The Blue Nile: The Nile River

Stretching out at an estimated 4,258 miles long, the Nile is the longest river of northeast Africa, and arguably, the longest river in the world. The Nile River has two main tributaries, the White Nile, and the Blue Nile. The White Nile begins just south of the equator, and flows northward through Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and South Sudan. The Blue Nile begins in Ethiopia, at Lake Tana, and flows into South East Sudan. The two tributary rivers meet near Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. From here the Nile continues flowing north towards Cairo, where it separates into the Nile delta, and empties into the Mediterranean Sea. Lake Victoria, the source of the White Nile, and the Nile delta’s mouth on the Mediterranean Sea, lie within one

Swimming was a very popular sport and according to Epic Eras-Ancient Egypt, “Some of the wealthier classes had pools built for princes to learn and practice the sport.” Besides swimming, the people enjoyed water jousting in which two-man teams in canoes, a ‘fighter’ and a ‘rower’, would compete in trying to knock each other’s fighter out of the boat. Fishing also became a very popular sport once it was no longer a necessity for survival because of irrigated crops. There are many drawings depicting people fishing from the Old and New Kingdoms of Ancient Egypt. The Roman playwright Seneca the Younger, described another boat sport in which, “The people embark [on the Nile] on small boats, two to a boat, and one rows while the other bails out water. Then they are violently tossed about in the raging rapids. At length they reach the narrower channels and, swept along by the whole force of the river, they control the rushing boat by hand and plunge head downward to the great terror of the onlookers. You would believe sorrowfully that by now they were drowned and overwhelmed by such a mass of water, when far from the place where they fell, they shoot out as from a catapult, still sailing, and the subsiding wave does not submerge them, but carries them on to smooth waters.” This is comparable to the modern-day sport of White Water Kayaking, where kayakers board small, agile kayaks and paddle through

Ancient Egyptians would create small boats out of papyrus to sail along the river. People would travel along the river for many reasons, whether it be to find a new home, travel to other cities, to find work, or even trade. According to reshafim.org.il, Egyptians and their trading partners sailed along the Nile River to trade their goods, but sometimes also traveled to and from the Eastern or Western Deserts. Egyptians bartered with their precious resources, including gold, papyrus, linen, and grain. Ancient Egypt only used a barter system until the Roman Egypt era, where foreign coin currency was first introduced. And with the introduction of currency came the need for banking and other related services. From the article, Domestic Trade, “…people could deposit grain in state warehouses and write withdrawal orders which served as payment. Increasingly these banks began to deal with money instead of perishable