Chronicles of Ancient Egypt Secrets of the Nile and the Immortal Pharaohs: Icons of Influence: Masters and Empires, #2

Chronicles of Ancient Egypt

Secrets of the Nile and the Immortal Pharaohs

Part 0ne

Lorenzo D'Angelo

Lifeline Nile – Chronicles of Ancient Egypt 

The Pharaohs: Gods and Kings

Metropolises and Cities of the Pharaohs 

The Cult of Mummies

The Pyramids: Palaces of the Immortals

Cleopatra and Nefertiti

The Military Might of Egypt

The Fall of Egypt: Alexander and the Romans

Copyright Page

© 2024 Lorenzo D'Angelo

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

For more information,  contact :

(Email  [email protected])

First Edition

Lifeline Nile

Around 5,000 years ago, one of the largest and most powerful empires in history emerged on the banks of the Nile—ancient Egypt. Monumental temples, tombs, and metropolises bear witness to the power of this fascinating civilization. Yet Egyptian culture is also considered strange and mysterious to this day. International researchers explain the world of the godlike pharaohs and the everyday life of their subjects. The Egyptian Empire endured for 3,000 years. What is the secret to the success of this advanced civilization on the Nile, a narrow green ribbon in the middle of an endless desert?

The Nile, the lifeline of Egypt, transforms parched soils into productive farmland. The first houses and settlements emerged from its mud. It was this mud that truly made Egypt successful. The history of Egypt is the history of the Nile. Yet our story begins in the Sahara. The Arabs call it As-Sahra' al-Kubra—the Great Desert—or Bahr Bila Ma', the Sea Without Water. Throughout the year, extreme drought prevails. In summer, temperatures rise up to 60°C—a landscape of extremes. Yet even here, people live. Nomadic desert dwellers, most of them Arabs, Berbers, or Tuareg, are found mainly on the fringes of the dry desert, where they raise cattle, goats, and sheep.

Their homeland stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea—a desert continent spanning 9 million square kilometers of nothing but sand, stone, and rubble. Life exists here only around a few waterholes. There are five such oases in the Egyptian Sahara today—green islands in the middle of a hostile, barren landscape. A plateau in the extreme southwest of Egypt, however, suggests that the Sahara was not always a desert.

In one of the driest regions in the world, no rain has fallen for decades. The Gilf Kebir Plateau rises some 300 meters above the surrounding desert. In Wadi Sura, the Valley of Images, traces of early sedentary humans have been found: drawings on rock overhangs more than 8,000 years old. Stone Age people left their handprints here. Hidden at the foot of the plateau is a cave, discovered only about 20 years ago. Its rock walls are covered with figures of men hunting and children playing. These images show that antelopes, gazelles, and giraffes must have lived in the Sahara back then. However, the cave is named after its grotesque figures—headless monsters—whose meaning still puzzles researchers. Most of them are so-called mixed creatures. To some, they seem ape-like or elephant-like. They have no heads but possess tails, suggesting they may be mystical creatures that we cannot identify.

The Cave of Monsters stands out because it is by far the largest rock art site anywhere, with an estimated 8,000 individual figures. What is special is the huge number that represents humans. How do these lively paintings fit with the desert that now surrounds them?

Another cave, also on the Gilf Kebir Plateau, provides a clue—the Cave of the Swimmers. It contains depictions of swimming people, with the oldest being more than 10,000 years old. Swimming people in a bone-dry desert? These petroglyphs are not the only evidence that people once lived here thousands of years ago and that the environment must have looked very different.

A few years ago, prehistorian Heo Rema and his team surveyed the area around the caves and discovered something amazing—layers of ancient sediment. These are clear traces of a lake in the middle of the desert. About 10,000 years ago, the landscape at the foot of Gilf Kebir looked much greener. It was what we call a dry savannah, with very low tree cover, typically acacias and tamarisk. During rainy periods, a green area quickly formed, especially in the sandy plains. Meadows appeared, providing food supplies. Where there is desert now, there was lush life for thousands of years. Huge herds once roamed the fertile plains of North Africa.

Model calculations have unraveled the secret of the green Sahara. Whether it rains in the Sahara depends on monsoon winds. About 12,000 years ago, the climate of North Africa changed. It was the end of an Ice Age, and the Northern Hemisphere received more solar heat because the inclination of the Earth's axis was particularly large. This led to monsoon winds from the sea bringing humid air into the Sahara, allowing the desert to blossom. Alas, this bloom did not last forever.

From 5,000 BCE onward, the Earth's axial tilt gradually decreased again. Monsoon rains weakened, and vegetation retreated. The climate changes we observe here were long-term processes spanning 2,000–3,000 years or more. Yet, as we gather more precise data, we see that there were stair-step-like jumps in this development. In other words, there were moments when changes happened relatively quickly.

It was during these periods that the first groups of dwellers from the marginal areas withdrew—first to the oases, then to the Nile Valley. On this narrow, fertile strip along the Nile, climate refugees found a new home—a green paradise where a different kind of life began. For the nomadic desert dwellers, life transformed. Instead of wandering as hunter-gatherers, they practiced agriculture, cattle breeding, and fishing. Settling down was the prerequisite for the emergence of the first advanced civilizations around the Mediterranean.

