View of the Nile from a window in the Temple of Philae, Egypt • /ISTOCKPHOTO A long green ribbon crosses a large desert expanse to then form a vast delta which flows into the Mediterranean:it is the Nile, the river which for millennia ensured the prosperity of Egypt. Kemet , the "Black Earth", is the name by which the ancient Egyptians called their country because of the silt deposited by the floods of the Nile along its banks. Observing the fertility and richness of the lands watered by the river, the Greek historian Herodotus could only confirm the opinion of the locals who considered Egypt a gift from the Nile. The Egyptians called this watercourse iterou , "the river", while the name we still give it today would derive its origin from the Coptic naiore , "the rivers", by which the branches of the delta were designated. The floods serve as a calendar The vital role played by the Nile in this very arid environment led the Egyptians to organize their calendar according to the agricultural work linked to the flooding of the river. In Hellenistic times, the Egyptian year thus comprised three seasons divided into four months:akhèt (“flood”), from July to November, which also marked the beginning of the new year; peret ("emergence of the land"), from November to March, or the time of the decline of the waters and the sowing; finally shemu (“heat”), from March to July, harvest time. One could have imagined that the polytheistic Egyptians worshiped the Nile as a god. However, the river was only lately the object of a cult:it was not until the Greco-Roman period that the god Hâpî, personifying the regenerative flooding of the Nile, was adored. According to Egyptian belief, Hâpî dwelt in underground cavities (the “caves of Hâpî”) located under the first cataract of the Nile, near Elephantine Island. At the mythical sources of the Nile It was there that, when the time came, he poured into the river the water contained in two jars which would cause the annual flood. Another dwelling of the god would have been north of the city of Memphis, from where he would have ensured the supply of the branches of the delta with water. The representation of Hâpî is characterized by androgynous features emphasizing its fertilizing power in connection with the fluvial element:a man with blue or green skin, with a large belly on which hang two long breasts, and the head crowned by plants papyrus or reeds. An offering table laden with foods of all kinds is often associated with its iconography. The benefits of flooding were not limited to fertilization. It also eliminated the rats that could harm the crops and foodstuffs stored in the granaries, and revealed, in the event of an invasion, the strategic importance of the river, the overflowing of which could stop the enemy's march. In July 373 BC. BC, the army of the Persian King Artaxerxes II had to raise the siege of Memphis because the waters of the Nile had surrounded the city, making it impregnable. The disasters of a bad flood If the river gave life by fertilizing the land, it could also bring death if the flood was too abundant or, on the contrary, too weak. In fact, although the Nile has a regular regime, its magnitude is variable and essentially depends on the water supply of one of its tributaries, the Blue Nile, which joins the White Nile at Khartoum, Sudan. Catastrophic floods were, however, very rare. They occurred only once or twice a century, while the percentage of low floods did not exceed a quarter of the total. A large number of Egyptian sources relate difficult periods that Egypt had to face following an excessive drop in the level of the Nile. The "famine stele", for example, asserts that under Pharaoh Djoser (whose reign begins around 2691/2625 BC), the country would have suffered from a phase of scarcity of the symbolic duration of seven years, plunging the pharaoh into disarray:“My heart was in great pain, because the Nile had not come in time for a period of seven years. The grain was scarce, the seeds were dried up, all we had to eat was in meager quantities, everyone was frustrated with their income. » "All Upper Egypt was starving and the people were eating their own sons" Under the X e dynasty (XXII th century BC. J.-C.), Ankhtifi, the nomarch (governor of the district) of Hieraconpolis, recounts in a dramatic way how he succeeded, thanks to his wise administration, in guaranteeing the subsistence of the inhabitants of the region of which he was in charge during of a time of famine:"All Upper Egypt was starving and the people were eating their own sons, but I allowed none to die of hunger in this nome [district]. » In order to ensure the availability of the right quantity of water, the Egyptians organized religious festivals in honor of Hâpî, during which they brought offerings and sacrificed animals. In The Hymn to the Nile , a literary text possibly composed in the Middle Kingdom (c. 2065-1781 BC), we sing the praises of Hâpî, who allows Egypt to prosper, while evoking the harmful effects of a bad flood:"Depression is in him, so that the population decreases, he who kills it so that the year is fatal." » The invention of the nilometer Since the dawn of their history, the Egyptians knew how to develop techniques for water management. A very first attestation of the existence of hydraulic works dates back to the predynastic period, and more precisely to the reign of King Scorpion (c. 3200 BC). A votive mace head found at Hieraconpolis shows this ruler wearing the crown of Upper Egypt digging an irrigation canal or waterway. The first signs of the flood appeared in the south of the country, in Syene (current Aswan), at the very beginning of June, and ten days later in Memphis. Then, the waves of the Nile took on a green color and the level of the waters rose gradually. On July 19, the star of Sothis (Sirius) rose again in the sky after being invisible for 70 days, announcing the imminent overflow of the river, which occurred around July 20. The flood reached its peak between August 25 and