Ancient Egypt - Archive
Adolf Erman
excerpt from
Life In Ancient Egypt
CHAPTER 1
THE LAND OF EGYPT
The Nile receives its last great tributary, the Blue Nile, near Khartum,
in about the 17th degree of north latitude. Above the town the river flows
quietly through grassy plains; below, the stream changes its peaceful
character, as it makes its way through the great table-land of the north of
Africa, and in an immense bend of over 950 miles forces a passage through the
Nubian sandstone. In some places where the harder stone emerges through the
sandstone, the river, even after thousands of years, has not succeeded in
completely breaking through the barrier, and the water finds its way in rapids
between the hard rocks.
There are ten of these so-called cataracts, and they play an important and
sometimes an unhappy part in the development of Egypt and the Sudan. It is
owing to them that intercourse by boats is rendered almost impossible between
the Upper and Lower Nile except during high Nile, and even then there is risk
of accidents happening to larger boats passing through these rapids. The
last of these cataracts is 7 miles long, and forms the natural boundary of
Egypt proper; close to it is situated the town of Assuan, the old Syene.
Below Assuan the character of the country again changes, and the valley,
which in Nubia never exceeded 5 to 9 miles in width, broadens out, its
greatest extent being, in one place, as much as 33 miles from side to side.
The reason of this change is that at Gebel Silsileh, some way below Assuan,
the sandstone (found throughout Nubia) gives way to limestone which forms
cliffs bounding the river for nearly 475 miles. When the Nile reaches the
Delta the limestone again gives place to later geological formations.
Thus Egypt in its entire lenath is framed in rocky walls, which sometimes
reach a height of 600 to 800 feet; they form the stereotyped horizon of all
landscape views in this country. These limestone hills are not mountains in
our sense of the word. Instead of rising to peaks, they form the edge of a
large table-land with higher plateaus here and there. This table-land is
entirely without water, and is covered with the sand of the desert, which is
continually trying to trickle down into the Nile, by channels grooved in the
steep monotonous wall. On the west this barren plateau joins the shifting
sand-dunes of the Sahara, which have never been thoroughly explored. About
95 miles from the river, and running parallel with it, are some remarkable
dips in this table-land. These “oases” are well watered and very
fruitful, but with these exceptions there is no vegetation in this desolate
waste, which from old times has been called the Libyan desert. To the east
of the Nile is a similar limestone plateau called the Arabian desert. Further
inland it changes into a high mountainous country with bold peaks of granite,
porphyry, gneiss, and other crystalline rocks rising sometimes to the
height of 6000 feet. This magnificent range of mountains stretches along
the Red Sea, and though very barren owing to the lack of rain, yet the
country presents a more cheerful aspect than the Libyan desert. Springs
of water are rare, but a dampness arises from the proximity of the sea, so
that hardy desert plants grow everywhere, and in many places small oases are
found which provide food for the wild animals and for the cattle of
the nomadic tribes. The heat, however, and the want of water, make it most
difficult to live in these mountains on the east of the Nile, and we cannot
help admiring the courage and perseverance of the ancient Egyptians, who
maintained hundreds of labourers working the large stone-pits and quarries in
this vast rocky waste.
To return to the Nile valley:—had the river merely forced its way through
the Nubian sandstone and the Egyptian limestone, the valley could never have
attained its wonderful fertility under the rainless glowing sky of Egypt,
where decomposition of all vegetation is so rapid. But the Nile is not
solely the outflow of the great lakes of tropical Africa; it also receives
from the west all the waterflow from the high mountains of Abyssinia; and
the mountain torrents, laden with rocky debris, dash down the sides of the
hills in the rainy season, and form the two great streams of the Blue Nile
and the Atbara which flow into the Nile near Khartum and Berber. Thus in
the middle of the summer the river gradually rises so high that the banks
can no longer contain the vast quantity of water and mud. The river
overflows slowly, and after some months slowly retreats again into its bed.
While the water of the inundation covers the valley the mud in the water is
of course deposited, and when the stream has retreated, the country is left
covered with a thin coating of this mud composed of the finest stone dust
from the Abyssinian mountains; it is this black Nile mud which has caused,
and which renews each year, the fertility of Egypt. It now forms the soil of
Egypt; and from Khartum to the sea the deposit of mud in the valley has
reached the height of 30 feet, and in this mud the Nile has hollowed its
present bed.
