I. THE MAP

On a map Egypt looks like a box. In truth, however, ancient Egypt was more like a long ribbon. From Aswan in the south to the delta is 750 miles. Egypt is really the valley of the Nile. Today the valley slopes or stretches 6 and ½ miles on either side of the river. Nowhere is the valley more than 13 miles across. Many millennia ago it was wider, but contracted as the Sahara dried out. Egypt, then, is a long but narrow ribbon of arable or cultivable land. Near Aswan is the first of six cataracts. A rich swamp, shaped like an upside-down triangle, or the "delta," lies in the north and empties into the Mediterranean sea.

II. Kmt

The Egyptians called their country Kmt. In their hieroglyphic script they used very few vowels. Remember that vowels are phonemes (sounds) between consonants. So when a word begins with a "vowel," it is not functioning as a vowel. The same was true of ancient Hebrew and Canaanite (no vowels). One of the contributions of the Greeks, later on, was to add vowels to consonants. Kmt is rendered as Kemet. It means "the black land," as in the land of the rich fertile black soil. Kmt stands in contrast to dsrt, or dashret, the red land, which is the desert. Over many thousands of years, for words in Egyptian that end in the letter t, the t became silent. Therefore Kmt came to be pronounced khem, or even key-may. The Greeks called the country Aigyptos, which in English is translated as Egypt.

III. THE ANNUAL INUNDATION

The Greek historian Herodotus lived from 484-430 BC. In 450 he visited Egypt. He was an eye witness. According to Egyptologist and archaeologist Aidan Dodson, author of Monarchs of the Nile (p. 2), the Greek writer Hecetaeus actually coined the description of Egypt as the "gift of the Nile." This description is universally mis-attributed to Herodotus (who is much better known). Hecetaeus said this because without the river Egypt would ne nothing but a desert. The source of the Nile lies deep in central Africa, at Lake Victoria. In Ethiopia the rainy season occurs in the spring, and moves northward and eventually the water rises and flows downstream (north). By middle to late June, in Egypt, thousands of miles "downstream," the level of the water in the river rises. It is not raining in Egypt. But the water rises in the river and floods over its banks during the summer. By September the land is flooded. A thick layer of decayed vegetation and rich soil (called silt) from the mountains of Ethiopia and central Africa gets laid down. This annual layer of silt replenished the nutrients and minerals and fertility of the soil. The water from the annual flood was stored in reservoirs and a system of irrigation ditches and canals for use later in the year.

IV. EGYPT BECAME THE GRANARY (WAREHOUSE) OF THE ANCIENT MED. WORLD

This enriched soil was a tremendous advantage to ancient Egypt. It vastly enhanced the fertility of the soil. It meant that Egypt could produce two harvests in a year, whereas most other societies produced one. In some years it even produced three harvests of wheat, barley and oats. Egypt therefore could feed more people. By 4000 BC the average Egyptian farmer produced 3 times as much food as he needed for his family. The surplus could be taxed (in kind) or traded for goods and services. Egypt became the "breadbasket" of the ancient Mediterranean world. When no one else had food, they would seek it from Egypt. Other societies even traded silver, precious jewels and cedar wood for Egyptian grain. Later on (after 30 BC) Rome prized Egypt as its granary. Egyptian grain fed the Roman army.

When there was drought and famine in Palestine and Syria and Mesopotamia or Anatolia (the ancient name for what is now called Turkey) or Greece, they asked Egypt for grain, or in some cases people even moved into Egypt. The Nile was the source of life for Egypt. Without the Nile Egypt would have been nothing but a desert. The government stored surplus grain in warehouses or granaries (actually pits) in the various provinces, which could be distributed to the people in time of need.

The storage of grain attracted mice, and this led the Egyptians to become the first people that we know of in the Mediterranean world to domesticate the cat. Indeed, the Egyptians worshipped the cat as sacred (the goddess Bastet, later called simply Bast). There are tens of thousands of mummies of cats in Egyptian temples.

