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The Nile River was crucial to the survival of Ancient Egypt. This video explains its importance.

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Ancient Egypt Geography – the Nile River

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Explore this interactive map of Ancient Egypt to understand its geographical boundaries and key locations.

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Illustration

Map of ancient Egypt, showing the major cities and archaeological sites along the Nile River, from Abu Simbel in the south to Alexandria in the north .

About the Author

I am an archaeological illustrator and have worked in the field of Mediterranean archaeology for over 15 years in Greece, Cyprus and Turkey. My work includes artifact drawing, site plans, layouts, maps and book illustrations.

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Uploaded by Tina Ross, published on 22 October 2020. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Copyright. You cannot use, copy, distribute, or modify this item without explicit permission from the author. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.

Cite This Work

APA Style

Ross, T. (2020, October 22). Map of Ancient Egypt. World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/image/12990/map-of-ancient-egypt/

Chicago Style

Ross, Tina. " Map of Ancient Egypt." World History Encyclopedia. Last modified October 22, 2020. https://www.worldhistory.org/image/12990/map-of-ancient-egypt/.

MLA Style

Ross, Tina. " Map of Ancient Egypt." World History Encyclopedia. World History Encyclopedia, 22 Oct 2020. Web. 15 Nov 2023.

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Map of ancient Egypt, showing the major cities and archaeological sites along the Nile River, from Abu Simbel in the south to Alexandria in the north .

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The Impact of Geography on Ancient Egypt

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The Impact of Geography on Ancient Egypt

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Read about how the geography of Ancient Egypt influenced their culture, trade, and daily life.

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Over the course of some five millennia the ancient Egyptians developed a distinctive material culture shaped in large part by their local geography, natural resources, and relationship with the Nile River. In the 5 th Century BCE, the Greek historian Herodotus noted that "any sensible person" could see that Lower Egypt was a "gift of the river" (Herodotus, 2.5). While his comments were limited to the areas in the north and in the Delta, they really ring true for all the Nile River Valley. Every aspect of life in Egypt depended on the river - the Nile provided food and resources, land for agriculture, a means of travel, and was critical in the transportation of materials for building projects and other large-scale endeavors. It was a critical lifeline that literally brought life to the desert.

The modern name of the Nile River comes from the Greek Nelios, but the Egyptians called it Iteru or "River." The Nile is the longest river in the world, measuring some 6,825 km. The Nile River System has three main branches - the White Nile, the Blue Nile, and the Atbara river. The White Nile, the river's headwaters, flows from Lake Victoria and Lake Albert. The Blue Nile brings about the inundation or annual flood and provides most of the river's water and silt. The Atbara river has less of an impact, as it flows only occasionally.

In the south, the Nile has a series of six main cataracts, which begin at the site of Aswan. A cataract is a shallow stretch of turbulent waters formed where flowing waters encounter resistant rock layers. In the case of the Nile cataracts, large outcroppings of granite make the flow of the river unpredictable and much more difficult to traverse by boat. The cataract system created a natural boundary at Aswan, separating Egypt from its southern neighbor, Nubia.

Ancient Egypt was located in Northeastern Africa and had four clear geographic zones: the Delta, the Western Desert, the Eastern Desert, and the Nile Valley. Each of these zones had its own natural environment and its own role within the Egyptian State. Cities could only flourish in the Nile Delta, the Nile Valley, or desert oases, where people had access to water, land, and key resources. The ancient Egyptians, who were always keen observers of nature, often associated the Nile Valley with life and abundance and the neighboring deserts with death and chaos.

Kemet or, "black land," denotes the rich, fertile land of the Nile Valley, while Deshret, or "red land," refers to the hot, dry desert. The contrast between the red land and the black land was not just visible or geographic, it effected the Egyptians' everyday lives. The dry climate of the desert, for example, made it an ideal location for cemeteries. There, the annual Nile flood would not disturb people's graves and the dry climate acted to preserve tombs and their contents. Good preservation and the fact that most people do not live in the desert, are the main reasons that so much of what archaeologists and anthropologists study comes from a funerary context.

The landscapes of Upper and Lower Egypt also differ. The Egyptian word Tawy, means "Two Lands" - this refers to the two main regions of ancient Egypt, Upper and Lower Egypt. Lower Egypt is in the north and contains the Nile Delta, while Upper Egypt contains areas to the South. These two designations may seem counterintuitive to their physical locations, but they reflect the flow of the Nile River, from South to North.