In another respect also the Nile is the life-blood of Egypt; it provides
water for the country, for, as in the neighbouring deserts, there is no
rainfall. On the coast of the Delta and for some miles southwards rain falls
in the same way as in the other coast lands of the Mediterranean; but, with
the exception of rare storms, this is never the case in Upper Egypt. There
are also no springs nor brooks, so that for water the country depends
entirely on the great river from the far south.
The climate of Egypt is more uniform than that of other Mediterranean
countries, owing to the absence of the rainy season, which corresponds to
our winter. From December to March the air is cool, and at night sometimes
the temperature may almost go down to freezing point, but during eight months
of the year it is very hot, and in July the thermometer rises to 110 deg.
Fahr. in the shade. Several causes combine to produce this difference of
temperature. The hot southeast wind blows only from the middle of February
to the middle of June, but this wind often rises to a hurricane, filling the
air and covering the plants with dust; during the rest of the year even in
the hottest season the northwest wind mitigates the intense heat of the day;
the ancient Egyptians thought it one of the best things in life to
“breathe its sweet breath.” The inundation has still more effect on
the climate than the wind. The stream begins to rise in the beginning of
June; it becomes a mighty torrent by the end of July; from the end of
September to the end of October the water reaches its highest level, after
which time it retreats more and more rapidly. In January the stream is back
once more in its old bed, but it goes on subsiding till the summer. This
inundation, which we must not imagine to overflow the whole country, spreads
abroad coolness, dampness, and fertility; the country revives from the
oppression of the summer heat, and we easily understand why the old Egyptians
should fix their New Year’s Day on the 15th of September, the time of
highest Nile.
The days of inundation were, however, days of anxiety and care. The fate of
the whole country hung in the balance, for if the water rose insufficiently
but one-tenth part, the canals carrying the water to the higher level did not
fill, and the result was the failure of the crops and famine. Again, if the
inundation rose even slightly too high, sad devastation ensued; embankments
and dykes were thrown down, and freshly cultivated fields, supposed to be
beyond the reach of the water, were covered by the inundation. From the
earliest times therefore, the rise of the Nile was closely watched and
controlled by government officials, who regulated the yearly taxes by the
result of the inundation. Nilometers were also constructed, these were wells
in which the height of the water was marked as in a measure or water-gauge;
they were under the special protection of the State. In old times as now,
the height of the inundation was officially notified; and then also, as at
the present day, suspicions were often aroused that the official statement
was exaggerated. An old Nilometer still exists on the island of Elephantine,
on the southern frontier of Egypt. In Greek times the height of a good
inundation at Memphis was said to be 16 ells, and in the beautiful statue of
the Nile in the Vatican the boy who represents the 16th ell looks down with
great content from the cornucopia, up which he has clambered. This genius of
the 16th ell is also to be seen on a coin of Alexandria, presenting his
cornucopia to his father Nile. At the present day, on account of the ground
level of Egypt having been raised by the mud deposit, a yet higher inundation
is needed to ensure a good harvest to the country.
From the fertility of the Egyptian soil we might expect a specially rich
flora, but notwithstanding the luxuriant vegetation, no country in the same
latitude has so poor a variety of plants. There are very few trees. The
sycamore or wild fig and the acacia are the only common forest trees, and
these grow in an isolated fashion somewhat as the lime or chestnut tree grows
with us. Besides these there are fruit trees, such as the date and dom palms,
the fig tree, and others. The scarcity of wood is quite a calamity for Egypt.
It is the same with plants; herbs and vegetables reign in this land of
cultivation, and wild flowers are scarcely to be found.
Klunzinger, who knows Egypt most thoroughly, says: “In this country,
wherever a spot exists where wild plants could grow (ie. irrigated ground),
the agriculturist comes, sows his seed and weeds out the wild flowers. There
are also no alpine nor forest plants, no heather, no plants common to ruins,
bogs, or lakes, partly because there are no such places in Egypt, partly also
for want of water and shade. The ploughed and the fallow land, the banks and
hedges, the river and the bed of the inundation canals alone remain. Here a
certain number of plants are found, but they are isolated, they never cover a
plot of ground, even the grasses, of which there are a good many varieties,
never form a green sward there are no meadows such as charm the eye in other
countries, though the clover fields which serve for pasture, and the
cornfields as long as they are green, compensate to some extent.” Even
the streams, the numerous watercourses and canals, are poorer in vegetation
than one would expect under this southern sky.
