How the Nile Shaped Ancient Egypt
We have water every day. For the Egyptians, however, the Nile River, their water source, meant the difference between life and death. Ancient Egypt was a very successful civilization, most famous for its pyramids, a huge structure shaped like a triangular prism that was used as tombs for their leaders, and mummies, which were bandaged corpses. Mummification was used to preserve dead bodies, and the way the Egyptians did it was ingenious for their time. It also took some serious thought and hard work to build a pyramid. These amazing things would not have happened without the Nile. The Nile River is the longest river in the world. It was surrounded on almost all sides by seemingly endless desert. There were
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In document B it says that in the flood season the Nile River fertilized the ground. The fertile ground made it great for crops and, as discussed in class, 95% of Egypts population were farmers. Also in Document B, it shows Egyptians made their seasons around the flooding of the Nile instead of the temperature. When the Nile flooded, it left fertile soil for crops. When it receded, it receded just enough to still fill the irrigation canals to carry
water to the crops. The other bodies of water did not flood regularly or predictably, and it would not matter if they did, since they were salt. The Nile River was dependable and the Egyptians depended on it.
The Nile helped Egypt develop its culture. In Document E, there is a hymn to the Nile that says “Hail to you, oh Nile, spring from the ground, come to keep the land alive…”. There is a festival, the Opet festival, in celebration of it. In Document D, it shows the Nile in the afterlife supporting the sun god, Ra, in a boat. Egyptians could not imagine life without it. The river allowed for trade routes and therefore more resources. With more resources, Egyptians could do more. So they did more, and they developed a culture and a religion. The Nile was worshipped as one of their gods because it helped them have
The Egyptians were very lucky to have the Nile River because without it they wouldn’t be able to survive. The Nile shaped Egypt by granting them with almost everything they needed. Where the Nileś source came from may have been a riddle to them but we know that came from Lake Tana which is the branch called the Blue Nile and from Lake Victoria which is the other branch called the White Nile. Egypt has been around for five thousand years and for all of those five thousand years the Nile River helped the Egyptians survive in Egypt. The Nile River shaped Ancient Egypt by setting a calendar, providing food and water,
The Nile was the source of everything in Ancient Egypt. Early people built their lives around a river, eventually developing into Ancient Egypt. The Nile did not shape Ancient Egypt literally, but culturally. The Nile grew Egypt’s crops, created its traditions, making jobs, giving life to and protecting all.
Evidence of this is in documents both D and E. If you look at document E, a hymn or spiritual song about the Nile states that people hailed to the Nile. In the analysis of the document E Greek Historian, Herodotus wrote that, “Egypt…is, so to speak, the gift of the Nile.” In document D the Nile influenced some tomb paintings. For example on page 65, the Nile borders the tomb painting and the plants wouldn’t be there without the Nile. Without the Nile, none of this would have been possible. This is because the sun god, Ra, provided fields and crops which could only be watered by the Nile, they hail to. The Nile was the support and backbone of all parts of Egyptian life. An additional way the Nile shaped ancient Egypt was population and settlement. Evidence of this can be found in document A. If you look at the picture in document A, people wanted to live near the Nile for a water source. When more and more people came and settled, the people near the Nile became civilized with a growing population. The people could have lived sporadically throughout Egypt. The reason that the Nile was so important to Egypt in this area was because it allowed people to be able to trade and have a drinking source. It let civilizations form and settle. If the Nile wasn’t there nobody would have been able to live
The Nile influenced Ancient Egypt in many ways. The first way is the flooding cycle. In paragraph six in,”How did the Nile shape Ancient Egypt it says”,”The flooding cycle determined the planting season for farmers. When it was planting season they grew flax for producing fine linen. They also harvested papyrus.
I believe ancient Egypt was “the gift of the Nile River” because of its location in the Sahara desert, and because of its dry location. The river provided water and soil which irrigated the Nile Delta. All farmers knew when it would flood, and prepare their fields. Ancient Egypt had very little contact with surrounding civilization for many centuries because of isolation. This kept foreign ideas and influences from disrupting their cultural balance and they were free of foreign invasion through most of their history.
