Ancient Egyptian history spans millennia, from predynastic times around 3150 b.c.e., when Upper and Lower Egypt were unified for the first time, and the dynastic period that ended in 30 b.c.e., when Egypt became a Roman province. One of the ancient names of Egypt is Kemet, literally Black Land, referring to the fertile black mud brought every year by the flooding of the Nile.
Egypt's dominance of the ancient world was a result of more than just determination and brute force. Ancient Egypt was blessed with an abundance of natural resources.
The Nile River: The Lifeline of Egypt
The greatest natural resource in Ancient Egypt was the Nile River. The Nile provided vast amounts of fertile land and was a major route for communications and travel - it was the freeway of ancient Egypt. Boats moved cattle, grain and soldiers across the Kingdom and the Nile linked Egypt's provincial centers to its capital, Thebes. This enabled Egypt to function as an integrated kingdom, rather than a collection of independent provinces. Its annual flooding, from June to September, brought water and fertile silt onto the surrounding land and was the precondition for the region’s agriculture. It also prompted the names of the three distinct seasons during a 365-day calendar: Akhet (flooding), Peret (planting), and Shemu (harvesting).
Since Egypt received little rainfall, fields were irrigated by the use of ditches. In predynastic times, farmers used only natural, semiannual basins. Later, artificial half-yearly and year-round basins were invented, supplying water for irrigation. During the 18th Dynasty (1550-1295 b.c.e.) the shaduf (or shadoof), a simple water pump, was introduced. Two vertical stakes supported a third, horizontal stake, which acted as a lever. At one end was a pot, and at the other end was a counterweight. The shaduf could be handled by one person. The waterwheel was invented, leading to the construction of water scoops.
Called sakijes, these multiple clay vases were mounted on the wheel to scoop water, lifting it to higher elevations, where the water was poured into gutters that emptied onto fields. The sakijes were powered by camels, oxen, or donkeys.
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The Nile River has always been of critical economic importance, and its levels of flooding have therefore been measured by officials for more than 5,000 years and have been written down for more than 13 centuries. Sesostris I (who ruled 1971-26 b.c.e.) constructed a water measurement device, called a nilometer (literally, “Nile measure”). It became widely used either as a built structure or cut into rock. The oldest of these devices have been found at Fort Semne on the island Elephantine close to Aswan and on the island of Roda near Cairo.
During the Late Period, the Big Canal was built, which would convey excess water during flooding in order to prevent damage to fields and houses.
Agricultural Production
Before sowing, the farmers had to remove silt from the ditches, basins, and sluices, then plow the soil. Plows were pulled by men or oxen. From October to February, donkeys and oxen were used to trample seed into the soil. From March to May, farmers harvested their crops, mainly emmer, barley, and flax, using sickles. They also harvested vegetables, other cereal grains, and vines. Women and children had to help during the harvest season. The grain was threshed with a flail or stomped out by oxen.
After winnowing, the grain was ground into flour, brewed into beer, or stored for later use. Additionally, the farmers used nets and harpoons for fishing. Estates were owned by the pharaoh, temples, and liege lords. Taxes were determined on the basis of the flood level and the estimated harvest.
The predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced good crops for the Ancient Egyptians. Flax, papyrus, grain, vegetables, fruit, cattle, goats and pigs were grown. Agriculture created most of Ancient Egypt's wealth.
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Building Materials and Mining
Egypt also had items of natural resources in rocks and metals. Different types of rocks and minerals were quarried in Ancient Egypt. The Egyptians mined large blocks of rock by drilling holes in a line in a rock’s surface. The holes were filled with wedges of wood. Wetting the wooden wedges caused them to expand, and after a period of time, the rock split along the line of the drilled holes. The Egyptians mined from various areas in Egypt. White limestone came from quarries near Memphis, quartzite from Gebel el-Ahmar, and sandstone from Gebel es-Silsila. Alabaster was quarried out of the eastern desert. Granite quarries were found around Aswan.
Building resources, such as granite and metal ores, were abundant. There were abundant mines of copper and lead ores, gypsum, and semiprecious stones, such as alabaster and carnelian. Ptolemy and the Romans admired Egypt’s emeralds and amethysts, to be found in the desert. In Nubia, for a long time an Egyptian territory, there was gold; the lack of this resource was deeply felt when Nubia was lost to the empire. One of the first maps known is of a gold mine in Nubia. Lead was used to make net sinkers and plumb bobs. Early tools were made of flint.
Starting in 4500 b.c.e., the ancient Egyptians mined copper, mainly as malachite ore in the Sinai, sometimes in 328-foot (100-meter-deep) tunnels. Copper became the main material for toolmaking, which is remarkable, because its high melting point required advanced technology to reach the required temperature. With the New Kingdom, iron became more common, which led, among other things, to the decline of Egypt: The country was no longer economically independent, but dependent on imports from other nations.
