Why egypt is called the gift of nile answer by points?
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Not only is the Nile River the only source of water for Egyptian civilization, it was also the source of soil fertility for that region, for thousands of years.
Every year, in its cyclical flood during the rainy season far upstream (in the tropical, forested and mountainous areas where the Nile has its sources) the river would overflow its banks, bringing fertile sediment from far upstream to deposit on the farm fields of Egypt, which were all contained in the relatively narrow Nile river valley, and its spreading Delta where it enters the Mediterranean. The surrounding countryside has been barren desert for thousands of years, and receives virtually no rain.
Egypt would not exist at all, at least not as a settled civilization, if not for the Nile. In that sense, the river gives it life; Egypt is truly the gift of the Nile, which the ancients worshiped as a life-giving god. The desert regions, and their scattered oases, would only be able to support a much smaller population of livestock-herding nomads, not settled agriculturalists, outside of the narrow valley watered by the Nile. The Nile is the only reason Egypt was able to sustain the population density its civilization achieved in ancient times and still has today, and is why in ancient times Egypt had such a surplus of grain and produce (during good years) that it was considered the breadbasket of the ancient Mediterranean, as well as one of the most powerful empires of antiquity.
The Aswan High Dam, completed a few decades ago, ended forever the annual Nile flood, as well as storing a vast quantity of water, to be released downstream during periods of relative drought. Given the fertilizing aspects of the ancient rhythm of the flood depositing a new layer of fertile silt on the fields of Egypt every year, flood prevention obviously has both positive and negative effects. But so far, artificial fertilizers and other techniques have at least in part made up for the loss of this natural fertilization process.
Every year, in its cyclical flood during the rainy season far upstream (in the tropical, forested and mountainous areas where the Nile has its sources) the river would overflow its banks, bringing fertile sediment from far upstream to deposit on the farm fields of Egypt, which were all contained in the relatively narrow Nile river valley, and its spreading Delta where it enters the Mediterranean. The surrounding countryside has been barren desert for thousands of years, and receives virtually no rain.
Egypt would not exist at all, at least not as a settled civilization, if not for the Nile. In that sense, the river gives it life; Egypt is truly the gift of the Nile, which the ancients worshiped as a life-giving god. The desert regions, and their scattered oases, would only be able to support a much smaller population of livestock-herding nomads, not settled agriculturalists, outside of the narrow valley watered by the Nile. The Nile is the only reason Egypt was able to sustain the population density its civilization achieved in ancient times and still has today, and is why in ancient times Egypt had such a surplus of grain and produce (during good years) that it was considered the breadbasket of the ancient Mediterranean, as well as one of the most powerful empires of antiquity.
The Aswan High Dam, completed a few decades ago, ended forever the annual Nile flood, as well as storing a vast quantity of water, to be released downstream during periods of relative drought. Given the fertilizing aspects of the ancient rhythm of the flood depositing a new layer of fertile silt on the fields of Egypt every year, flood prevention obviously has both positive and negative effects. But so far, artificial fertilizers and other techniques have at least in part made up for the loss of this natural fertilization process.
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The Greek historian Herodotus called Egypt the "gift of the Nile", since the kingdom owed its survival to the annual flooding of the Nile and the resulting depositing of fertile silt.
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