The Nile: Judith Bunbury Reim Rowe

Bunbury and Rowe
The ancient Egyptian kingdoms, at their greatest extent,

stretched more than 2,000 kilometres along the Nile and
passed through diverse habitats. In the north, the Nile traversed
the Mediterranean coast and the Delta while further south a
thread of cultivation along the Nile Valley passed through the
vast desert of the Sahara. As global climate and landscapes Ancient Egypt
changed and evolved, the habitable parts of the kingdoms
shifted. Modern studies suggest that episodes of desertification in Context
and greening swept across Egypt over periods of 1,000
years. Rather than isolated events, the changes in Egypt are
presented in context, often as responses to global occurrences,
characterised by a constant shift of events, so although broadly
The Nile
The Nile
historic, this narrative follows a series of habitats as they change
and evolve through time.
Mobility and
Management
About the Series Series Editors
The aim of this Elements series is to offer Gianluca Miniaci
authoritative but accessible overviews University of Pisa
Judith Bunbury
of foundational and emerging topics in Juan Carlos
the study of ancient Egypt, along with Moreno García
comparative analyses, translated into CNRS, Paris
a language comprehensible to non-
specialists. Its authors will take a step
back and connect ancient Egypt to the
Anna Stevens
University of
Reim Rowe
Cambridge and
world around, bringing ancient Egypt to
Monash University
the attention of the broader humanities
community and leading Egyptology in
new directions.
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Elements in Ancient Egypt in Context
edited by
Gianluca Miniaci
University of Pisa
Juan Carlos Moreno García
CNRS, Paris
Anna Stevens
University of Cambridge and Monash University
THE NILE
Mobility and Management
Judith Bunbury
University of Cambridge
Reim Rowe
Independent Scholar
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DOI: 10.1017/9781108919913
© Judith Bunbury and Reim Rowe 2021
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The Nile
Mobility and Management
Elements in Ancient Egypt in Context
DOI: 10.1017/9781108919913
First published online: July 2021
Judith Bunbury
University of Cambridge
Reim Rowe
Independent Scholar
Author for correspondence: Judith Bunbury, [email protected]
Abstract: The ancient Egyptian kingdoms, at their greatest extent,

stretched more than 2,000 kilometres along the Nile and passed
through diverse habitats. In the north, the Nile traversed the
Mediterranean coast and the Delta while further south a thread of
cultivation along the Nile Valley passed through the vast desert of the
Sahara. As global climate and landscapes changed and evolved, the
habitable parts of the kingdoms shifted. Modern studies suggest that
episodes of desertification and greening swept across Egypt over
periods of 1,000 years. Rather than isolated events, the changes in
Egypt are presented in context, often as responses to global
occurrences, characterised by a constant shift of events, so although
broadly historic, this narrative follows a series of habitats as they
change and evolve through time.
Supplementary video available at www.cambridge.org/bunburyrowe

Keywords: Nile, ancient Egypt, river, migration, hydraulic-engineering
© Judith Bunbury and Reim Rowe 2021