From predynastic periods until the Second Dynasty, adobes were used for building. In the Third Dynasty, construction material changed from clay to stone and reached a climax of achievements during the Fourth Dynasty. The pyramids emanated from so-called mastabas. A mastaba is a bench-shaped structure that covered the grave of a distinguished personality. Mastabas were common until the time of the Middle Kingdom, often mantled with greywacke, including a sanctuary and a pseudo-door at the west side. The first big structure using stone as main material was the step pyramid of the pharaoh Djoser, built by Imhotep. This was an amazing technological achievement in the handling of huge volumes of stone. All the structural elements were assembled without mortar.
Under the reign of Snefru (or Snofru), during the Fourth Dynasty, the engineering of stone buildings reached a peak. Technological feats included the transportation of the huge granite cuboids to the center of the pyramid and of the sarcophagus to the grave chamber, as well as the interlocking system of precisely cut fall stones. The Egyptians’ method of precise quarrying is not completely understood today. Later pyramids were based on a stone framework, filled with boulders and adobe, and covered with limestone. During Roman times, these pyramids became limestone quarries, resulting in the pyramids’ destruction from the erosion of wind and rain. Cheops, a son of Snefru, built the Cheops pyramid, which is known today as one of the wonders of the world.
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Although 7.5 million cubic feet (2.34 million cubic meters) of stone were stacked in 210 layers, about 475 feet (145 meters) high, this pyramid shows impressive accuracy regarding the length of the edges, their angles, and the leveling. The Cheops pyramid is part of a necropolis on an area of more than 100 hectares. Aswan, where granite was quarried, and Giza, where the famous Cheops pyramid was built, are 420 miles apart, demonstrating the impressive logistical skills of the ancient Egyptians.
Some unanswered questions remain about how the ancient Egyptians could transport such giant stones in such great volumes and compile such precisely measured structures, given all their logistical and technological challenges. At least some information comes down to us through depictions inside the pyramids and in a report by Herodotus, a Greek historian, who visited Egypt around 450 b.c.e.
Herodotus describes the quarrying and shipping of the stones from the Arabic mountains over the Nile River to the Libyan Desert, as well as construction of roads for the same purpose, done by 10,000 forced laborers. Although such drudgery was forbidden after 1889 b.c.e., the regulations were repeatedly dodged. It is assumed that the flooding season was used for shipping, because then high water levels in the Nile River Delta reached almost to the desert, thus dramatically reducing the distances between ships and construction sites.
Herodotus also writes about wooden scaffoldings used to lift the heavy stones from one step of the pyramid to the next, suggesting that pyramids were always step pyramids first and attained their final flat surface later, through covering and planing.
Other Natural Resources
Flint was another important stone for Ancient Egyptians. It was used in making sickles for harvesting crops and in making weapons. Steatite, another type of stone, was used in making scarabs. Scarabs were inexpensive charms which held a religious meaning to the early Egyptians. Egypt lacked good trees for wood due to the dryness of the climate. Cedar wood had to be imported from Lebanon to meet the Egyptians’ needs.
Flax was another natural resource that Egypt developed. Flax grew well in the fertile Nile Valley. It was pulled out by the roots and then dried. Seeds were removed, and the core of the plant was placed in water for a week or more. Then they beat and separated it into parts that were spun into linen cloth.
Another naturally grown crop in Egypt was papyrus. It was made into writing material, a predecessor to paper. The papyrus plant grew in several feet of water. It was pulled out, and the stem was cut into strips. The strips were overlaid in vertical and horizontal layers and put under pressure by pounding it together. The sap of the plant acted like a glue after it dried, holding the strips together in a white loose-textured paper.
The desert regions also gave Egypt a rich supply of salts, particularly natron, brine, and soda. These were used in medicine, to preserve and flavor food, and to tan animal hide. Natron was used to make ceramics and glass, and to solder precious metals together: it was even used as a mouthwash. Mixed with salt, it was used to preserve fish, meat, and to mummify dead bodies; mixed with oil, it became an early form of soap.
The Military and its Resources
They developed irrigation and agricultural techniques, waterwheels for mining, and forging methods to make tools and weapons. Most of the energy required was provided by muscle power. Weapons in ancient Egypt varied by military units and included battleaxes, khopesh swords (adopted from Asiatic soldiers), bows and arrows, spears, and slingshots. Maces, daggers, and battle-axes with copper blades were the most effective weapons in hand-to-hand fights. With the New Kingdom, copper was replaced by bronze in blades and projectile weapons.