V. THE SURPLUS SUPPORTS THE "NON-PRODUCTIVE" CLASSES

The great agricultural surplus also meant that not everyone had to be a farmer. The surplus could be used to feed "non-productive" classes of people, such as priests, rulers, nobles, soldiers, artists and architects. They did not have to farm because the surplus from the farmers "freed" them to do other things. Priests, artists, rulers do render valuable services, but without enough food, everybody is needed to be a farmer. Some people work with their hands, some people work with their backs. Some people work with their minds. In Egypt, because the farmers produced so much food, other people had the luxury of being priests or artists or soldiers and "working with their minds." Certain lands (estates) were devoted to the support of the temples and the priests. The produce from these lands was dedicated to the support of the priests and the temple, including the scribes (who knew how to write). Egypt, in the beginning (3100 BC or so) enjoyed a natural advantage over other societies. In time, however, other societies would develop technology that overcame Egypt's natural advantages. And while Egypt was rich in agriculture, from the silt of the Nile, the work was still back-breaking. Also, if the flood was low, there would be little water for irrigation and the country would face food shortages. Egypt was totally at the mercy of the Nile and nature. And Egypt had few other resources. For instance, Egypt had almost no hard wood (only soft palm or acacia wood), little gold, not much iron. Hard wood, such as juniper or cedar, had to be imported from Canaan (northern Canaan was later called Phoenicia). Mahogany was imported from sub-Saharan Africa, via Nubia.

VI. THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE FLOOD AND THE CALENDAR

The Egyptians even designed their annual calendar around the flood. Their three seasons were:

akhet "flood" or inundation; (June, July, Aug, Sept.)
akhet also means horizon

peret "emergence" (of the land after the water subsides), growing
Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan

shomu, "low water", or harvest, or drought
(Feb, March, Apr, May)

In other words their cycle of three seasons (each four months long) was tied to the rhythm of the Nile.

The annual flood washed away roads , fences, property lines, walls and markers. Villages tended to be located on hilltops that would not be flooded. In order to replace roads, fences, etc. every year, the Egyptians needed to develop mathematics and surveying.

VII.THE FLOOD AND SIRIUS

The Egyptians worshipped the star Sirius, and the constellation that we call Orion (they called it Sah).. The Greeks called Sirius by the name of Sothis. Sirius is invisible, from Egypt, for a period of seventy days from mid April until the middle of June. This is because it is so close to the sun, as seen from Egypt, that it cannot be seen through the glare of the sunlight (but the Egyptians did not necessarily know that). The priests therefore studied the sky, waiting for the re-appearance of Sirius (usually sometime around June 15-June 21). When Sirius re-appeared, this was the new year. The Egyptians had several calendars, because they used different calendars for different purposes. (for example, they also had a lunar calendar in addition to the solar one). The solar calendar consisted of a week of ten days, x 3 weeks to a month, for 30 days. There were 12 months (12 x 30=360 days). They added about five days at the end while waiting for the re-appearance of Sirius. This required them to be keen astronomers.

Incredibly enough, the re-appearance of Sirius usually coincided with the beginning of the flood. This is what scientists call temporal association. If two things occur together in time, in our minds they will be associated together. When Sirius re-appeared in the sky, the Egyptians knew from experience that the flood would soon begin. Therefore these two events signaled the start of the new year.

VIII. IRRIGATION

Egypt receives an average of one and a half inches of rainfall a year. By contrast, New Jersey receives about 40 inches of precipitation per year.

The Egyptians dug wells and canals and reservoirs that filled with water during the flood, and held water that could be used during the remainder of the year. It was an elaborate irrigation system, eventually supervised by the national government.

In 1957 the Egyptians built the Aswan Dam and hydroelectric plant. It created Lake Nasser. Since that time, the waters of the Nile have been controlled so that the flood no longer takes place in Egypt. However the soil is also no longer as rich or productive.

IX. THE ANNUAL FLOOD AND THE PHARAOH

As part of their religion, the Egyptians regarded the king (nesu) as a god-king. They believed their pharaohs were the "sons" of the gods, as gods in human form. They believed that the daily rising of the sun and the annual flood and the life-giving harvest all depended on the king. By the time of Thutmose or Tuthmosis III, in the 18^th Dynasty (c. 1450 BC) the term "per-o," or "per-aa," or great house, which refers to the palace of the king, also comes to be applied to the king himself. Thus we get the corruption, in English, "pharaoh." In a sense, the first kings or "pharaohs" were king-priests believed to possess supernatural power. The pharaoh was the intermediary or intercessor between the realm of mortals and the gods. If we ask, what did they need a pharaoh for, the answer was "to bring the re-appearance of Sirius and the annual flood." A year without a flood would mean calamity, famine, and starvation. The priests measured the height (or depth) of the flood waters each year, using a stock called a Nilometer, and kept records of it at the temples. They could estimate, based on the height/depth of the water, how great the harvest would be. One of the important ritual or ceremonial functions of the pharaoh was to perform the ritual to invoke the gods to cause the water to rise. When the flood came (as it usually did), pharaoh got the credit. But if it didn’t come, pharaoh got the blame.

