever. Edward was bitten at 17, and never labeled as horrifying.
Hawass,Zahi. Egyptology at the Dawn of the Twentity-first Century. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2000.
Wilkinson, Toby A. H.. The rise and fall of ancient Egypt. New York: Random House, 2010. Print.
There are multiple theories of knowledge used around the world. Descartes believed theory to be like a tree, dependant on simple yet strong roots, and a well-built stem with more defined, detailed leaves coming off of it the higher it grew. Following
Maspero, Gaston. Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt. 1895. Print.
The Nile River is arguably one of the most important water sources in the world and has an extremely rich history dating back thousands of years. Without the Nile, the ancient Egyptian civilization would have never existed. Egypt is basically a whole lot of sand and not much else, except they have the Nile River flowing through it, on it’s way to the Mediterranean sea. The ancient Egyptians lived along the Nile River and it provided them with abundant water, food (fish) and the opportunity to develop agriculture along it’s banks. The Nile River was also used for transportation and trade with other regions because land travel was more difficult than floating on the river. The Ancient Egyptians were at the mercy of the seasonal flooding and droughts but learned to work within the natural system of the River and weather cycles (Carnegie Museum of Natural History). Modern people, however were more interested in conquering nature, rather than living in harmony with it.
Egypt is known as the gift of the Nile, but why well that is what this paper is all about. For starters Egypt would not be the place it is today without the Nile it would be reduced to a dry uninhabitable desert. The Nile provides water to the entire land and as we all know water is a necessity for all life to exist. Another thing that the Nile supplies is silt, this silt is full of nutrients that makes farming not only possible but actually a lot easier than it is here in the states . The Nile also makes trade with nearby cities and towns possible so supplies are never short.
The Nile River had great influence on Ancient Egyptian culture. The Nile is the longest river in the world, that is located in Africa, was the source of livelihood for the ancient Egyptians as it was used for trade and hunting, as well as, drinking and fishing. It was also used for bathing and other hygiene purposes. It was the source of Ancient Egypt’s wealth, treasures, and the greatest arteries supplied the land with blessings and drown ancient Egyptians in various graces through the ages as the emitter of life in Egypt and the source of its existence, because it watered ancient Egyptian’s lands. The Nile had the greatest impact on timeless civilization that originated on it in the past ages, the Nile held oldest civilization immortalized in history. Ancient Egyptians could not have survived without the Nile River, which in essence, inspired their way of living, “The country’s verdant green fields and bountiful food resources depended on the fertile soil of the Nile flood plain” (Silverman 12). In turn, many ancient
The Nile played an important role in the life of the ancient Egyptians. It makes life in the deserts of Egypt possible. It provided drinking water, a source of irrigation for crops, and most importantly the fertile soil used to grow crops. Without the Nile River it would have been difficult for Egyptian civilizations to survive. The Nile provided the crucial resources needed by a growing civilization. It caused all the ancient Egyptian communities to develop alongside the river. It also created a way of transportation of goods and people. This caused the development of boats and other water traveling methods.