In early times, soldiers used shields made of dried animal skins to protect themselves. Later they changed to wooden shields studded with bronze. Simple arrows were made of reeds, fletched with three feathers and tipped with flint or hardwood and later, during the New Kingdom, tipped with bronze.
During the New Kingdom, the composite bow came into use. Its draw weight was dramatically greater than that of a simple wooden bow. Therefore, horn was added to the arch of the bow to support the wood so the bow could withstand the tension of the draw. All layers were glued together and covered with birch bark. The composite bow was introduced by the Asiatic Hyksos, along with other advanced technologies originating in Mesopotamia, such as chariots, helmets, and bronze armor.
boats were made of reed bunches. ships of wooden planks. They used tree nails and even mortise and tenon joints to fasten the planks together and then caulked the seams with pitch.
Satches and sekhets, which were 13- to 20- foot (21- to 32-meter) longboats, were used during the Old Kingdom, sailing for transport purposes on the Nile. the ships’ size of about 30 meters in length stayed unaltered, although certain construction and rigging features changed.
Pre-Egyptian Technology Left By an Advanced Civilization That Disappeared
Modern Day Resources
Compared with the physical size of the country and the level of its population, Egypt has scanty mineral resources. The search for petroleum began earlier in Egypt than elsewhere in the Middle East, and production on a small scale began as early as 1908, but it was not until the mid-1970s that significant results were achieved, notably in the Gulf of Suez and portions of the Western Desert. The bulk of Egypt’s petroleum comes from the Morgan, Ramadan, and July fields (both onshore and offshore) in the Gulf of Suez, which are operated by the Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company (commonly known as Gupco), and from the Abū Rudays area of the Sinai on the Gulf of Suez.
Egypt also extracts oil from fields at Al-ʿAlamayn (El-Alamein) and Razzāq in the Western Desert. In the process of searching for oil, some significant natural gas deposits have been located, including substantial deposits in the delta and in the Western Desert, as well as offshore under the Mediterranean Sea. Wells have been established in the Abū Qīr area, northeast of Alexandria. A joint Egyptian-Italian gas discovery was made in the north delta near Abū Māḍī in 1970; this was developed partly to supply a fertilizer plant and partly to fuel the industrial centers in the north and northwest delta.
In 1974 Abū Māḍī became the first Egyptian gas field to begin production. Other natural gas fields are located in the Western Desert, the delta, the Mediterranean shelf, and the Gulf of Suez, and by the early 21st century natural gas production had begun to rival that of oil, both as a source for domestic consumption and as a commodity for export.
Egypt has several oil refineries, two of which are located at Suez. The first of Egypt’s twin crude pipelines, linking the Gulf of Suez to the Mediterranean Sea near Alexandria, was opened in 1977. This Suez-Mediterranean pipeline, known as Sumed, has the capacity to transmit some 2.5 million barrels of oil per day. The Sumed pipeline was financed by a consortium of Arab countries, primarily Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt. In 1981 a crude oil pipeline was opened to link Raʾs Shukhayr, on the Red Sea coast, with the refinery at Musṭurud, north of Cairo. Additional oil pipelines link Musṭurud with Alexandria, and fields near Hurghada to terminals on the Red Sea.
Coal deposits are located in the partially developed Maghārah mines in the Sinai Peninsula. Mines located in the Eastern Desert have been the primary source for manganese production since 1967, and there are also reserves of manganese on the Sinai Peninsula. Iron ore is extracted from deposits at Aswān, and development work has continued at Al-Baḥriyyah Oasis. Chromium, uranium, and gold deposits are also found in the country.
Before the completion of the Aswān High Dam power station in 1970, only a small volume of Egyptian electricity was generated by hydropower, with thermal plants burning diesel fuel or coal being the principal producers. For several years after the High Dam station went into operation, most of the country’s electricity was generated there. Its original 12 turbines have a generating capacity of about 2 million kilowatts; the Aswān II hydroelectric power station (completed 1986) has added another 270,000 kilowatts of capacity to the system.
Actual power production from the High Dam has been limited, however, by the need to reconcile demands for power with the demands for irrigation water. Moreover, Egypt’s booming population and growing need for energy has forced the government to construct additional thermal plants, many of them fueled by the country’s abundant reserves of natural gas. Thermal plants now generate some four-fifths of the country’s electricity.
Table of Resources and Their Uses
| Resource | Use |
|---|---|
| Nile River | Water, transportation, fertile land for agriculture |
| Limestone | Building materials for pyramids, temples |
| Granite | Building materials for pyramids, temples, obelisks |
| Copper | Toolmaking, weapons |
| Flint | Sickles, weapons |
| Flax | Linen cloth, oil |
| Papyrus | Writing material |
| Natron | Medicine, food preservation, mummification |
| Gold | Jewelry, currency, decoration |
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