ISBNs: 9781108826488 (PB), 9781108919913 (OC)
ISSNs: 2516-4813 (online), 2516-4805 (print)
Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 Humans and Climate Change 1
3 The Early Holocene Climate Seesaw 9
4 The Old Kingdom 19
5 The First Intermediate Period 20
6 The Delta 23
7 Memphis and the Head of the Delta 30
8 Islands in the Nile 31
9 Renewed Strength in the South 45
10 High Tides of Empire 53
11 Coptic-Islamic Times 60
Bibliography 65
The Nile 1
1 Introduction
The ancient Egyptian kingdoms, at their greatest extent, stretched more than
2,000 kilometres along the Nile and passed through diverse habitats (Figure 1).
In the north, the Nile traversed the Mediterranean coast and the Delta while
further south a thread of cultivation along the Nile Valley passed through the
vast desert of the Sahara. As global climate and landscapes changed and
evolved, the habitable parts of the kingdoms shifted. Modern studies suggest
that episodes of desertification and greening swept across Egypt over periods of
1,000 years. In order to present a narrative of landscape and climate change in
Egypt, we have explored the changes to the Nile Valley along with its fringing
wadis and the Northern Delta.
It is also paramount to understand the human context in which these long-
term climate trends occurred. With climate and landscape change as a backdrop,
we explore the geo-political fortunes of Ancient Egypt as they waxed and
waned through the centuries from the rather inhospitable conditions of the
Nile in the wet phase of the Holocene to the population adaptions identified
during cooler, arid times as sand from desert encroachment changed the Nile
environment forever.
The thread that runs through this Element remains the Nile and its valley but
the key theme of the Element is without doubt human. Past and current research
and thinking are brought together to give a chronological timeline of the
landscape of the Nile Valley, using what has been learnt from the geological
history of the area and what has been discovered of ancient communities that
once called the Nile their home. At its heart, this Element is also a history of
geo-archaeology in Egypt, charting the development of methodologies and the
key research projects that have helped shape our understanding of the Nile
Valley and will continue to do so for years to come.
This Element is a dedication to the early resilience and resourcefulness of
ancient Egyptians and to those who have devoted their time to understanding the
Nile and her landscape.
2 Humans and Climate Change

Egypt, part of the cradle of civilisation, is a product of the Nile, the world’s
longest river. Since the majority of the country is desert, its people live mainly
along the Nile on the fertile floodplain and delta of the river. For millennia, the
population of Egypt has been subject to the river’s behaviour and geography and
has evolved largely in response to this great waterway. Ever since hominids in
the early prehistoric period first radiated from the Rift Valley along the Nile
Valley and Saharan region, the area has developed and been recognised
2 Ancient Egypt in Context
Mediterranean Sea
Alexandria o
Delta o Tinnis
Sais o o Avaris
Kom Firin o
Naucratis o
Merimde Beni o
Salama
KEY
Abu Rawash o
Giza o o Cairo
SINAI Lake
Abusir o
Memphis o o Helwan
Dashur o
DESERT Sea
Siwa Faiyum Lisht o
Oasis Oasis
o Hawara
Cultivation
Gurob o o Lahun
Desert
Bahariya
Oasis Oxyrhynchous o Spillway
Hermopolis o o Antinoopolis
White Desert
Djara Cave o
o Amarna
EASTERN
Farafra
Oasis DESERT
N
Asyut o
Red Sea
Sohag o
Abydos o
Dabadeb o o Ain Lebakh
Farshout o
Qena o Wadi
o Ain Amur Bend Hamamat
Kharga Theban Mountain o
(Valley of the Kings )
Dakhla Kharga Oasis o Thebes (Luxor)

Armant o
Oasis Basin
EGYPT Nekhen o o El-Kab

(Hierakonpolis)
o Gebel
Zubara
o Edfu
Toshka
Gilf Kebir SAHARA DESERT Spillway

o Aswan
Wadi Toshka
Lake
Gebel el-Asr o Nasser
Wadi Bakht
Abu Simbel o
Gebel Uweinat Nabta Playa

To Sesebi
SUDAN
Figure 1 Map of the main places mentioned in the text.
alternatively as an important route out of Africa, a home to one of the greatest