The expansive floodplain of the Nile Delta and the very narrow band of fertile land present in the Nile Valley led to different ways of life. In the Nile Delta for example, the Egyptians constructed their towns and cemeteries on turtlebacks; natural highpoints in the landscape that became islands during the inundation. In addition, the location of the Delta along the Mediterranean and at the entry point into the Levant made it an important area for trade and international contacts. The Delta was a very multi-cultural region throughout Egyptian history.

The Egyptians thought of the king as the unifier of the "Two Lands." One of the king's primary roles was to keep Upper and Lower Egypt united; the Egyptians expressed this visually using something we call the sema-tawy motif. Here you can see two Nile gods symbolically uniting the lands of Upper and Lower Egypt - each depicted in the form of their characteristic plant, the papyrus for Lower Egypt and the lotus for Upper.

The Egyptians constructed their calendar around the yearly cycle of the Nile. It included three main seasons: Akhet, the period of the Nile's inundation, Peret, the growing season, and Shemu, harvest season. The Egyptians made Nilometers to measure and track the height of the annual inundation - they used the recorded readings from these Nilometers much like more contemporary farmers would use almanacs. One particularly well-preserved example is located on Elephantine Island at Aswan.

The close connection between the Egyptians the Nile River led them to identify a number of Egyptian gods with aspects of the river, its annual flood, and the fertility and abundance associated with them. Hapi, for example, is the incarnation of the life force that the Nile provides; he also symbolizes the annual inundation of the Nile. His round belly and folds of skin represent abundance. Osiris, who is most often recognized in his role associated with the afterlife, is fundamentally a god of regeneration and rebirth. Artists often depicted him with black skin, linking him to the fertility of the Nile River and its lifegiving silt. The broader natural world was a further source of inspiration for Egyptian religion.

The Nile was also an important highway, it was the easiest way to travel and played an essential role in mining expeditions, trade, architectural projects, and general travel. The Egyptians were expert boat builders; images of boats are some of the earliest designs that appear on Egyptian Predynastic Vessels dating to ca. 3500-3300 B.C.E. River access decreased the time and number of individuals needed for the transportation of large objects, like stones, obelisks, and architectural elements. Boats were also common in the funerary religion as well - as a part of the funeral itself and for the afterlife.

Although I've only been able to touch on a few key elements here, the natural environment of Egypt and the Nile River impacted every aspect of life in ancient Egypt. The river's floodplain, water, and silt provided the foundation for civilization and served as a source of inspiration for the people who inhabited northeastern Africa during this pivotal period in history.
Lisa Saladino Haney is Postdoctoral Assistant Curator of Egypt on the Nile at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.
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Over the course of some five millennia the ancient Egyptians developed a distinctive material culture shaped in large part by their local geography, natural resources, and relationship with the Nile River. In the 5 th Century BCE, the Greek historian Herodotus noted that "any sensible person" could see that Lower Egypt was a "gift of the river" (Herodotus, 2.5).

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Learn about the steps involved in mummifying a body in Ancient Egypt.

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This article explores the religious and cultural significance of mummification in Ancient Egypt.

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Egyptian mummies, long an object of modern fascination, seem to link us with the ancient past by preserving distinct human form. But this was not the true reason for the intricate process, a major new British exhibition will argue.

The technique was instead a way of transforming dead dignitaries into a shape that the gods would accept. So, far from ensuring the survival of individual features, mummification aimed to make the occupant of a tomb match a divine formula.

The gilded mummy of a child, at Manchester Museum's 'Golden Mummies of Egypt' exhibition. Photograph: Julia Thorne

"The idea that we inherited from the Victorians, that it was all done to keep a dead body just as it was in life, is not right," said Campbell Price, a leading Egyptologist whose book will accompany the exhibition. "It is flawed, and we now believe it was intended to steer them towards divinity."

Price and a team of curators will invite the public to examine the evidence themselves in the new year when Golden Mummies of Egypt comes to the newly refurbished Manchester Museum, which is reopening on 18 February.

The display, which will feature eight mummies and more than 100 other ancient objects, has already toured internationally during the museum's closure and will be freshly staged for Manchester, to emphasise Price's interpretation of the ancient purification, anointing and wrapping process.

"We have to imagine a time when, not only were there obviously no photographic images, but also very few mirrors, so people didn't know what they looked like. The whole question of individual facial features was not so important," said Price this weekend. "The ideas behind ancient portraiture and statuary were also very different as a result."

The strength of the mistaken belief that Price now hopes to turn on its golden head is, he says, down to the colonial attitudes of early archaeologists, supported today by our heightened interest in personal appearance. "When people look at a face inside a mummy and say, 'oh, they looked just like us', it is just an illusion," he said.