The Egyptians knew exactly to whom they owed their prosperity. Ancient reliefs show that even in the afterlife, Egyptians imagined nothing more beautiful than the Nile, which gave them everything they needed. Images of fishermen and hunters painted on tomb walls depict blessings for a good life after death. Fish, crocodiles, and hippos cavorted in the water. Among reeds and papyrus bushes, boats glided, carrying goose and duck hunters. On the banks, nestled among rushes and lotus flowers, numerous birds nested. The banks were also home to small and large mammals, butterflies, and grasshoppers.

The Nile may not have been such a lifeline before people moved in from the west. It may not have been hospitable for farming. But just as the grasslands and lakes of the Sahara dried up, silt began to be deposited by the Nile's annual floods. This made farming possible and Egyptian civilization flourish. Every year, at the same time, the river overflowed its banks and spread its fertile black mud. The Nile's summer flood also marked the beginning of the new year in Egypt—Aet, the time of the flood, the first of the three ancient Egyptian seasons.

It's followed by Peret, the rising of the seed, which ripens magnificently thanks to the abundance of water the soil has absorbed. Then comes Shemu, the time of heat and harvest when the sun-drenched fields on the banks yield rich crops. The waters of the Nile turn the alluvial flood plains into one of the most fertile landscapes in the world.

Life thrives in harmony with the Nile until the water comes again, bringing with it the mud carried along its long journey. This mixture of clay and mud isn't only a beneficial fertilizer for the fields; the Egyptians also use it as building material for their dwellings.

Bricks can be made with it using simple wooden molds. Sand and straw are added for stability, and then the bricks are air-dried. It's an economical and sustainable method of construction, as the Nile constantly provides for replenishment.

It was the mud of Egypt that really made it successful because people made their pots, mud bricks, houses, palaces, and defensive walls with it. In fact, the name of Egypt for the ancient Egyptians is Kemet, which means Black Land. This refers to the color of the soil deposited after the flood—so black and dense that it gave Egypt its name.

Mud bricks remained the primary building material of the Egyptians for thousands of years. As early as 5,000 years ago, most dwellings in the cities were made of Nile mud. Only structures meant to last forever, like the Pyramids of Giza and the magnificent temple complexes in Luxor, were built of solid stone, highlighting the grandeur of Egyptian stone architecture.

The ancient historian Herodotus called Egypt a gift of the Nile. The Nile is the pride of the Egyptians, a gift from the gods exclusively for their chosen people, meant to ensure a life of plenty. Accordingly, the gods of the Nile were worshipped with zeal.

The god of the Nile flood is Hapy. He makes the fields fertile and is depicted as an obese man with hanging breasts. Then there is the creator goddess Taweret, who appears as a pregnant hippopotamus with a crocodile head and lion's legs. The crocodile-headed god Sobek embodies the waters of the Nile and rules over the fertile Fayoum region. The goddess Satis, with two antelope horns and the crown of Upper Egypt on her head, is revered as the giver of the Nile's water.

Together with Khnum and Anuket, she forms the so-called Divine Triad of Elephantine. This island is believed to be the source of the Nile, according to Egyptian belief, even though people knew the river rises much farther south, beyond Egypt.

A relief in the temple of the goddess Satis testifies to the pragmatism of the ancient Egyptians. To resolve the contradiction, a member of the triad is given a special headdress, symbolizing the gods' power over the Nile beyond Egyptian borders.

Ancient Egyptian gods typically have one or two feathers in their crowns. When a crown with numerous feathers appears, it indicates a god with a foreign connection. For example, the goddess Anuket represents control over the Nile beyond the southern borders, past the First Cataract.

But where exactly is the origin of Egypt's lifeline? The Nile has two headwaters. The so-called White Nile rises in the mountains of Rwanda and Burundi and flows north through Lake Victoria. The Blue Nile rises in the Ethiopian highlands.

In Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, the White and Blue Niles converge. Egyptians celebrated the annual Nile flood with a special ritual. When the flood reached a certain level, the Pharaoh would puncture the dams, allowing water to pour onto the fields.

The ceremonial openings of the canals are attested to more than 5,000 years ago. How did this happen? How did kingship arise? It likely emerged because, for all periods, Egypt was organized by households.

Households are like seeds, and the expansion of kingship was one household and its proprietor becoming more dominant, taking control of villages and even entire districts. Over time, kingship emerged as the household of households, which is what the word Pharaoh means—the great house.

The annually recurring Nile flood guaranteed prosperity and the wealth of the country. It drenched the fields with water and transformed the land into a fertile Garden of Eden.

Over time, Egyptians developed ever more sophisticated irrigation systems to supply their fields with water year-round. Farmers relied on what is known as basin irrigation. With the help of sluices and mechanical pumps, a finely branched canal system directed the Nile floodwaters to where they were most urgently needed.

Even today, Egyptian farmers irrigate parts of their fields using this time-honored method. When the water supply is good, Egypt thrives. Yet, if the floods fail, drought, hunger, and misery are inevitable.

During the Middle Kingdom, massive construction projects were designed