The Inundation

In the last lesson you saw that Egypt lived on the Nile. Every summer the river did something that shaped the whole year: it rose, spilled over its banks and covered the valley floor with water for weeks. Egyptians called this akhet, the inundation.

Key idea

The flood came from summer monsoon rains on the Ethiopian highlands, far to the south, carried down the Blue Nile and the Atbara. It reached Egypt in summer, covered the fields, and left a layer of fresh silt. The height of the flood decided whether the harvest would be good.

Why it works

Two rivers make the Nile. The White Nile, from the lakes of East Africa, flows steadily all year. The Blue Nile, from the Ethiopian highlands, swells hugely when the summer rains fall there and carries most of the mud. When that surge reached Egypt, the river rose by several meters. Egypt itself had almost no rain; the water and the soil both came from far away.

The Nile from Sudan to the sea. The flood water came from much farther south, beyond the edge of this map.

Too high, too low, just right

A good flood soaked the basins of farmland and drained away in time to plant. A low flood left fields dry and meant hunger. A very high flood swept away dikes and villages. So the Egyptians measured the river. Nilometers, stairs or wells with marked levels, recorded each year's height, and officials used the readings to estimate the harvest and set taxes. One famous nilometer is on Elephantine Island at Aswan.

The three seasons

Each season had four months of 30 days. Five extra days at the end made a year of 365 days.
Season	Egyptian name	What happened
Inundation	akhet	The fields were under water; farm work stopped, and many people could be called up for building work.
Growing	peret ("coming out")	The land came out of the water; farmers plowed, sowed and tended wheat, barley and flax.
Harvest	shemu	Grain was cut, threshed and stored; the river was at its lowest.

Worked example: Why a low flood mattered

A scribe records a flood well below normal. What does he expect next, and who needs to know?

Less water means fewer fields are soaked, so less land can be sown.
Less land sown means a smaller harvest of grain.
The granaries and the tax officials need to know, because taxes were set from the expected harvest.

Answer: A smaller harvest, so lower taxes and careful use of stored grain.

Common mistake

Thinking the flood came from rain in Egypt. Egypt is one of the driest places on earth; the flood came from monsoon rains on the Ethiopian highlands, thousands of kilometers south. Check: the flood arrived in high summer, the driest time in Egypt itself.

Since the Aswan High Dam was finished in 1970, the flood no longer reaches Egypt; Lake Nasser holds the water back.

The Inundation

Too high, too low, just right

The three seasons

Practice

Builds on

Leads to

Sources and further reading