civilisations the Earth has known, and one of the most continuously inhabited
and historically important tracts of land.
To give a flavour of the persistence of habitation in this area, we need to
consider the time before the last ice age, around 30,000 BC, when permanent
populations were already present in Egypt. Evidence remains of extensive deposits
of stone tools and workshops around the Faiyum and Kharga oases. We know
from redeposited tools that they also made use of habitats in the Nile Valley but
subsequent river activity has destroyed traces of this period of human history.
During the glaciations of the last ice age (around 110,000 to 9640 BC), as
global temperatures dropped, the Sahara became arid and inhospitable. At the
same time, the Nile shrank and became more approachable as its water supply
from the annual Ethiopian monsoon dwindled. At the north and south poles,
cooler temperatures meant that water was locked away in the ice caps lowering
global sea level and consequently reducing the water level in the Mediterranean.
The Nile, eroding down to the new sea level, formed narrow canyons shrinking
the habitable area of Egypt considerably.
These glacial processes were reversed during the interglacial periods, with
rising temperatures causing the reinvigoration of the Ethiopian monsoon.
The Nile 3
They also caused melting of the ice caps and hence rising sea level. The delta
was flooded as the sea rose and fresh water was held back in the Nile Valley
which became wet and marshy. These marshes, liable to flooding and
inhabited by hippos and other large mammals, were a rich, if dangerous,
habitat. Upstream, the rising Nile also extended its floodplain and, in places,
overflowed into the Sahara creating a patchwork of lakes that formed an
almost perfect habitat for early humans and ushered in the Holocene, the time
since around 11,000 years ago. In the lake-shore environments there was
access to fresh water, fish, game and, as lakes receded during dryer times,
calorie-rich grains.
Throughout history, climate oscillations caused the Nile to rise and fall as
well as periodically drying and rewetting the Nile margins and the Saharan
lakebeds. In the wetter times, the Nile, as all rivers do, responded to the rise
by rebuilding its delta and floodplain and developing into a meandering
river. As the meandering river matured, the inhabitants of Egypt became
increasingly dependent upon the Nile as the deserts dried. They left the
deserts and migrated into the oases and to the Nile Valley flanks. With time,
the Nile coalesced into fewer channels and humans came even closer to the
river.
No finer example exists of the effect of climate events on the human collect-
ive psyche than the experiences of those who lived through the chaos of the First
Intermediate Period (FIP). The damage caused can be seen in the Famine Stela,
thought to be Ptolemaic, written about the chaos of this time when Egypt was
adapting to the sudden reduction of rainfall and the lower Nile waters: “All
Upper Egypt is dying of hunger . . . everyone ate his children one after the
other . . . they have begun to eat people here . . . The river of Egypt is dry and
men cross the water on foot . . . The place of water has become a riverbank”
(Lichtheim 2006).
Closer proximity meant that the Nile dwellers began to understand how the
Nile swelled and diminished through its annual cycle and also how the
channels and islands behaved over the generations. This emerging knowledge
was captured in myths, ceremonies and agricultural practices as well as the
more empirical calendars and Nilometer records. These developments were
particularly common as they were directed towards the collection of taxes.
With growing expertise, an increasing number of practices designed to
manage and control the Nile flood developed and accreted. In modern
times, with the construction of the Aswan Dam, the Nile level can be held
steady throughout the year, maximising the potential for transport and irriga-
tion although simultaneously creating problems of salination and water
supply.
2.1 Geological Origins of Egyptian Landscape

The geological canvas upon which this history of the Nile Valley is placed is one
of extreme variation. Full details appear in Said (1981) and are excellently
summarised by Sampsell (2014) but, in brief, the rocks of most of Egypt are
a stack of more-or-less flat-lying, sedimentary deposits resting upon an ancient
crystalline basement. At the base of the sediment layers lie the important
aquifers of the Nubian sandstone and above this, layers of chalk and limestone.
These were laid down during the geological era of the Cretaceous, around
seventy million years ago, in a warm shallow sea. During ice ages when the
water level was low in the Mediterranean basin, the Nile cut down through this
sandwich of sediments to form a deep canyon with tributary canyons, similar in
size to the Grand Canyon. The Egyptian canyon stretched from Aswan in the
south to the Mediterranean, or rather the salty and dried-up remains of what was
left of it, in the north.
Although the Nile currently has no tributaries in Egypt, in the distant past,
when sea level was much lower than today and there was more rain locally, the
tributary river valleys were deeply incised into the walls of the canyon through
which the Nile flowed (Said 1962,1981 and 1993). Later, when sea levels rose,
these valleys became inactive and were choked with sand and gravel from the
desert to become the wadis. In the Eastern Desert, these wadis continue to host
drought-tolerant plants and fauna as well as the local tribes, creating additional
habitable land beyond the Nile Valley (Hobbs 1990). Although rains are rare,
perhaps once in ten years, they can cause flash floods when the wadi gravels
become fluidised and collapse, carrying gravel, roads and other material with
them.
While the wadis form mainly in the flanks of the Nile Valley, to the north in
the delta, as sediment was eroded away, mounds of sand were left between the
branches of the delta’s distributary system. The relict mounds still emerge from
the Nile floodplain in the north of Egypt today and are known as the gezirehs,
from the Arabic word for island. With rising sea level, the old river valleys
refilled and a thin veneer, around 10–20 m thick of rich, black mud was
deposited on top of the gravels and around the gezirehs. It is this thin layer of
mud upon which the majority of the modern inhabitants of Egypt rely for
agriculture and from which they derived the early name for Egypt, kmt, the
black land. The sandy mounds of the gezirehs became some of the earliest
inhabited parts of the delta.
The Nile, as a large river system affected by climate change, responds
according to the laws of physics, as any large river does. Borehole investiga-
tions reveal that although early humans tracked habitats as the landscape
The Nile 5
changed, with time they started to understand the river and its behaviour, and
intervene, adapting it to their own needs for transport, drinking water, food and
irrigation. In exploring this history, we adopt the traditional designations of
periods of Egyptian history. For consistency, we have used the ancient chron-
ology used by Shaw (2003) in his Oxford History of Ancient Egypt which is
summarised as a timeline in Table 1.
2.2 Landscape and Early Egyptology

