Published On:Sunday, 29 January 2017
Posted by ARAB GAZETTE. weekly newspaper issued on Sunday morning - London, UNITED KINGDOMمؤسسة الوطن العربى الإعلامية - لندن ، المملكة المتحدة . WA MEDIA FOUNDATION - LONDON, UK
HISTORY OF EGYPT , The Nile as lifeline
HISTORY OF EGYPT , The Nile as lifeline
ARAB GAZETTE - Cairo
The Nile as lifeline: from 6000 BC
From about 6000 BC various communities of hunter-gatherers make the Nile the centre of their territory, around which they roam. But the drying of the Sahara increasingly confines them to the river area. The unusual habit of this great river - flooding every year and depositing a layer of rich moist soil on the surrounding region - is ideally suited to the development of settled agriculture. The river takes upon itself two otherwise laborious tasks, irrigation and the enriching of the soil.
By about 3100 BC these communities have become sufficiently prosperous and stable to be united in a single political entity - the first Egyptian dynasty.
The first dynasty: from c.3100 BC
The unifying of Upper and Lower Egypt into a single kingdom is the event pointed to by the ancient Egyptians themselves as the beginning of their civilization.
Lower Egypt is roughly the broad delta of the river, where it separates into many branches before flowing into the Mediterranean. Upper Egypt is the long main channel of the river itself, possibly as far upstream as boats can reach - to the first waterfall or cataract, at Aswan.
Egyptian tradition credits the uniting of Upper and Lower Egypt to a king called Menes. But that is merely a word meaning 'founder'. It is possible that the real historical figure is a ruler by the name of Narmer, who features in warlike mood in superb low-relief carving on a plaque of green siltstone (now in the Egyptian museum in Cairo).
Whatever the name, the first historical dynasty is brought into being by the king or pharaoh who in about 3100 BC establishes control over the whole navigable length of the Nile. His is the first of thirty Egyptian dynasties, spanning nearly three millennia - an example of social continuity rivalled in human history only by China.
In the early centuries, and again in the closing stages of ancient Egypt, the capital is at Memphis, near modern-day Cairo. But at the peak of Egyptian power, during the period from about 2000 to 1200 BC, the city of Thebes - several hundred kilometres up the Nile - is a place of greater importance.
The pyramids remain today to show the early greatness of Memphis, in the period known as the Old Kingdom. Similarly the temples of Karnak and Luxor are witness to the extravagant wealth of Thebes during the eras described as the Middle Kingdom and the New Empire.
