“The Nile River has certainly played a critical role in the history of
ancient Egypt. Famous as the longest river in the world, the river got
its name from the Greek word Neilos, which means valley.
The Nile floods
the lands in Egypt, leaving behind black sediment. That’s why the
ancient Egyptians named the river Ar, meaning black. The story of the
Nile River begins not in the lush coastal lagoons of its Mediterranean
mouth, nor at its headwaters high in the cloud forests of Rwanda, but in
the Western Desert of Egypt. Here, there is no Nile. There is no water.
It is a Martian landscape, inhabitable except for a few scattered
oases. It is a Saharan playground for dust storms and locusts, where
shovel-snouted lizards dance on two feet to avoid the scorching sands of
mid-day.
This is Egypt without the Nile. Small wonder, then, that the
Ancient Egyptians prized and venerated the Nile River. It was their
umbilical cord. Even today, a common Egyptian blessing is: “May you
always drink from the Nile.” From its cooling waters came perch fish
bigger than the fisherman. From its loamy riverbanks came mud used for
bricks and papyrus for books and boats.
Every year, when the Nile River
flooded and saturated the parched land in water and life-giving silt,
the Egyptian farmers Trade and Transportation on the Nile River You
might be tempted to ignore the stubby structures of frontier Aswan,
known in Ancient Egypt as Swenett. You might focus on the more
impressive pillars of Cairo and the temples of Giza – but there would be
no pyramids and no shrines without little ol’ Aswan and the Nile River.
Dhow on The Nile River near Aswan Dhow on the Nile River near Aswan
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