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Importance of the Nile to the ancient Egyptians
Importance of the Nile to the ancient Egyptians
The role of Nile in ancient Egypt
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“Egypt… is, so to speak, the gift of the Nile.”- A famous Greek historian Herodotus once said. Ancient Egypt lasted almost 3000 years long. It started with the first pharaoh in 2920 BC. The Nile flows down the mountains into the Great Salt Sea. How did the Nile form ancient Egypt? The Nile shaped Ancient Egypt in several areas of Egyptian life. Three of these were drinking water, transportation, and irrigation. One area shaped by the Nile was a source of drinking water. The Egyptians needed water to survive like anyone else. When they found the Nile they had a clean water source. The Egyptians used the Nile to gather water for the civilization. The reason the Nile’s effect on drinking water was significant was because without water to drink
One of the biggest needs for a civilisation is food, transportation, and crops/plants. Done, done and done with all their rivers. Stated in Document 2, “They provided many resources which included food, transportation, as well as plants.” That all came from the rivers they had, like the Nile River.. Also, stated in document 1, “the Nile provided a fertile area in the middle of a desert.” so they needed it for crops.
Do you know the name of the mighty, 4,160-mile-long river that runs through eastern Africa? If you guessed the Nile, then yes, you are correct. But other than setting the record of being the longest natural river in the world, the Nile has been of great importance to the people of Ancient Egypt. In fact, without the Nile River, Ancient Egypt as we know it today would never have existed! Therefore, the Nile River shaped life in Ancient Egypt through economy, religion, and government.
Egypt has one of the longest histories of any nation in the world. Written history of Egypt dates back to about 5,000 years, the commencement of civilization. While there is divergence in relation to Early Egyptian times, it is said that Egypt came to be around 3200 B.C., during the reign of a king by the name of Menes and unified the northern and southern cities of Egypt into one government. In 1675 B.C., Egypt was invaded by the Hyksos, people from the east, bringing along the very first of chariots and horses ever to come across Egyptian soil. Approximately 175 years later in 1500 B.C., the Egyptians had gotten rid of the Hyksos and driven them out. In 1375 B.C., Amenhotep IV had become the king of Egypt. During his reign he eliminated the worship of Egyptian gods and initiated the idea of only worshipping one god. But after his death, his ideas were retired and old ways were reestablished. Egyptian supremacy then started to decline around 1000 B.C. Between 1000 B.C. and 332 B.C., Egypt was ruled by many such as the Libyans, Assyrians, Ethiopians, and Persians. In 640, Muslims conquered Egypt and founded the city of Cairo in 969 and deemed it as the capital of Egypt. For many centuries Egypt was ruled by Muslim caliphs. A prominent ruler of this period was Saladin, who battled the Christian Crusaders at the conclusion of the twelfth century. In 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt but was then forced to withdraw in 1801 Turkish and British armed forces. In 1805 Mohamed Ali began ruling Egypt till 1848 and great changed the country in terms of modernization and its military. During Mohamed’s conquest, he borrowed a lot of money from the French and British, which later resulted in Egypt’s coloniza...
All waterways, including oceans and seas, played a major role in how civilizations interacted. Water provided a means of travel and a steady source of food for ancient cultures. If there was not a solid source of water to develop farming, early civilizations like the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, or the Indus River civilizations would not have survived.
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
The gift of the Nile was when the Nile river would flood into Egypt which would renew the soil and make the ground farmable. This contributed to the Nile river civilization because it allowed those people who lived by the Nile to farm and keep a steady source of food. This is how Egypt was able to form one of the First Nations in
Around 5000 BC, one of the first great civilizations developed in the northern Nile river valley dependent on agriculture in a land called Egypt. Water; Fertile soil; and river's flow north while prevailing wind blows south made the Nile the best transportation way, were examples of the Nile gifts. Another gift is that every year the flood came bringing disaster and famine due to destroying the crops and their villages. The first forms of government appeared in Egypt when the Egyptians organized their efforts under one leadership to avoid the disasters of the yearly flood.
The Nile was unarguably the main reason for the existence of Ancient Egypt. With no river to break the expanse of desert, settlement would have been impossible. In reality, the Nile was the starting heartbeat of the growth of the Ancient Egyptian culture. Egypt's geographical positioning in the north east of Africa was not a fortunate placement, but it was fortunate for the growth of this civilization that man learned to harness the power and agricultural riches of the longest river in the world.
The people of ancient Egypt knew that food and water were a necessity to survival. The article “People Of Ancient Egypt” talks about how the ancient Egyptians solved the issue of the flood not rising some years, And water being scarce in those years.
The Egyptian Civilization revolved around the Nile River because of how rich and fertile their land would get and how close it was to them. Soon the Egyptian Astronomers realized that the flooding of the Nile occurred at a constant pattern each year, therefore they started to use the stars as a tool to predict when the Nile would flood again and be able to farm to achieve their best amounts of crops.
The Nile River played an important role in the success of ancient Egypt. Even though Egypt is surrounded by sand, the ancient Egyptians managed to thrive by using the water of the Nile and building an empire. The Egyptians view of birth cycles, the afterlife, comes from the rise and fall of the Nile. They are one of the first civilizations to believe in the afterlife. When someone died, the Egyptians prepared the dead according to rituals. They built monuments to entomb their rulers and family, and left items for the dead to use on their way to the afterlife.
Civilizations in close proximity to a river had a source of water for drinking, bathing, cooking, and irrigation purposes. As salt water accounted for the majority of the Earth’s water supply, people had to dig a well or live near a freshwater river or stream to have access to life-giving water and survive. The Nile River, located in Egypt, is the world’s longest river. It provided for the Egyptian’s water requirements in abundance. This plentiful supply of fresh water was a constant source of enrichment to the people’s lives.
The Nile River played a major role in society for ancient Egypt. There was tons of variety and it was one of the most important things to happen in Egypt. The Nile River caused a huge new role for religion, and showed the birth of many gods. It was a miraculous time for trade bringing the system to a whole new level. New technology was being discovered which started a revolution of its own. It was named “The Gift of the Nile” because of the fertile land it was found on where tons of crops and soil came across. Hopefully one day there will be another event like “Gift of the
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.
In conclusion, the Nile river made Egypt successful and prosperous for many reasons. The Nile river supplied the people a safe and secure place to live and raise families. It also supplied all the jobs for people that lived around it. From boat building and fishing all the way to growing crops and the ability to trade with different parts of Egypt. The Nile river also kept the Egyptians from having different religions tell them that what they were doing was wrong and confusing the people on if they should follow the pharaoh or this new-found