THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE NILE VALLEY

In the early Predynastic Period (ca. 4500 BC), the Sahara had finished the change from savanna grassland to howling desert. The Nile Valley, by contrast, was paradise. Great primeval forests covered the banks and the river was a vast marsh of rushes, papyrus, and tropical flowers.

First the big animals - gazelles, cats, then humans, clustered onto the Nile flood plain and settled.

However, after thousands of years of human intervention, the Nile now flows peacefully through green fields -- a rich and densely cultivated plain.

 

Along the Nile, some of the multitude of bird-life included the falcon, kite, goose, crane, heron, plover, pigeon, ibis, vulture and owl. It is possible that hens were introduced during the New Kingdom from Africa.

As for the animals out in the wild, the Egyptians knew of lions, cheetahs, wolves, antelope, wild bulls, hyenas, jackals, snakes, the mongoose and desert hares. The Nile was filled with crocodiles, hippos, turtles, frogs as well as the numerous fish and water birds. Bees, scarab beetles, locusts, flies, centipedes and scorpions were some of the insects that lived in ancient times.

Some wild animals, specifically the lion, the wild cattle and the cobra, came to represent royalty. The power and danger seen in the lion and the wild bull became synonymous with the pharaoh. Even from predynastic times, images of the bull trampling the enemies of the king represented the pharaoh's triumph over his enemies. The bull implied strength and power. The pharaoh's mother was linked to the cow-goddess Hathor, and the pharaoh sometimes too the name 'Bull of his Mother'. The lion, too, was a symbol of the pharaoh's power and ruler-ship. As the lions lived in the eastern and western deserts around the Nile, the lion also came to symbolize the rising and the setting sun and its journey through the heavens and the underworld. The lion, though, was hunted by the pharaoh in a show of courage. The cobra, being the dangerous snake of Lower Egypt, came to symbolize Lower Egypt itself. Though a female symbol, the cobra came to mean protection over the ruler.

Ivory from elephants (the Egyptians had local ivory from hippopotami), ostrich feathers and eggs, leopard and lion skins came from the west and south.

A number of domesticated animals were indigenous to Egypt or had been living there since prehistoric times: donkeys, goats, sheep, pigs, cattle, dogs and cats. Horses appeared first during the 13th dynasty, but gained importance during the reign of the Hyksos, a horned breed of cattle was brought from the south, as were pet monkeys. A new variety of sheep was introduced during the Middle Kingdom, chickens from India were still a rarity during the New Kingdom. Camels were introduced in significant numbers into Egypt only from the Persian conquest onwards.

The only domesticated animal traded in significant numbers was the horse. During the New Kingdom Egypt imported horses while in the Late Period horses were shipped to Assyria and other Asiatic countries.

"Only, four mines of beautiful lapis lazuli have I sent to my brother as a gift, and also five teams of horses"

--From a letter by Burnaburiash to Amenhotep IV

In return the king of Babylon hoped to get much gold, that I need for my work. In another letter Burnaburiash, dissatisfied with the amount of gold received, writes

"As a gift, I send you three mines of beautiful lapis lazuli and five teams of horses for five wooden chariots."

--From a letter by Burnaburiash to Amenhotep IV

Officially cats were not to be sent abroad, but they spread over the whole region carried on ships for pest control and as pets and probably sold quite often.

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Prehistoric Egypt had been a hunter's paradise. Human settlements were still limited to the edge of the valley where the ground started sloping up to the high plateaus, or to the mouths of the side-valleys: from there the first farmers had only begun gradually to cultivate the fertile alluvium. At that time it was a watery jungle of trees and scrub, mixed with boggy thickets of reed and papyrus, alive with elephants, giraffe, lions, rhinoceros, wild boar, antelopes, gazelles, deer of many sorts, ibex, mouflon, all kinds of birds, fish, crocodiles and hippopotamus. However, the draining of the marshes and extension of the cultivated area during the first three dynasties forced the larger game out of the valley proper.

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