Every year, the runoff from the rainy season in the
Ethiopian highlands flows into the Atbara and Blue Nile Rivers. This
surge of water causes the Nile to flood, beginning in early June.
By the end of July, the Nile is a mighty torrent, reaching its highest
levels in late September to late October. The river then starts to
subside, depositing the fine sediment that becomes the black Nile
mud. This mud yields fertile soil reaching depths of thirty feet.
Nearly all of Egypt's food is produced on this soil.
For more than six thousand years Egyptian civilization
totally depended on this flood. Dynasties rose and fell based on its
regularity. Egyptian arts and sciences developed from the need to
predict and regulate the flood. It upheld the power of the pharaoh,
the priesthood and the entire economy.
Because of the silt, the Egyptians called their fertile valley the
"Black Land" (Kemet). Everything else was desert
waste -- the "Red Land".
When the Nile flooded the people of Egypt had nowhere
to live. The Nile floods up to the edge of the desert and covered
all of the farming and living areas. The pharaohs used the flooding
season to build monuments, and gave the peasant farmers work and a
chance to feed and house their family. This would have been paid out
of the taxes collected during the harvest season. This process helped
Egyptian civilization become and stay so stable for so long (as well
as produce such stupendous monuments).