In a broad sense, it took some time to realise that the landscape provided the
missing piece of the archaeological puzzle. Our understanding of Egyptian
landscape processes was slow to develop and came from the gradual discovery
of the validity of non-written source materials, the development of meaningful
methodologies to record these and, finally, a broader knowledge base within the
context of historical and geological findings. We note that the earliest excava-
tions in Egypt were preoccupied with the exploration of the then-undeciphered
hieroglyphs (Thompson 2015), visible on monuments in Egypt. These
Table 1 The main periods of Egyptian history referred to in this text

(with commonly used abbreviations) taken from the timescale of
Shaw (2003)
Palaeolithic c. 700,000–5,000 BC
Saharan Neolithic Period c. 8800–4700 BC
Predynastic Period c. 5300–3000 BC
Early Dynastic Period (ED) c. 3000–2686 BC
Old Kingdom (OK) 2686–2160 BC
First Intermediate Period (FIP) 2160–2055 BC
Middle Kingdom (MK) 2055–1650 BC
Second Intermediate Period (SIP) 1650–1550 BC
New Kingdom (NK) 1550–1069 BC
Ramesside Period (subdivision of NK) 1295–1069 BC
Third Intermediate Period (TIP) 1069–664 BC
Late Period 664–332 BC
Ptolemaic Period 332–30 BC
Roman Period 30 BC–395 AD
Byzantine Period 395–619 AD
Persian Empire 619–639 AD
Muslim Dynastic Period 639–1517 AD
Arab and Ottoman Period 639–1882 AD
Khedivate 1882–1953 AD
Republican Period 1953 AD–
monuments, known throughout the world, have long been a subject of scholar-
ship and many ancient visitors recorded their wonder at the achievements of the
past in their inscriptions. However, modern Egyptology was initiated in the
politics of the late eighteenth century. In 1798, Napoleon, as part of adding
Egypt to his Empire, landed a force of 160 scholars alongside the army to collate
and propagate knowledge. The ‘savants’ as they were known, published news-
papers and made maps and plans creating a fascinating and detailed catalogue of
Egypt at the time. They also discovered the Rosetta Stone which was the key to
deciphering hieroglyphs.
The problem for modern geo-archaeologists is that although historically,
many objects and artifacts remained intact and preserved, few records of the
archaeological and geological context in which they were found were kept. It
was not until the late nineteenth century when Hekekyan (1807–75; Jeffreys
2010) and Petrie (1853–1942), among others, began to make detailed observa-
tions of the find spots, recording in fascinating detail not only their finds but also
what they saw in the surrounding area and what this might tell us. We could
perhaps point at this moment in time as the birth of geo-archaeology as
a discipline in its own right. Now, modern archaeology takes careful note of
the ‘context’ or sediments in which inscriptions are found, yielding valuable
information about the ancient landscape. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the
absence of context for many of the texts, translations of the texts and interpret-
ations of the sites took it for granted that the landscape in which the sites were
set had been much as it is now. When Baines and Malek (1980) compiled their
atlas of ancient Egypt, they realised that, as there was so little information about
how the Nile moved, they were obliged to portray it in its modern course,
regardless of the period and the ancient geography.
Caton-Thompson (1932 and 1952) in the early twentieth century suggested
that the environment had not always been what it is today. The geologist in her
team, Gardner, observed from sediments associated with the ruins that they had
been built in wetter times. Soon afterwards, during the 1960s, there was a major
campaign of rescue archaeology preceding the inundation of a large part of
Nubia with the waters of the reservoir, Lake Nasser. From these surveys, further
prehistoric discoveries were made including those by Wendorf and Schild
(1998) at Nabta Playa in the Nubian Desert some 800 km south of Cairo.
From their excavations, Wendorf and Schild could see how strategic lake-
shore sites were reoccupied multiple times, even though the traces of earlier
occupation were shallowly buried and no longer visible. The fact that ancient
sand dunes, buried in the lake mud, had contained reservoirs of fresh water
provided further evidence of the importance of these fresh-water sources to
prehistoric humans. In fact, the presence of these lakes was a crucial
The Nile 7
consideration in the occupational patterns of prehistoric humans and those that