X. MUCH OF OUR KNOWLEDGE COMES TO US "SECOND-HAND", FROM THE GREEKS"

Our knowledge of the Egyptians is filtered through the Greeks because the Greeks (led by Alexander the Great) conquered Egypt in 332 BC (he drove out the Persians).

A general of Alexander, named Ptolemy, succeeded Alexander, and became the founder of the Greek ruling dynasty, called the Ptolemaic dynasty (to 30 BC). Cleopatra was the last of the Ptolemies to rule over Egypt. The Ptolemaic dynasty was of foreign, Greek, birth. Cleopatra is said to have been one of the few (perhaps the only) Ptolemaic rulers who could actually speak Egyptian. Cleopatra ruled over Egypt. But her bloodline was foreign, and Greek, not native Egyptian.

XI. THE WRITTEN SOURCES

Our knowledge of ancient Egypt comes from records written either in stone, or painted on plaster on walls, or on papyrus. Papyrus is a kind of parchment paper made from the dried and pressed leaves of the papyrus plant (a type of reed). The plural is papyri or papyrii.

The Egyptian priest Manetho wrote a history of ancient Egypt. He lived from 323-245 BC. His Egyptian history (written in or translated into Greek) divided Egyptian history into thirty dynasties. A dynasty is a ruling family, usually from father to son to grandson for as long as the family lasts.

Herodotus also wrote about Egypt; as did the later Roman historian Strabo (25 BC), and the Jewish historian Josephus (late 1^st century ad). Unfortunately, the early Christians in the 300s and 400s AD detested the polytheism or paganism of Egypt, and burned and destroyed many records. It is alleged they even killed the last of the traditional priests. Consequently the knowledge of how to decipher and interpret the hieroglyphics was lost for 1500 years, until the Rosetta stone was found in 1798 by Napoleon's troops. It was deciphered by the Frenchman Jean Francois Champollion in 1822.

Manetho left a list of the names of the pharaohs. The Egyptians also inscribed names on the walls of their temples. The Palermo stone, now in a museum in Palermo, Sicily, gives the names of the first five dynasties (show picture).

The name of a pharaoh is usually shown in an oblong box called a cartouche.

On the walls of the temple of the city of Abydos a picture of the pharaoh Seti I is carved, with his son the future Ramesses II. Carved there next to them are the names of 76 of their ancestors. This carving is called the Hall of Ancestors. However the list is incomplete because the Egyptians sometimes rewrote their history and deleted the names of individuals who had fallen "out of favor" for religious or political reasons. So the list at Abydos had been "sanitized." A copy of the Abydos list is in the British museum. As an example of sanitizing of history, Pharoah Thutmose or Tuthmosis III was jealous of his aunt and step-mother, Hatshepsut (also called Hashepwose). He had every inscription of her name that he could find chiseled out and destroyed, and had his name written over hers. He usurped her temples and monuments. Her name is not on the Abydos list.

There is another king list, from the temple at Karnak. It is now located in the Louvre, in Paris. It contains some names not given on the Abydos list.

Also the pharaohs carved monuments, rather like pillars or tablets, with writing on them. They bear the name of whichever pharaoh had them commissioned. These pillars are called stelae.

The lists sometimes disagree as to the length of the reign of the various pharaohs, or the order. So archaeologists and Egyptologists are reconstructing a jigsaw puzzle. For example Tutankhamun, King Tut, was totally unknown until the discovery of his tomb in 1922. As new evidence is found, the story of Egyptian history is revised.

Manetho called the first pharaoh "min" or "men," whom the Greeks call "Menes." But we are not sure if he is referring to Narmer or Narmer’s son Hor-aha.

To add to the difficulty, pharaohs usually had five names. They had a personal name, two names for the northern kingdom and southern kingdom, and a name in honor of the god Horus (his name in Greek) (Heru in Egyptian). One of Hor'aha's "nebti" names (in honor of the goddesses of the two kingdoms) was "Men," hence the speculation was Menes was Hor-aha. If we bear in mind that pharaonic Egypt encompasses the period 3100-30 BC, one can understand that it is hard to keep 3000 years of history "straight." Think of how hard it is for us to remember the American presidents correctly for only 213 years (since 1790). Now imagine 3,000 years!