THE WEALTH OF THE NILE -- THE CULTURE AND ECONOMY OF ANCIENT EGYPT

AGRICULTURE

More than anything else, the wealth of Egypt came from agriculture.

Grain, vegetables, fruit, cattle, goats, pigs and fowl were the true "Gifts of the Nile". The yearly inundations provided rich, fertile soil. Produce and meat was grown raised or caught, and taxed, stored or traded. The Egyptian agricultural system, begun in Predynastic times, was maintained for thousands of years.

IRRIGATION
The river allowed the flooding and draining of the cropland. Irrigation canals and dams and levees were required only to manage the flow. (Tthe marshy Delta required more work.)

During the inundation, they opened dams, flooding canals, dykes, catch basins and fields. When the water reached about 6 ft./1.5 m, the dams were closed and the water left to drain over the next few months. The waterlogged earth did not need much further irrigation (but higher lying fields did).

The maintenance of dams and canals was done at local levels. The involvement of the pharaonic administration in irrigation was probably minimal. The responsibilities fell mostly to local nome landowners. (However, the draining of the Faiyum, the opening and closing of the canal sluices to Lake Moeris, and maintenance of the general flow of the Nile became tasks for the central authorities from the Middle Kingdom on).

The distribution of water between floods was everybody's job, using heavy clay buckets. By New Kingdom the shaduf appeared - a balanced crossbeam with a bucket on one end and a counter weight on the other. The shaduf opened more high ground to irrigation and increased yields. Egyptian literature repeatedly stressed the importance of irrigation and the uninterrupted and equitable flow of water.

The flood allowed a growing season from December to June, from above the 1st Cataract to the fringes of the Delta, along the banks and branches of the Nile.

CROPS
The most important crop was grain. For most of ancient Egyptian history this was emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum), cultivated since the Stone Age. Common wheat (Triticum aestivum) replaced emmer by the Later Dynasties Period. Barley (Hordeum hexastichon) was used for baking bread and brewing beer, the daily drink of the people. Less potent than its modern counterpart, beer provided the Egyptians with disease-free hydration. Its significance declined during the Greco-Roman Period as wine became prominent. (Wine was imported until vineyards were planted in the Delta and oases. Pekha, an unidentified grain, was also grown.

They also grew flax (Linum usitatissimum) for linen cloth and rope. Native and naturally grown papyrus reed was used for paper, ropes, mats, boats and many other things. They grew the castor oil plant (Ricinus communis) from which they pressed the berries for many uses such as lamp oil. Opium poppies, (Papaver somniferum), introduced in the New Kingdom, was used for medicinal purposes.

The Egyptians located gardens, orchards, and vineyards on high ground away from the Nile flood plain. These had to be irrigated by hand with the water drawn from wells or the river. They grew radishes, onions, and cabbages as regular staples. Also grown were sesame, lentils, peas and chickpeas, leeks, dill, grapes, melons and gourds. choriander, endive, cucumbers, watermelons, melons and wild radishes. Lettuce was dedicated to the god Min. The poor ate the roots of papyrus, lotus and other plants gathered in the marshes.

For fruit they had dates of various kinds, figs, pomegranates, grapes and raisins and later apples. There were also native shrub-fruits and various unidentified fruits.

PLANTING
Most farmers need to use heavy plows to turn over the soil and get nutrients to the seedlings. But the Nile deposited the nutrients on top, so the Egyptians needed only light plows or hoes to break up the top layer. Then sowers walked back and forth over the still wet fields, scattering seeds from bags or baskets. A light plow dragged by the horns of cattle (or by people) buried the seeds. Sometimes a herd of goats did the same job.

GRAIN HARVEST
The harvest took place before the beginning of the next inundation, in May or June. The entire population participated. Large estates contracted journeying harvest teams. These migrant workers began the harvest in Upper Egypt and followed the ripening crops downriver.

The harvest was a time of intense labor. Egyptians worked from sunrise to sunset, taking short breaks for food and drink. On the great estates overseers kept up the pace.

The ears of wheat and barley were cut with flint sickles and left on the ground so the reapers didn't waste time bending over. Women followed them gathering the sheaves into baskets. These in turn were followed by the local poor, mostly women and children, trying to pick up any of the grain missed by the others.

The stalks were left standing for the livestock.

The grain was stored in silos, walled enclosures carefully plaster-coated on the inside and whitewashed outside. Workers climbed stairs to the top of the silo, dumping baskets of grain through a window. Grain could be taken out through a door at the bottom.