Price is an active member of the Egypt Exploration Society, which, though founded in 1882, now challenges the old colonial, celebratory approach. More up-to-date scholarly interpretations stem in part, Price said, from the work of Christina Riggs, whose book Treasured: How Tutankhamun Shaped a Century was published in paperback this month to coincide with the centenary of the discovery of the tomb of the best known pharaoh of them all.

A mummified cat, displayed in Giza's Saqqara necropolis in 2019. Photograph: Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images

In recognition of the spiritual significance of the mummies and other tomb contents, no CT scans nor facial recognition imagery will appear in the exhibition.

"All the more recent scanning harks back to the Edwardian archaeologist Flinders Petrie, who was interested in measuring the skulls inside the mummies to see if they matched British ideas of what a human should be. It is the rather sinister background to Egyptology we are moving away from."

Displayed diary entries from eminent archaeologists of the past will also serve to reveal how priorities were once driven by Victorian values concerning race, gender, status and death.

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Victorians wrong about why Egyptians mummified the dead, exhibition reveals

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Egyptian mummies, long an object of modern fascination, seem to link us with the ancient past by preserving distinct human form. But this was not the true reason for the intricate process, a major new British exhibition will argue. The technique was instead a way of transforming dead dignitaries into a shape that the gods would accept.

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The methods of embalming, or treating the dead body, that the ancient Egyptians used is called mummification. Using special processes, the Egyptians removed all moisture from the body, leaving only a dried form that would not easily decay. It was important in their religion to preserve the dead body in as life-like a manner as possible. So successful were they that today we can view the mummified body of an Egyptian and have a good idea of what he or she looked like in life, 3,000 years ago.

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The methods of embalming, or treating the dead body, that the ancient Egyptians used is called mummification. Using special processes, the Egyptians removed all moisture from the body, leaving only a dried form that would not easily decay. It was important in their religion to preserve the dead body in as life-like a manner as possible. So successful were they that today we can view the mummified body of an Egyptian and have a good idea of what he or she looked like in life, 3,000 years ago.

Mummification was practiced throughout most of early Egyptian history. The earliest mummies from prehistoric times probably were accidental. By chance, dry sand and air (since Egypt has almost no measurable rainfall) preserved some bodies buried in shallow pits dug into the sand. About 2600 BCE, during the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties, Egyptians probably began to mummify the dead intentionally. The practice continued and developed for well over 2,000 years, into the Roman Period (ca. 30 BCE-CE 364). Within any one period the quality of the mummification varied, depending on the price paid for it. The best prepared and preserved mummies are from the Eighteenth through the Twentieth Dynasties of the New Kingdom (ca. 1570-1075 BCE) and include those of Tutankhamen and other well-known pharaohs. It is the general process of this period that shall be described here.

Mummification Process

The mummification process took seventy days. Special priests worked as embalmers, treating and wrapping the body. Beyond knowing the correct rituals and prayers to be performed at various stages, the priests also needed a detailed knowledge of human anatomy. The first step in the process was the removal of all internal parts that might decay rapidly. The brain was removed by carefully inserting special hooked instruments up through the nostrils in order to pull out bits of brain tissue. It was a delicate operation, one which could easily disfigure the face. The embalmers then removed the organs of the abdomen and chest through a cut usually made on the left side of the abdomen. They left only the heart in place, believing it to be the center of a person's being and intelligence. The other organs were preserved separately, with the stomach, liver, lungs, and intestines placed in special boxes or jars today called canopic jars. These were buried with the mummy. In later mummies, the organs were treated, wrapped, and replaced within the body. Even so, unused canopic jars continued to be part of the burial ritual.

The embalmers next removed all moisture from the body. This they did by covering the body with natron, a type of salt which has great drying properties, and by placing additional natron packets inside the body. When the body had dried out completely, embalmers removed the internal packets and lightly washed the natron off the body. The result was a very dried-out but recognizable human form. To make the mummy seem even more life-like, sunken areas of the body were filled out with linen and other materials and false eyes were added.

Next the wrapping began. Each mummy needed hundreds of yards of linen. The priests carefully wound the long strips of linen around the body, sometimes even wrapping each finger and toe separately before wrapping the entire hand or foot. In order to protect the dead from mishap, amulets were placed among the wrappings and prayers and magical words written on some of the linen strips. Often the priests placed a mask of the person's face between the layers of head bandages. At several stages the form was coated with warm resin and the wrapping resumed once again. At last, the priests wrapped the final cloth or shroud in place and secured it with linen strips. The mummy was complete. The priests preparing the mummy were not the only ones busy during this time. Although the tomb preparation usually had begun long before the person's actual death, now there was a deadline, and craftsmen, workers, and artists worked quickly. There was much to be placed in the tomb that a person would need in the Afterlife. Furniture and statuettes were readied; wall paintings of religious or daily scenes were prepared; and lists of food or prayers finished. Through a magical process, these models, pictures, and lists would become the real thing when needed in the Afterlife. Everything was now ready for the funeral.