Without the Nile River, Egypt today may not have existed. The Nile River helped shape Ancient Egypt’s diverse culture and various philosophies, which is what made it a very successful (if not the most successful) ancient civilization. The Nile did this in numerous ways such as allowing travel, producing art and religion, and flooding so that people could grow crops. Without the Nile, the success of Ancient Egypt would have been debateable. Ancient Egyptians did have the Nile River however, which led to their ultimate success for almost 3,000 years.
The Nile River was the life force of ancient Egypt. People from all over the region immigrated to the area for its irrigation waters and rich silt deposits. The geography of the region played a huge role in the way the inhabitants and civilization in general was formed. The main core of Egypt covered 386, 560 square miles, of which only 11, 720 were cultivable (Tignor et al., Worlds Together, 62). The Nile differed itself specifically from the Tigris and Euphrates in that its waters did not irrigate or fertilize nearly as well but it did create green belts along the water. This created a society that flourished along the river. The Nile unlike Mesopotamia did not have a bountiful borderland but did have a desert rich in materials. The Niles predictability as the source of life and abundance shaped the character of the people and their culture. (Tignor et al., Worlds Together, 63). The Nile was peaceful and calm unlike the vicious Tigris And Euphrates Rivers. Egypt with its natural borders, which included the Mediterranean Sea, Deserts, and Large Waterfalls, was very isolated. This helped to achieve
The Nile was a great river that provided good resources enabling the people of Egypt to survive without
Just as the Tigris and Euphrates rivers shaped the worldview of early Mesopotamians, The Nile shaped the world view of the Egyptians. The Nile River was easily navigated and fairly temperate, which made for one of the greatest agricultural regions in the world at that time. Like clockwork, each year the Nile River would flood the land, leaving behind nutrient-rich silt that provided a bountiful harvest the following season. Due to the agricultural success of the land that followed the Nile the majority of Egyptians would settle close to it shores. The Nile Rivers benevolent waters also allowed the Egyptians to transport its most valuable resources to the southern regions of Africa, especially the divine metal that had been endowed by the gods to Egypt's elite. Even today the Egyptians are considered to be the pioneers of water management.
It is continually praised throughout the text, that every God and Pharaoh praised the river for bringing them riches. It was a major influence to the inhabitants and their religion. The river made it possible for the people to actually live in the desert barren place, it was the only way could fertilize the land for crops and animals. The river did flood once in a while, but they were predictable compare to other regions. This allowed the people to prepare for the upcoming flood; but they weren’t so bad. The floods would bring in more water for the animals but also leave behind a plentiful amount of mud for soil use. The river brought people from all over to trade, to shape culture, religion, and arts to the Egyptian’s peoples
The Nile: The Heartbeat of Ancient Egypt Egypt was one of the most developed civilizations of its time. How was this possible? The Nile was an enormous part of Egypt’s success. It held Egypt together from the time of the first unification in 2920 B.C.E. to the time of Egypt’s downfall in 30 B.C.E. The Nile’s sources were Lake Tana in the Ethiopian highlands and Lake Victoria in Kenya. When Egypt began to develop into an empire, the Nile was needed more than ever.
Egypt was seen as one of the most important river valley civilizations. Many historians argue that the Nile was the main source that helped Egypt be as successful as it was, because of it’s source of life. The Nile was shaped the entire Ancient Egyptian society from the beginning because of it’s usefulness to the Egyptians. The Nile River helped shape Ancient Egypt because it provided protection from invaders, jobs, trade, food supply, and had god like features.
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
Egypt is the most iconic of the river valley civilizations and it is also one of the most significant civilizations of all. The trade mark of Egypt is the Nile River. It was the most Important part of the geography. The predictable and cyclical flooding of the Nile was what helped agriculture thrive in Egypt. Agriculture emerged in Egypt by 5,000 BCE. The flooding of the river acted as a perfect irrigation system for plants and silt that cam from the river was nutrient rich and helped grow plants at a great scale. Egyptian agriculture was so successful that there was a great surplus of food.
Most Egyptians lived near the Nile because it provided water, food, transportation and excellent soil for growing food. Ancient Egypt could not have existed without the Nile River. Since rainfall is almost non-existent in Egypt, the floods provided the only source of moisture to help with the crops. Every year, heavy summer rain in the Ethiopian highlands sent water that overflowed the banks of the Nile. When the floods went down it left thick, rich mud which made excellent soil to plant seeds in after the flood subsided.