The Nile River also gave them excellent soil to grow their own food because when the river would overflow, it left the soil full of nutrients and other necessary things that plants need to become big and strong. This was very important because most of Egypt is hot and dry , so the only place crops could grow was right by the Nile River.
The Nile River was also important to the Ancient Egyptians because reeds grew alongside of it and they used these to make a type of paper that they called papyrus. They used this paper to write books, messages, and to deliver letters to families and other countries. They also used reeds to build boats, which they then travelled with down the river for transport and trade. The Nile River has been an important source of food, transportation, and water for the continent of Africa for thousands of years.
Without the rich soil and clean waters that the river brought to the dry desert, Ancient Egypt would not have survived, and this extremely important civilization would have never happened. An abundance of birds live along the river, too, and its waters are also a vital resource for many migrating flocks.
The Nile Delta, in fact, is "part of one of the world's most important migration routes for birds," according to the WWF. The Nile also supports several large animal species, such as hippopotamuses, which were once common along much of the river, but now mostly inhabit the Sudd and other swampy areas in South Sudan. There are also soft-shelled turtles, cobras, black mambas, water snakes and three species of monitor lizards , which reportedly average 1. Perhaps the river's most famous fauna, however, is the Nile crocodile.
These inhabit most parts of the river, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, and are one of the largest crocodilian species on Earth, growing up to 6 meters 20 feet long. As ancient Egypt grew along the Lower Nile, the river's importance was not lost on its people, who made it a central theme of their society. They correctly saw it as their source of life, and it played a key role in many of their most important myths.
The Milky Way was seen as a celestial mirror of the Nile, for example, and the sun god Ra was believed to drive his ship across it. It was thought to embody the god Hapi, who blessed the land with life, as well as Ma'at, who represented the concepts of truth, harmony and balance, according to the AHE. It was also associated with Hathor, a goddess of the sky, women, fertility and love. In one popular myth, the god Osiris is betrayed by his jealous brother Set, who tricks him into lying down in a sarcophagus, pretending it's a gift.
Set then traps Osiris inside and throws him in the Nile, which carries him away to Byblos. Osiris' body is eventually found by his wife, Isis, who retrieves him and tries to bring him back to life. Set intervenes, though, stealing Osiris' body, chopping it into pieces and scattering them across Egypt. Isis still tracks down every piece of Osiris — all except for his penis, which had been eaten by a Nile crocodile.
That's why crocodiles were associated with the god of fertility, Sobek, the AHE explains, and this event was seen as the catalyst that made the Nile so fertile.
Due to this story, the AHE adds, anyone eaten by a crocodile in ancient Egypt "was considered fortunate in a happy death. The reverence for Nile crocodiles was particularly strong in the ancient city of Shedet now called Faiyum , located in the river's Faiyum Oasis south of Cairo. This city was known to the Greeks as " Crocodilopolis ," since its residents not only worshipped Sobek, but also honored an earthly manifestation of the god: a living crocodile named "Petsuchos," whom they covered in jewelry and kept in a temple, according to The Guardian.
When one Petsuchos died, a new crocodile filled the role. Osiris couldn't come back to life without his whole body, according to the AHE, so he instead became god of the dead and lord of the underworld. The Nile was seen as a gateway to the afterlife, with the eastern side representing life and the western side considered the land of the dead.
Yet while the river abounds with ancient links to the spiritual underworld of ancient Egypt, modern science suggests it may also serve as a window to a more tangible underworld: the Earth's mantle. There is some debate over the Nile's age, but in late , a team of researchers reported that Nile drainage has been stable for about 30 million years — or five times longer than previously thought.
In other words, if you traveled along the Nile during the Oligocene Epoch, its course would be eerily similar to the route we know today. That's because of a stable topographic gradient along the river's path, the researchers explain, which apparently held steady for so long due to currents circulating in the mantle, the layer of hot rock under Earth's crust.
In essence, the Nile's path has been maintained all this time by a plume of mantle that mirrors the river's northward flow, the study suggests. The idea of mantle plumes shaping topography on the surface isn't new, as Eos magazine points out , but the huge scale of the Nile basin could illuminate this relationship like never before. And based on what the Nile can reveal about the mantle below, this might help scientists use it and other rivers as " windows into the underworld ," as Gizmodo put it, potentially shedding new light on the inner workings of our planet.
People have left their mark along the Nile for millennia, but the dynamic has changed a bit lately. One big shift came in with completion of the Aswan High Dam , which impounds the river in southern Egypt to create a reservoir called Lake Nasser. For the first time in history, this gave humans control over the Nile's life-giving floods.
It offers "enormous benefits to the economy of Egypt," according to Encyclopedia Britannica, since water can now be released where and when it's needed most, and since the dam's 12 turbines can generate 2.
The dam has also changed the Nile in negative ways, however. The black silt that tamed the Sahara, for example, is now largely impounded behind the dam, accumulating in the reservoir and canals instead of flowing north.
Silt used to enrich and expand the Nile Delta over time, but it's now shrinking due to erosion along the Mediterranean coast, according to National Geographic. The dam has also led to a gradual decline in the fertility and productivity of riverside farmland, Britannica adds, noting that "Egypt's annual application of about 1 million tons of artificial fertilizers is an inadequate substitute for the 40 million tons of silt formerly deposited annually by the Nile flood.
Sudan also has some older dams along Nile tributaries, like the Blue Nile's Sennar Dam, which opened in , or the Atbara's Khashm el-Girba Dam, which opened in These may not alter the river quite like the Aswan High Dam, but a project in Ethiopia has raised new fears over water supplies downstream.
To deliver those benefits, however, the dam will need to hold back lots of water that would otherwise flow to Sudan and Egypt. That has stirred anxiety in those countries, both of which are already prone to water shortages, given the scale of the project.
The dam will create a reservoir more than double the size of Lake Mead — the largest reservoir in the U. The Nile is also featured in a number of Egyptian myths. Q-How long is the Nile River? A -The Nile River is approximately 4, miles long and was historically thought to be the longest river in the world.
There is plenty of debate surrounding this, however, for many believe the Amazon River in South America might be longer. Q-Why is the Nile River important? A - The most important thing the Nile provided to the Ancient Egyptians was fertile land. Most of Egypt is desert, but along the Nile River the soil is rich and good for growing crops. The three most important crops were wheat, flax, and papyrus. Q-What are 3 facts about the Nile River? Q-Where does the Nile River start and stop?
A -The River Nile is in Africa.
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