The final season, Shemu started the harvesting and began sometime in early march. This time was possibly the highlight of the year for an Egyptian peasant farmer as it celebrated the Festival of Min, the god of fertility. Farmers were overwhelmed in this harvesting season as it was a time when they harvested, threshed, winnowed, stored and transported the grain and flax. The scribes would finally record the harvest, carry out the census, assess and collect the taxes.
Due to the greatness in size of the Nile it was essential to have a central authority to control water supplies. The authority included government officials, skilled in calculation, measurement and writing. They were required to make predictions about the timing and nature of the flood, plan irrigation works, organize local community effort to get the land back in order after the flood, re-survey the land and mark out farm boundaries that had disappeared under the floodwaters. A famine occurred if the floodwaters were 1.5 metres lower than normal and if the water level was 30 – 60 centimeters higher than normal the consequence was destructive, causing serious damage to houses, dykes and canals. Such emergencies could only be handled by a large-scale community effort.
Responsible to the central government were the local nobles. They were in charge of conscripting, organizing and supervising large work gangs to build and maintain irrigation schemes. The nobles did not receive pay however their work remained necessary nonetheless. Land value and taxes were based on the height of the flood. For instance, some areas of land received more benefits from the flood than others and therefore had the potential for good harvest.
Nilometers were instruments used by the Egyptians to measure the maximum, minimum and average flow of the flood. A nilometer took the form of a staircase leading from the river. As the water level rose up, the amount of water was measured by grooves cut into the walls. In Strabo’s account of the nilometer he explains that the farmers use the nilometer to measure the flow of water, ‘…by the bureaucrats (officials) to establish the amount of taxes,’ and ‘In fact the higher the water the higher the taxes.’
The river was valued as a water highway to the Egyptians, as a road highway is to others. Just like a road highway links towns and cities, the Nile united villages and towns along its 900-kilometre length from the delta to the First Cataract. Transportation on land was difficult as much of it was desert, and horses or wheeled vehicles were not available until approximately 1600 BCE. There are two facts that made sailing along the Nile easy. The prevailing winds blew from north to south, so boats traveling upstream could simply use their sails. The river current ran from south to north, so in a boat the current aided traveling northwards. Additionally, this came to the hieroglyph for traveling south being a boat with a sail and the hieroglyph for traveling north being a boat with oars. Evidence for this came from tomb paintings on walls depicting boats in the tomb of Sennefer or as models in tombs such as that of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
The fertile riches of the Black Land offered building materials for domestic architecture, resources for Egyptian crafts and decorative themes for Egyptian art. The Red Land provided resources for sacred buildings and funerary and temple equipment. All domestic buildings were made of sun-dried bricks from Nile mud including the palaces for kings. Temples and tombs were built using limestone and sandstone from the surrounding desert cliffs. The finest limestone came from the limestone quarry at Tura and was used as the material for the pyramids.
Another resourceful natural product found along the Nile is papyrus reed. The papyrus grew abundantly along the marshes of the river and the swamps of the delta providing most of the raw materials for many items used in everyday life. The whole papyrus plant was utilised. The Egyptians made flat-bottomed fishing and fowling skiffs, sandals, ropes, baskets, mats and a fine white paper also called papyrus. Papyrus paper was a valuable product available to priests, officials and wealthy people only.
The deserts surrounding the Nile were not as worthless as they appear to be. In fact numerous semi-precious stones and valuable metals including gold and copper were found in the Red Land. Statues were sculpted from basalt and reddish quartzite, translucent jars and vessels were crafted from alabaster, funerary items and jewellery were made from gold and semi-precious stones such as turquoise, and tools were manufactured from copper.
The Nile River was not only used in its physicality but also used in motifs and public buildings for its beauty and distinctiveness. Birds, fish, ducks and flowering reeds of the river were used in sculpted friezes and painted scenes on the walls and floors of royal palaces and the houses of wealthy officials. An example of a frieze of ducks in papyrus marsh was found in one of Aketaten’s buildings. The papyrus plant and the blue lotus flowers were a popular choice of art used by craftsmen and architects. Evidence of decorative art the Egyptians based on the Nile can be seen in an alabaster lamp in the shape of three lotus flowers from Tutankhmun’s tomb. The mass columns in great temples were designed to look like reeds, lotus flowers and buds, and palms. Such columns can be seen in the temple of Karnak. This form of art tried to impose the flourishing vegetation of the marshes.
Religious beliefs were encouraged by the nature of the land. Egyptians based their myths by simultaneously merging them with features of the environment. For instance, a feature of the land included the annual flood of the Nile valley and the myth was that in the beginning the whole earth was covered with water (the waters of chaos or the primeval ocean called Nun). Then the floodwaters receded small hills or mounds of earth emerged and the myth being that from the waters a mound or an island emerged. Lastly, the rich silt covering the land sprang new life and the myth that the first god appeared on the mound and created life (the first time).
Most Egyptian gods were symbolic of the natural environment such as the sun, the Nile River and the rejuvenating flood and silt. Other gods represented creatures found in the Nile, such as the falcon and cobra. Representing the sun was Re who was the most important god. The sun god Re came in many forms including that of a falcon-headed man with a sun disc on his head. The spirit of the Nile was known as Hapi. The Egyptians illustrated him as a man with a pendulous belly (prosperity), the breasts of a woman (fertility), cluster of lotus and papyrus plants on his head (plant symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt), girdle/belt (worn by fishermen along the river) and a table of offerings (abundance). For good floods prayers were offered to him, and hymns were recited that praised the one who comes to nourish Egypt and as the creator of every good thing. Osiris was the icon behind the life-giving flood (silt) and new growth. Seth was associated with the desert and with every other frightening thing in nature- wind, rain, storms and thunder.
The contrast between the fertile Black Land and the arid Red Land were compared to that of their belief in life and death. The east was where people generally lived. The western desert became the Land of the Dead, where the necropolises were located. This is how Anubis (god of the dead and guardian of the necropolis) got his image from the jackals that roamed the desert. During the New Kingdom, the Egyptians believed that life after death would be spent in the Field of Reeds, a place much like the delta with lush meadows, watercourses and canals. Kings were believed to have spent eternity riding across the sky in the boat of Re.
Egypt’s total dependence on the water of the Nile reflected from Egyptian morality. The prevention of a neighbour’s water supply was regarded in the same as committing theft or even murder. In reference to tomb inscriptions, officials referred to sins they had not committed. One being: I have not fouled running water.
Furthermore, one can see the extent The Nile River has had to the ancient Egyptians from transportation and even religious beliefs. Both the Black and the Red Lands of Upper and Lower Egypt offered great benefits for the Egyptian society. Today, the Nile stands as one of Egypt’s prime natural resources with 99 percent of the population still in its inhabitance. It is the cradle of Egyptian civilisation and nevertheless, The River has ultimately transformed an almost waste of desert into one of the most fertile areas on earth. Without the Nile Egypt would undoubtedly be unrelieved desert.