Ancient Egypt was around for three thousand years. From the early beginning Egypt was a land of contrasts. There were crop-laden fields and empty deserts, hot, sunny days and cold nights, but the most noticeable difference was that Ancient Egypt was split into two kingdoms which the Nile helped dictate. To the south was Upper Egypt where the Nile flowed north out of the mountains and to the north was Lower Egypt where the river spreads into the delta before emptying into the Mediterranean. The Nile did more than dictate Upper and Lower Egypt it was also a powerful influence on the lives of the Egyptian people. It was used to bathe, get water, and help in the growing and distribution of crops. With the abundance of things the Nile did there …show more content…
The Ancient Egyptian civilization was no different. The Nile shaped the entire way that the Egyptian Civilization was set up. As seen in Document A all of the Egyptian settlements were set up right next to the Nile. The Nile let the Egyptian people bathe, have a steady food and water supply, it made it hard for other civilizations in the area to get to them, irrigation to grow crops, and transportation to carry things to different places. All of these things are important as food and water are essential things needed to survive, having other civilizations stay away helped the Egyptian people for having to take part in a war, bathing prevented diseases, irrigation helped with the growing of crops which made food and also made money for farmers, and transportation helped the Egyptian people distribute what they made and make money for what they did. The Nile is the backbone to how the Egyptian Civilization was …show more content…
“The afterlife of Ancient Egypt was a paradise called the Field of Reeds” (Document D). There was a painting of the “Field of Reeds” in the “tomb of a tradesman named Sennedjem”. At the border of the painting was “the Nile River and irrigation canals” This means that the Nile was important enough in Egypt that it shaped part of the Egyptian Religion and made it somewhere as important as the Afterlife. Another example of this is when the Nile got a religious poem or hymn dedicated to it. The hymn was call “Hymn to the Nile”. The Hymn praises the work the Nile does to keep all of the crops alive. “Hail to you, oh Nile, spring from the ground, come to keep the land alive….who floods the fields that Ra has created to make all the animals live…who produces barley and makes wheat grow, that the temples might be in festival.” (Document E) The hymn shows that the Nile is important enough to get its own religious song like many of the Egyptian gods do. Therefore, the Nile has made an extreme impact of the Egyptian religion and