As part of the funeral, priests performed special religious rites at the tomb's entrance. The most important part of the ceremony was called the "Opening of the Mouth." A priest touched various parts of the mummy with a special instrument to "open" those parts of the body to the senses enjoyed in life and needed in the Afterlife. By touching the instrument to the mouth, the dead person could now speak and eat. He was now ready for his journey to the Afterlife. The mummy was placed in his coffin, or coffins, in the burial chamber and the entrance sealed up.

Such elaborate burial practices might suggest that the Egyptians were preoccupied with thoughts of death. On the contrary, they began early to make plans for their death because of their great love of life. They could think of no life better than the present, and they wanted to be sure it would continue after death.

But why preserve the body? The Egyptians believed that the mummified body was the home for this soul or spirit. If the body was destroyed, the spirit might be lost. The idea of "spirit" was complex involving really three spirits: the ka, ba, and akh. The ka, a "double" of the person, would remain in the tomb and needed the offerings and objects there. The ba, or "soul", was free to fly out of the tomb and return to it. And it was the akh, perhaps translated as "spirit", which had to travel through the Underworld to the Final Judgment and entrance to the Afterlife. To the Egyptian, all three were essential.

Who Was Mummified

After death, the pharaohs of Egypt usually were mummified and buried in elaborate tombs. Members of the nobility and officials also often received the same treatment, and occasionally, common people. However, the process was an expensive one, beyond the means of many.

For religious reasons, some animals were also mummified. The sacred bulls from the early dynasties had their own cemetery at Sakkara. Baboons, cats, birds, and crocodiles, which also had great religious significance, were sometimes mummified, especially in the later dynasties.

The Study of Mummies Today

Ancient writers, modern scientists, and the mummies themselves all help us better understand the Egyptian mummification process and the culture in which it existed. Much of what we know about the actual process is based on the writings of early historians such as Herodotus who carefully recorded the process during his travels to Egypt around 450 BCE. Present-day archaeologists and other specialists are adding to this knowledge. The development of x-rays now makes it possible to x-ray mummies without destroying the elaborate outer wrappings. By studying the x-rays or performing autopsies on unwrapped bodies, experts are learning more about diseases suffered by the Egyptians and their medical treatment. A better idea of average height and life span comes from studying the bones. By learning their age at death, the order and dates of the Egyptian kings becomes a little clearer. Even ties of kinship in the royal line can be suggested by the striking similarities or dissimilarities in the skulls of pharaohs that followed one another. Dead now for thousands of years, the mummy continues to speak to us.
Websites and Books on Ancient Egypt, 2012 (PDF)
Anthropology Outreach Office, Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History

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Egyptian Mummies | Smithsonian Institution

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The methods of embalming, or treating the dead body, that the ancient Egyptians used is called mummification.... Learn more

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Learn about some of the most famous pharaohs, their reigns, and contributions to Egyptian history.

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The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

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Our knowledge of the succession of Egyptian kings is based on kinglists kept by the ancient Egyptians themselves. The most famous are the Palermo Stone, which covers the period from the earliest dynasties to the middle of Dynasty 5; the Abydos Kinglist, which Seti I had carved on his temple at Abydos; and the Turin Canon, a papyrus that covers the period from the earliest dynasties to the reign of Ramesses II. All are incomplete or fragmentary. We also rely on the History of Egypt written by Manetho in the third century B.C. A priest in the temple at Heliopolis, Manetho had access to many original sources and it was he who divided the kings into the thirty dynasties we use today.

It is to this structure of dynasties and listed kings that we now attempt to link an absolute chronology of dates in terms of our own calendrical system. The process is made difficult by the fragmentary condition of the kinglists and by differences in the calendrical years used at various times. Some astronomical observations from the ancient Egyptians have survived, allowing us to calculate absolute dates within a margin of error. Synchronisms with the other civilizations of the ancient world are also of limited use.

Department of Egyptian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2002

Citation

Department of Egyptian Art. "List of Rulers of Ancient Egypt and Nubia." In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/phar/hd_phar.htm (October 2002)

© 2000-2020 The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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List of Rulers of Ancient Egypt and Nubia | Lists of Rulers | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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