5/20/2023 0 Comments Four builders of egypt![]() The Egyptians thought of the king as the unifier of the “Two Lands.” One of the king’s primary roles was to keep Upper and Lower Egypt united the Egyptians expressed this visually using something we call the sema-tawy motif. The Delta was a very multi-cultural region throughout Egyptian history.Īncient Egyptian Sema-Tawy – represents the eternal unification of Upper and Lower Egypt ( 1778750570). In addition, the location of the Delta along the Mediterranean and at the entry point into the Levant made it an important area for trade and international contacts. In the Nile Delta for example, the Egyptians constructed their towns and cemeteries on turtlebacks natural highpoints in the landscape that became islands during the inundation. The expansive floodplain of the Nile Delta and the very narrow band of fertile land present in the Nile Valley led to different ways of life. These two designations may seem counterintuitive to their physical locations, but they reflect the flow of the Nile River, from South to North. Lower Egypt is in the north and contains the Nile Delta, while Upper Egypt contains areas to the South. The Egyptian word Tawy, means “Two Lands” – this refers to the two main regions of ancient Egypt, Upper and Lower Egypt. The landscapes of Upper and Lower Egypt also differ. View with the Nile River Valley in the foreground and the desert cliffs in the background. Good preservation and the fact that most people do not live in the desert, are the main reasons that so much of what archaeologists and anthropologists study comes from a funerary context. ![]() There, the annual Nile flood would not disturb people’s graves and the dry climate acted to preserve tombs and their contents. ![]() The dry climate of the desert, for example, made it an ideal location for cemeteries. The contrast between the red land and the black land was not just visible or geographic, it effected the Egyptians’ everyday lives. Kemet or, “black land,” denotes the rich, fertile land of the Nile Valley, while Deshret, or “red land,” refers to the hot, dry desert. The ancient Egyptians, who were always keen observers of nature, often associated the Nile Valley with life and abundance and the neighboring deserts with death and chaos. Cities could only flourish in the Nile Delta, the Nile Valley, or desert oases, where people had access to water, land, and key resources. Each of these zones had its own natural environment and its own role within the Egyptian State. The cataract system created a natural boundary at Aswan, separating Egypt from its southern neighbor, Nubia.Īncient Egypt was located in Northeastern Africa and had four clear geographic zones: the Delta, the Western Desert, the Eastern Desert, and the Nile Valley. In the case of the Nile cataracts, large outcroppings of granite make the flow of the river unpredictable and much more difficult to traverse by boat. A cataract is a shallow stretch of turbulent waters formed where flowing waters encounter resistant rock layers. In the south, the Nile has a series of six main cataracts, which begin at the site of Aswan. The Atbara river has less of an impact, as it flows only occasionally. The Blue Nile brings about the inundation or annual flood and provides most of the river’s water and silt. The White Nile, the river’s headwaters, flows from Lake Victoria and Lake Albert. The Nile River System has three main branches – the White Nile, the Blue Nile, and the Atbara river. The modern name of the Nile River comes from the Greek Nelios, but the Egyptians called it Iteru or “River.” The Nile is the longest river in the world, measuring some 6,825 km. It was a critical lifeline that literally brought life to the desert. Every aspect of life in Egypt depended on the river – the Nile provided food and resources, land for agriculture, a means of travel, and was critical in the transportation of materials for building projects and other large-scale endeavors. While his comments were limited to the areas in the north and in the Delta, they really ring true for all the Nile River Valley. In the 5 th Century BCE, the Greek historian Herodotus noted that “any sensible person” could see that Lower Egypt was a “gift of the river” (Herodotus, 2.5). Over the course of some five millennia the ancient Egyptians developed a distinctive material culture shaped in large part by their local geography, natural resources, and relationship with the Nile River.
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