The Nile Valley of Egypt
If civilization were a cake mix, then it certainly would require the addition of water. In a sense, that is exactly what caused the emergence of all early civilizations, perhaps most critically in the case of Egypt. The Nile River was critical to the development of Egyptian civilization, as can be seen in the ancient Egyptians’ reference to their country as the “Red and the Black.” The red represented the desert area and the black the Nile River valley, the fertile area for farming. Nearly all of the small area of Egypt that is inhabitable lies along the Nile valley and its Delta region. The rest is desert.
Nile River
The Nile is the longest river in the world, measuring over 4,000 miles. It begins as the White Nile in equatorial Africa, drawing its waters from large lakes, including the Victoria and Albert. A major tributary, the Blue Nile, begins in the mountains of Abyssinia (present day Ethiopia) and joins the White Nile at Khartoum in Nubia (present day Sudan), about 1,350 miles from the Mediterranean Sea. At Aswan (the site of a massive dam built in the 1960s), the Nile enters Egypt.
From Aswan to the city of Memphis, a distance of about 600 miles, the Nile runs through the southern part of Egypt, which the Egyptians called Upper Egypt because it was up river. At Memphis the Nile divides into channels, creating a swampy, triangular area through which the waters flow about 100 miles to the Mediterranean. This northern area was called Lower Egypt because it was down river. The ancient Greeks called it the Delta region because it resembled the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet.
Melting mountain snow and spring rains are carried by the Blue Nile into Egypt and cause the Nile to flood. This overflow, beginning each year early in June, carried the water and silt deposits that made the valley soil fertile and that also built up the Delta. Unlike in Mesopotamia, where we shall see the flooding was unpredictable, sudden, and ferocious, the flooding of the Nile in Egypt was predictable, gradual, and gentle. Soaking the valley from June until autumn, the Nile waters were seen as a blessing, a gift from the benevolent gods.
As a result, in contrast to the Mesopotamians who feared the often violent and massive flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the Egyptians’ only concern was that occasionally the Nile’s flooding might not be sufficient. For this reason, the Egyptians had to devise a means not of controlling, but of conserving the flood waters. This meant the construction of a series of canals and reservoirs to insure proper irrigation. The Egyptians created basin areas to trap the layers of silt that nourished the soil and hold the water needed to irrigate their crops. To do this work and manage the labor it required, the Egyptians developed the social organizations and institutions of their civilization.
The Egyptians sense of security was enhanced by another geographical factor - natural boundaries that inhibited invasions from nomadic peoples. To the east and west were great deserts; to the north the swampy coastline of the Delta; to the south the cataracts of the Nile. These provided the Egyptians with a degree of isolation and protection which allowed them to believe that the gods had created a special place for them.
The earliest settlers in Egypt were a mixture of peoples who migrated to the area from Arabia, Libya, and Palestine. They were mostly Caucasian racially, and their language belonged to the North African Hamitic tongue, modified through time by Semitic influences.
During the New Stone Age the people of the Nile valley began farming, gradually building the economic, social, religious, and political structures that would move them toward civilization. The predictable, gentle flooding of the Nile and the protection from invasion afforded by natural boundaries allowed for a remarkable continuity and stability in Egyptian history lasting for thousands of years. Compared with Mesopotamia, Egypt experienced few internal or external disturbances. This gave Egyptian civilization a sense of changelessness, which was embodied and reflected in Egyptian culture and institutions.
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