Ancient Egyptian Agriculture
There are many valid points to be made in Ancient Egyptian agriculture. Irrigation, ploughing and planting, harvesting, and of course, crops. These will be some of the subtopics I will be touching upon in this essay of ancient Egyptian agriculture.
Irrigation
When the Nile is overflowing, it floods the Delta and the lands called Libyan and Arabian, for a distance of a journey of two days from both banks in places, and sometimes, sometimes less. I could not learn anything about its nature, neither from the priests nor from anyone else. I was curious to learn why the Nile is flooding for a hundred days from the summer solstice; and when this time is passed, sinks again, and the river is low during the whole winter until the summer solstice again.
-Herodotus, Histories 2,19
Above, is a quote from a man recovered from an article of writing back in the ancient Egyptian times. Irrigation is a form of re-routing water, to parts of land that the water is needed, in farming terms. For Example, there are two crops, one crop is getting all the water, and it’s flooding. With irrigation, the farmer will re-route the water towards the other crop, as well as sharing the water with the crop that was being flooded. So now, both crops are getting enough water and they are not flooding nor suffering from drought.
Natural river irrigation shaped the early landscape of ancient Egypt. Drainage was not required for the Valley to become liveable. With the natural flooding and draining of the floodplain, the annual flood allowed a single crop-season over two-thirds of the alluvial ground. Once the main canals, many of them natural, were in place, they just had to be scoured yearly to prevent their clogging up. The levees had to be raised, and smaller ditches had to be re-excavated.
Organized by the regional authorities, every Egyptian had to move about thirty cubic metres of soil in about ten days every year. With this relatively small investment of labour, they kept the system in working order. Once the main canals, many of them natural, were in place, they just had to be dredged y...
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...e methods used by tax-collectors.
Crops
Crops, are the fruits, vegetables, or grain that grows from the seeds that they plant during the ploughing and planting season. There were many crops that held important values, or that were more valued than other crops, much like today.
Important crops were emmer, barley, wheat, pekha, a type of corn that is not known of, flax, beans and chickpeas, lettuce, onions, leeks, dill, grapes, melons and gourds, the naturally happening papyrus reeds which was used as most of us know for papyrus paper on which the scribes used to write on, and the castor oil plant that was used for money making. (Literally)
As you can tell, the Egyptians established themselves as well-thought out farmers who knew pretty much exactly what they were doing. Many of the methods they used were used even up until the 1900’s before common machinery came about. That’s amazing, that something that started so far back, could last for so long. Technology came along only a little while ago, and basically just “upgraded” the Egyptians ideas when it came to agricultural development.
The first way that the Nile shaped Ancient Egypt was through population distribution. According to document A, the map of Ancient Egypt, a lot of people lived among the Nile. But a majority lived by the delta. Living among the Nile and by the delta gave people fresh drinking water, good farmland, and ways of trading and transportation. The Red Land was land desert area that protected
STEM, also known as Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, is the field that is advancing at a rapid rate. Within STEM, there are many occupations across the four fields. As years go on, more and more people start to have a growing interest in STEM, but this can’t be said for women. Women almost take up half of the workforce, but when it comes to STEM, women only take about 24%, almost half of the women aren’t participating in STEM. The numbers continue to get worse. From 2000 - 2009, the numbers have remained at a constant 24%. At this rate, employers could potentially see a decline in women’s representation, but there have been efforts to change this rate (Beede et al par. 6). This could mean disastrous problems in the world as more problems will arise and there’s nothing to be done because companies are non-diverse and
The Egyptians had three four-month seasons (Doc B). The seasons were flooding (Akhet), planting (Peret) and harvesting (Shemu). The Nile set the Egyptian calendar and the agricultural cycle for farmers’ work activity and crop growth. Several occupations depended on the Nile River (Doc C). Sailors, boat builders, fishermen and farmers depended on the river transport to market crops and make money. The Egyptians used sailboats, barges and tugs for transportation and trade (Doc C). The Nile was like the superhighway of ancient Egypt. It helped them move crops and goods up and down the river and sell beyond their local market. Nothing could happen without the Nile.
Beer and bread were the Egyptians most important food. The beer had to be strained and the bread was gritty. Wheat and barley were their main crops. Food was prepared many different ways such as cooking, boiling or grilling. Only the rich and wealthy were able to afford wine, and some even had dishes made of gold.
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
Most Egyptians were farmers. The river Nile encouraged agriculture by providing a source of irrigation and also fertile black soil. Agriculture created most of Egypt’s wealth. Grain, vegetables, fruit, cattle, goats, pigs and fowl were grown, and fish from the Nile were caught, and eventual surpluses, after deduction of the various taxes, were sold on the markets. The main crops grown in Egypt were wheat, barley, lettuce, beans, onions, figs, dates, grapes, melons, and cucumbers. The pharaoh was the controller of the jobs.