September 5, then decreased a few days later, between September 10 and 15. Predicting the quality of floods was therefore a permanent concern for the Egyptians who carried it out using the most diverse methods, from magic to the observation of the stars or extraordinary phenomena such as the birth of animals with monstrous. The most rational and common process consisted in the construction of nilometers, which made it possible to measure the volume of the flow of the Nile. This instrument was in the form of a stone well with a staircase descending to the ground below the low water level, that is to say the lowest level of the river. Graduations were engraved on the walls, more rarely on the columns, to measure the level reached by the waters. Three millennia of archives The standard adopted was the royal cubit, corresponding to 0.525 meters, which was subdivided into 7 palms and 28 fingers. Its origin probably dates back to prehistoric times, but, according to the Egyptians, it was a gift given to men by the god Thoth. On the basis of the level reached by the waters, one could predict whether the flooding of the Nile would be beneficial or harmful for agriculture, and one calculated according to the data thus obtained the amount of the annual taxes which it was necessary to pay to the pharaoh. Several nilometers were placed along the river, but the inscriptions of the White Chapel of Sesostris I st (c. 1971-1928 BC) specify that the official nilometers used by the administration were located at Elephantine, Edfu and Memphis. The "Palermo stone", on which the royal annals of the I re are engraved at the V th dynasty, also transmitted to us the oldest records of the height of the annual floods. Thanks to this document, we know that at that time the ideal flood, guaranteeing the most abundant harvest, did not exceed seven cubits. Today, the Aswan High Dam, completed in 1970, has put an end to the millennia-old cycle of Nile floods. It leads to the progressive salinization of the land, the pollution of water and the reduction of fertility due to the lack of silt. This is the price to pay to keep the god Hâpî locked up in his caves. Find out more The Flood of the Nile, Egyptian deity, through a thousand years of history (332 BC-641 AD), D. Bonneau, Klincksieck, 1964.From the Nile to Alexandria. History of waters, I. Hairy (ed.), Harpocrates, 2009. Timeline 3000 BC. According to the "Palermo stone", the Egyptians kept records from the I re dynasty the maximum height reached by the floods, on which depended the quality of the harvests and the possibility of having surpluses.2550-2250 BC. In Wadi Garawi, near Memphis, a dam 25 meters high and 80 meters wide was built to collect rainwater. In 2250 BC. J.-C., a decree of Pépi I st mentions the existence of canals.2000 BC. In Middle Kingdom texts appear the terms denyt (dike) and meryt (barrier), specific to the Egyptian hydraulic system, which indicate the existence of pipes controlling the level of water during floods.1850 BC. In the Temple of Amun at Karnak, a huge 230-meter-long dyke is raised to protect the sanctuary from flooding caused by the flooding of the Nile. It is one of the largest dams in Egypt.684 BC. Despite the retention dykes, a flood flooded the great hypostyle hall of the Temple of Amun at Karnak during the sixth year of the reign of Pharaoh Taharqa (XXV th dynasty). The water level then rises to almost a meter. Happy as a sacred crocodile The worship of the god Sebek The Nile held many perils. Hippopotamuses and crocodiles claimed many victims among those who ventured on its shores. The Egyptians nevertheless considered the crocodile to be a sacred animal and worshiped it in the form of the crocodile-god Sebek. In the town of Per-Sebek (“Crocodilopolis”), on the shores of Lake Moeris, lived a sacred crocodile by the name of “Petsuchos”, which the priests adorned with pendants and bracelets. The animal moved freely and received a hearty meal every day, as Strabo relates:“We fed it meat and wine. […] A priest makes him swallow cake, meat and mead, while another keeps his mandibles open. When a sacred crocodile died, it was embalmed and buried with full honours. In the south, Sebek's main shrine was at Kom Ombo. A hymn in honor of the crocodile god was even engraved on the walls of the Ramesseum, the funeral temple of Ramses II. Detecting the arrival of the floodA strategic nilometer One of the two nilometers preserved on Elephantine Island belongs to the temple of Satis, goddess of floods, and was described by Strabo as early as the I st century AD. It is a staircase corridor dating from the Greco-Roman era. Inscriptions were carved on the side walls in Greek and Demotic characters. Abandoned for almost a thousand years, it was restored in the 19 th century and regained its usefulness thanks to the construction of new steps carrying marble plates graduated in Arabic numerals. Located at the level of the first cataract of the Nile, this nilometer was one of the first to detect variations in the level of the river. This position earned him to become one of the most important nilometers in Egypt. Selective fishing in the NileTaboo on sacred fish The Nile was an inexhaustible source of fish. Tilapias, perch, oxyrhynques, catfish… They abounded in the river as well as in the canals, dams, ponds and swamps that stretched between the cultivated plots. The fishermen settled on the banks or in boats and used harpoons, rods, nets, traps, water reservoirs... Not all fish were edible. Thus, the oxyrhynchus, considered a sacred fish, was untouchable:according to the myth, it had indeed swallowed the penis of Osiris, whose body had been cut into pieces and thrown into the water of the river by his brother Seth. . This tradition continued in Roman times. In a contract of 46 apr. J.-C., fishermen declare:“We will never condone those who use rods or cast nets to catch the effigies of the divine oxyrhynques, in accordance with the contract to which we and the other fishermen have publicly subscribed. »