The present aspect of Egypt is pleasant though monotonous; the gleaming water
of the broad river flows peacefully through the green fields, and the Delta
also, intersected by numerous canals, looks very much like a rich
well-cultivated European plain. We scarcely realise that we are on African
soil, and on the banks of a river flowing from the heart of the tropics. In
prehistoric times, however, the aspect of Egypt was doubtless very different,
and probably resembled that of the present valley of the Nile in the interior
of Africa. The banks were covered by primaeval forests, the river changed
its bed from time to time, leaving behind stagnant branches; the surface of
the water was covered with luxuriant weeds, the gigantic papyrus rushes made
an impenetrable undergrowth, until the stream broke through them and carried
them as a floatina island to another spot. These swamps and forests,
inhabited by the crocodile, buffalo, and hippopotamus, have been changed into
peaceful fields, not so much by an alteration in the climate, as by the hand
of man working for thousands of years. The land has been cleared by the
inhabitants, each foot has been won with difficulty from the swamp, until
at last the wild plants and the mighty animals which possessed the country
have been completely exterminated. The hippopotamus is not to be seen south
of Nubia, and the papyrus reeds are first met with in the 9th degree of
latitude.
In the first historical period, 3000-2500 BC, this clearing of the land
had been in part accomplished. The forests had long ago disappeared, and
the acacias of Nubia had to furnish the wood for boat-building; the
papyrus, however, was still abundant. The “backwaters,” in which
these rushes grew, were the favourite resorts for sport, and the reed itself
was used in all kinds of useful ways. The same state of things existed in the
time of Herodotos. In the time of which we shall treat, Egypt was not so,
over-cultivated as now, though the buildings were no less extensive.
The climate of Egypt would seem to make life easy to mankind, the weather
provides him with no grievance, the fields bear rich crops throughout the
year, the cattle are never in want of pasture, the river is stocked with fish
in abundance. We should therefore expect to find a people spending their
lives cheerfully and brightly, somewhat after the fashion of the Homeric
heroes. Yet the Egyptian labourer, both of the present and of past, has
always been a creature with little pleasure in his life, who does his work
in a serious and indeed listless way, rather like his ox or his ass. The
Egyptian nation has not the lightheartedness of the Greek, though the sky of
Egypt smiles more brightly than that of Hellas. There is good reason for
this difference of character. However easy the life of the Egyptian labourer
may appear, it is really a hard one, and each day has its toil. He must
never neglect his field, he must ever work hard—above all, before and during
the time of inundation. The general opinion that the Nile overflows to right
and left, making the country like a lake, in which the mounds of villages
appear like islands, is not the truth, at least not in the case of the
inundation of average height. Earnest work is needed to regulate the
irrigation of the fields. The water is drawn off first into large canals,
and thence into small trenches, in order to obtain the full benefit of the
inundation. Dams are constructed to divide the land to be flooded into large
or small parts, these are opened to the water at the right time, and the water
is retained at will, or allowed to flow back into the canals by means of
sluices. Some fields, completely out of the reach of the inundation, have
to be irrigated entirely by means of hydraulic works.
All this labour, which falls now to the lot of the modern fellah, had also to
be done in the old time, and doubtless must have been a heavy burden to the
Egyptian people. The making of the canals, dykes, and sluices taxed the
ingenuity of the nation, and accustomed the people to systematic work. As
this system could only be carried out by large bodies of men, it was
impossible that the old inhabitants of the Nile valley should consist of free
peasants like those of Germany in the old time. The hard logic of facts
teaches us that an autocratic government is always necessary in order to
control and regulate irrigation. In fact, the earliest knowledge we have of
the conditions of life in Egypt shows us a strict administration of political
and agrarian relations; a state in which the individual was of little
account, but in which much help was given by the government in the
establishment of works for the public good, and in the superintendence of
practical details.
The Greeks may have enjoyed a richer and more happy civilisation than the
Egyptians, but the practical work of the latter people stands higher than
that of the former. In making comparisons between the youthful joyous art of
Greece and the severe sober art of Egypt we must remember that the latter
sprang to life on the sad soil of the Nile valley, where hard work is
required of every one. We must also, if we would avoid being unjust to the
Egyptian people, make allowance for one other feature of their life, the
landscape which surrounded them. The Greek, with his mountains, round which
the sea foamed and the winds blew, with his areen forests and his
flower-decked meadows, created for himself the joyous forms of the youthful
gods of Olympus, with their human feelings and sufferings. The horrors and
the grandeur of the desert influenced the Semitic nomads, and deepened in
them the religious feeling which permeates the purest form of religion. The
landscape of Egypt on the contrary was monotonous; everywhere the fertile
green fields were intersected by numerous watercourses, here and there grew
clumps of palms; and ever the same horizon, the wall of the limestone
mountains, bounded the view.•
