Managing the waters of the Nile, Hydraulic Civilization on the Nile

THE NILE FLOODPLAIN AT SHEIKH ABD EL-QURNA.


Managing the Waters of the Nile
This page added 10-30-2012		LAST UPDATE: 10-30-2012

The Nile floodplain at Sheikh_Abd_el-Qurna, Luxor (Thebes). There is another view of this locality, taken from a greater distance, in the page header immediately above. Notice that the floodplain is still primarily given over to agriculture even though the Nile flood is controlled by the Aswan Dam.

The Nile floodplain at Cairo (as seen in Google Maps) between the plateau of the great pyramids (left) and the Nile River slightly south (upstream) from the center of Cairo. The scale is 7 km. long. Urban expansion has been made possible by the Aswan Dam.

The Nile in flood, taken on the river between Cairo and the great pyramids, ca 1925.

The Nile in flood at Luxor (Thebes) as seen in a picture made in 1840. The Colossi of Memnon are in the foreground. Actually they are statues of Amenophis III and mark the entrance to his mortuary temple, which was built so that its forecourt was inundated annually by the Nile flood. This structure was removed 150 years later by Merneptah in order to construct his own mortuary temple.

Profiles Nile River and its major tributaries.

Major contributions to the flow of the Nile River. From Nine Nations, One Nile, by Jullie M. Smith, 1999, Figure 6 [from Population-Environment Dynamics: Ten Case Studies, University of Michigan.

Profiles of the Blue Nile and the White Nile. Note the extreme vertical exaggeration. The distance from the ocean to the first cataract is about 675 miles; from the ocean to Khartoum about 1,875 miles. On average the floodplain between Aswan and the head of the Nile Delta descends about 30 inches in every 100 yards, which is ideal for floodplain and irrigation agriculture. From Nine Nations, One Nile, by Jullie M. Smith, 1999, Figure 5 [from Population-Environment Dynamics: Ten Case Studies, University of Michigan.

The growth of cultivation in the Nile Valley from 4000 to 150 BCE, measured in square kilometers. Notice that the entire lower Nile system system was under cultivation well before the unification of Egypt, around 3200 BCE.

Population Density per square kilometer. Increased density reflects greater crop diversity, land reclamation, a greater variety of domestic animals, advances in hydraulic technology, and better organization of production and redistribution of food and other products.

Ensigns by which we know the nomes of Egypt. Nomes in Lower Egypt were very fluid and did not stabilize into this list of 20 until the Roman period. Nomes in Upper Egypt became fixed by the 5th Dynasty and remained relatively stable thereafter.

This is the only preserved three-dimensional representation that has been identified as Sahure, the second ruler of Dynasty 5. Seated on a throne, the king is accompanied by a smaller male figure personifying the local god of the Coptite nome, the fifth nome (province) of Upper Egypt. This deity offers the king an ankh (hieroglyph meaning "life") with his left hand. The nome standard, with its double-falcon emblem, is carved above the god's head. Sahure wears the nemes headcloth and straight false beard of a living pharaoh. The flaring hood of the uraeus, the cobra goddess who protected Egyptian kings, is visible on his brow. The nome god wears the archaic wig and curling beard of a deity.
The statue may have been intended to decorate the king's pyramid complex at Abusir, about fifteen miles south of Giza. At the end of the previous dynasty, multiple statues of this type were placed in the temple of Menkaure (Mycerinus) to symbolize the gathering of nome gods from Upper and Lower Egypt around the king. However, since no other statues of this type are preserved from Sahure's reign, it is possible that this statue was a royal dedication in one of the temples in Koptos (modern Qift). Go to a list of the Nomes and their gods.