Scribes scrupulously measured and recorded the harvest. Surveyors measured the fields with measuring ropes, in order to calculate the area and assess the quantity of grain owed as taxes. The state worked to prevent disputes by keeping tight control over land distribution. Fields were marked with boundary stones. These had to be replaced after the inundation, based on cadastral records.

PROCESSING GRAIN
Men or donkeys carried the sacks of grain to the threshing floor where the sheaves were raked into a thick mat. Cattle were led over the floors, treading the kernels out of the husks. They winnowed the grain by tossing it in the air to let the wind blow out the lighter chaff, or by using sieves.

Processing emmer wheat, however, required additional hard work. After threshing, they soaked the grains to soften the thick chaff, then pounded them in small mortars to free the kernels. Then more winnowing, sieving, and picking the grains clean by hand.

Finally, the whole grain was milled into flour, usually using a flat grinding stone.

Originally on the floor, by the Middle Kingdom Egyptians put these grinding querns on platforms to make the work easier. This process certainly allowed rock grit into the flour, which caused extensive dental abrasion (Egyptians of all classes suffered from tooth decay and abscesses).

GRAIN YIELDS
The total amount of grain harvested depended on the surface covered by the flooding Nile, which was between perhaps 7,800 sq. mi. to 13,200 sq. mi. (20,000 sq. k to 34,000 sq. k). Taking pre-modern wheat yields of about 668 lbs/acre (750 kg/ha) as a base, and assuming that most of the fertile land was used to produce grain, the annual amount of grain produced was approximately between 1.5 and 2.5 million tons.

About 4 to 5 million people lived in Egypt during the New Kingdom. In a bad year the annual yield was less than 660 lbs (300 kg) per head, maybe considerably less. Grain shortages were frequent, at least on local levels. The most pessimistic estimates show sufficient grain only every third year. Nevertheless, Egypt clearly had surpluses often enough that they could fill state granaries and even export grain. During Roman times Egypt was the principal bread baskets of Rome.

FLAX AND LINEN
Middle Eastern peoples grew and used flax at least since 4500 BC. But the ancient Egyptians prized it more than others. They rarely used wool in the hot weather, and cotton would not be discovered until Christian times (500s AD). They considered flax linen one of the greatest gifts of Hapi, the Nile. who "clothed them with the flax from his fields".

Flax fibers are among the longest and strongest of the natural fibers. They get stronger when wet because of a high pectin content which acts like a glue in moist conditions. They dry quickly and resist decay better than most other natural fibers.

The Egyptians spun and wove the fibers into linens of different varities and quality. The linen they produced could be exceedingly delicate. By 3000 BC the Egyptian weavers were capable of weaving the finest cloth with 162 warp threads and 122 weft threads per inch. By the end of the Old Kingdom, linen cloth was so fine it could be pulled through a ring. During Middle Kingdom times bolts of linen could be 5 to 6 feet wide.

The quality of the cloth people wore was often remarked upon, as it set apart the powerful from the humble. The cloth was often bleached and sometimes dyed. It was generally sewn into sacklike kalasiris or wrapped around the hips and worn like a kilt.

Linen was not only the fabric of choice for living Egyptians, but the dead were also buried in it. The mummifiers, after removing the inner organs and dehydrating the corpse with salt and natron, anointed it with oils and finally wrapped it up with narrow strips of linen. Arms, legs and even fingers were wrapped separately. Linen was also part of the funerary offerings.

FARMING IMPLEMENTS
Tthroughout ancient Egyptian history, agricultural techniques (by our standards) remained inefficient. Improvements were rare and implements remained primitive - peasants used Stone Age style flint sickles far into the Later Dynasties Period. The breeding of better livestock was haphazard. Perhaps the Egyptian fondness for tradition and stability stifled innovation.

The Egyptians did not need to turn the soil (the rich Nile mud) so they built light wooden plows.

These they tied to the horns of cattle or pulled themselves. Pigs, sheep and goats treaded the seeds into the ground and helped to husk the emmer wheat after harvest. But hard human labor did everything else.

Egyptians hoes had short handles with a blade wobbly tied to it, no doubt causing considerable back-breaking misery. Sickles had a jawbone-shaped piece of wood set with serrated blades of flint set in a groove. The serration kept the blades sharp.

Orchard and vinyard workers had specialized tools for pruning, trimming, and pollinating plants.

The Nile provided the fertilizer and water except for higher elevations above the flood zone. The Egyptians used buckets until the 2nd Intermediate Period, when the shadouf was introduced. The shadouf consisted of a long pole with a bucket on one end and a counterweight on the other. This could raise a quart/liter of water 10 ft/3 m per second.