followed them, as we will show later.
The exploration in the 1980s and 1990s of the large and significant sites of
Tell El-Dab’a and Piramesse by Manfred Bietak, who incidentally also partici-
pated in the Aswan Dam rescue excavations, highlighted a series of waterways
that had connected these sites (Bietak 2017). Around the same time, Butzer,
working in the Nile Valley at the Pyramids of Giza started to apply the evidence
from sediments around historic sites to understanding their environment.
A mathematician, geographer, meteorologist and archaeologist, his seminal
work on the Nile Valley in 1976, Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt:
A Study in Cultural Ecology, set the scene for modern investigations where
sediment logs and boreholes are now considered a routine part of archaeological
investigation.
This type of investigation was taken up by others (Jeffreys 1985; Stanley and
Warne 1993 and 1994) who augmented the parallel explorations of Attia (1954)
and his teams on behalf of the Geological Survey of Egypt. Similarly, Stanley
and Warne (1994) used carbon dates and more than a hundred boreholes (the
extraction of columns of soil samples to examine subsurface deposits in order to
complete a picture of site use over time) to explore the development and
architecture of marine deltas from different parts of the world. Around the
same time, Jeffreys added a programme of auger coring to the work of the
Survey of Memphis (Jeffreys 1985), in order to contextualise previous excava-
tions into the broader landscape. Over the ensuing thirty years, his team cored
and logged at hundreds of locations totalling more than two kilometres of
sediment. As they went, they trained a battalion of students in the art of logging
and landscape interpretation who have since worked at many sites across Egypt.
2.3 Landscape in Egypt

Broadly, Egypt can be divided into four main types of environment: the Delta to
the North, the Nile Valley running through the centre, and the deserts and oases
that flank it. Within these environments, landscape change is relatively slow; for
example, the Nile migration that is perceptible over a few generations (Bunbury
et al. 2008 ; Lutley and Bunbury 2008) or the desertification of the Sahara that
lasted around a millennium (Kröpelin et al. 2008 ; Kupar and Kröpelin 2006).
On an even longer timescale, the Delta, swamped by rising sea levels, reached
its marshiest around 6000 BC and spent the following 3,000–4,000 years
reconsolidating its channels to form the topography we see today (Pennington
et al. 2016). Figure 2 shows the changes to the main habitats: the Delta, the Nile
Valley, the Oases and the deserts. Black diamonds identify points at which
Mediterranean
visitors
Inundation as Sea level stops rising Delta starts to Cross channels dug lslamic
sea level rises and delta starts to Consolidate; channels for navigation settlements
Delta
recover; seasonal reduced in number; in delta
habitation on islands hierarchical settlements
Swampy as rising sea Occasional Local irrigation Wadis Early large irrigation Aswan dam
Nile Valley
level backs up water visitors begins unstable schemes controls flow