The spring before my freshman year in high school, I had broken my thumb, ironically playing softball; it was the prime time for my undefeated ASA team, Crush, to literally crush our opponents, but I didn’t even get to play one game. Later on, during summer, my cast finally came off and I was excited to get back into the scheme of softball. My friends and I were like the characters
But, like Gatsby, they both were unhappy in life. They were unable to have the American Dream because one of the aspects of the American Dream is having a successful marriage. Tom had an affair with Myrtle Wilson. Daisy was in love with Gatsby. Daisy refused to leave Tom although she knew about his mistresses and she was treated poorly in the marriage. “The fact that Tom had a mistress was insisted upon wherever he was known. His acquaintances resented the fact that he turned up in popular restaurants with her and, leaving her at a table, sauntered about, chatting with whomever he knew” (Fitzgerald 31). Tom bragged about how he had mistresses and showed no respect towards Daisy. It seemed like Tom and Daisy had the American Dream, but their personal lives were a mess. The common theme of the failed American Dream could be the reason why some characters did not believe in
Although I was on the team, I was the only one who had never been an All-Star. I spent most of the tournament on the bench. But there were a few times when I had to go up and pinch-hit. I loved those times. I actually came through with a few clutch hits. Eventually, we made it to the championship game. Because we had lost our first game of the tournament, we were in the loser's bracket, and had to beat our opponent twice to advance to the next tournament. I am an extremely competitive person (probably the most competitive I know) and I was pumped up. But we lost our composure, and then lost the game. Needless to say I was more than a little depressed by the whole situation.
As a cultural relativist, one would believe that morality is culturally bound. This is a subjective idea that believes “different societies have different moral codes” (Rachels,
One person may think that another person is doing something wrong. However, the other person may believe they are surely doing the right thing. For example, disciplining a child by smacking a ruler against their palm may be viewed as a torturous act. To the person disciplining that child, this is the right thing to do. Unfortunately, altercations can occur. One person might attempt to berate the other person in an attempt to end their actions. However, some ethical standards overlap in some ways: people with different ethical standards might agree that physically disciplining a child is not the right thing to do. In another example, Someone might say that it is right to cover themselves from head-to-toe with cloth. Whereas, another person might think it is normal for them to dress in a T-shirt and some shorts. When these two people confront each other, they may begin to gaze with confusion, or even hatred, and think that the other person is doing something wrong. Who is right? Should the other person cover up, or should the covered person “loosen up?” Unfortunately, when referencing Cultural Relativism, one cannot give an answer to that. In general, Cultural Relativism is unable to tell us how to determine what is right or wrong, it simply tells us that there is no universal right or wrong. This doesn’t help when beliefs differ and issues arise. It puts people in a rough spot as they won’t know how to judge
Viewed from this perspective, the argument for cultural relativism is not valid. For example, the premise could be female circumcision is allowed and moral in Nigeria. Female circumcision is prohibited and immoral in the U.S. Therefore, the conclusion, would be that female circumcision is neither moral nor immoral, objectively. Simply stating, there are some beliefs that are viewed as moral by one culture and immoral by another culture does not prove whether it is objectively right or wrong.
The practices of many cultures are varied from one another, considering we live in a diverse environment. For example, some cultures may be viewed as similar in comparison while others may have significant differences. The concept of Cultural Relativism can be best viewed as our ideas, morals, and decisions being dependent on the individual itself and how we have been culturally influenced. This leads to many conflict in where it prompts us to believe there is no objectivity when it comes to morality. Some questions pertaining to Cultural Relativism may consists of, “Are there universal truths of morality?” “Can we judge
Cultural relativism is the idea that moral and ethical systems varying from culture to culture, are all equally credible and no one system is morally greater than any other. Cultural relativism is based on the concept that there is no “ultimate” standard of good and evil, so the judgement of what is seen as moral, or immoral, is simply a product of one’s society and/or culture. The general consensus of this view is that there is no ethical position that may be considered “right” or “wrong” in terms of society and culture (Cultural Relativism). In this paper I will argue that cultural relativism is not an adequate view of morality by providing evidence of its most common logical problems and faulty reasoning.
Providing extremely fertile soil is one, if not the most important, roles the Nile River played in the life of the ancient Egyptians. By providing fertile soil, the Nile made it easy for cities and civilizations to grow alongside the banks of the river. This fertile soil comes from the annual flooding of the Nile. This replenishes the top soil with silt deposits that hold much needed nutrients for crops to grow. Ancient Egyptians developed highly complex irrigation methods to maximize the effect of the Nile waters. When the Nile overflows in mid summer, Egyptians divert the waters through the use of canals and dams. As the water seeped into the farm land, rich deposits of silt ensured a good harvest for the year. This allows the civilizations of Egyptians to grow enough food to feed the community. Without the annual flooding of the Nile, Egyptians would have a very difficult time growing necessary amount food to sustain life. Most of the land in the Egyptian nation is dry desert. Very little rain falls year round here. The river provides the needed water to grow the crops as well as provide drinking water for the people. Th...