and monsoon
increases Habitation Sand incursion starts Whole Nile
restricted to to affect valley; management
flanking wadis more islands schemes begin
Oases part of Local rains fail; fossil Faiyum irrigation

broader network of water still available schemes begin
Oases
Saharan lakes
Faiyum no longer
receives Nile
overflow
Saharan Area
Lakes form, Nile Lakes dry but re- Desertification; Long-distance routes New Valley
overflows; North colonised during retreat to Nile Valley periodically revived regeneration
African Neolithic wetter periods and Oases projects
settlers
Qanats and Roman
farms/ mines
Settlers arrive
from Sahel 8000BC 6000BC 4000BC 2000BC 0BC/AD 2000AD
Figure 2 Diagram to show how landscapes changed with time in the main habitats of Egypt. Arrows indicate population movements between
habitats and diamonds indicate events in the landscape evolution documented in the archaeological record.
The Nile 9
changes are recorded in the archaeological record and the grey arrows show
how human patterns of habitation and migration have responded to the changing
environment. The Nile Valley has been a habitat into and out of which ancient
Egyptians migrated and which we will explore in more detail here. For those
living in Egypt, these habitats are intimately connected and their constant
attachment to these areas demonstrates the significance of these sites in provid-
ing the basics for life and the building blocks for a new civilisation.
Even though much of landscape change is slow, gradual change to a habitat
may mean that it reaches a tipping point. For example, for those people living
around the Saharan playas in the late predynastic (around 4000–3600 BC), the
deterioration of the food source when the sites dried up, forced many people into
the Nile Valley. This condensation of population also, as we will see, had
a dramatic impact on those already resident there. Further north in the Delta
in another example, a change from very rich and diverse habitats towards a more
monotonous set of channels was a driver for a more hierarchical society
managed from Memphis, the node at which they met. Or, similarly, in the
Nile Valley, a period of unpredictable weather in the New Kingdom, with
high Nile and flash floods in the nearby desert, inspired the development of
a landscape-wide system of channels and reservoirs in Luxor.
3 The Early Holocene Climate Seesaw

The Nile Valley and Delta were rather inhospitable during the wet phases of the
early Holocene since river levels were high and the annual summer flood
brought by the Ethiopian monsoon was also larger. Furthermore, local rainfall
in Egypt contributed to the generally wet conditions. Towards the end of the
Saharan Neolithic, both flood levels and local rainfall were reduced rendering
the Nile tamer while at the same time, the reduction in local rainfall in the
Saharan region drove people out of the deserts making the Nile a popular
destination. Flanking the Nile, the wadis were well vegetated and provided
ready access to the desert as did the terraces that flanked the marshes of the
Delta. A combination of hunting in the wadis, with fishing and gathering in the
Nile Valley, was augmented by some herding of sheep, goats and cattle. When
seasonal rains refreshed the Sahara, the wadis also provided easy access to the
lakes and playas (seasonal lakes). The Nile, now the life-blood of Egypt, began
its rise to supreme importance.
The Nile and its expanse of catchment have been globally significant to the
civilisations and cultures of the region for millennia, providing an important
corridor for the movement of people and animals throughout the Holocene.
Flowing for over 6,000 km from the south of the Equator to the shores of the
Mediterranean and covering an area of 3 million square kilometres, it is unique

both in size and variety of river basin. The main contributors to the Nile in Egypt
are the White Nile that rises in equatorial Africa and the Blue Nile that rises in
the Highlands of Ethiopia: these join at Khartoum in Sudan. The Nile is unusual
that it has few other perennial tributaries meaning that its character is remark-
ably similar for much of its course northwards from Khartoum. The catchment
supports a vast range of ecosystems and has played a central role in the
development of a rich diversity of communities.
The Nile floodplain in Egypt currently forms a green cultivated strip that cuts
north–south across the Sahara Desert. To many, the river appears immutable but
the current form is the result of a tempestuous past. The river today is the result
of many phases of development (Said 1981) but for our purposes it is sufficient
to begin six million years ago with the erosion of what is described as the Nile
Canyon, the valley bounded by cliffs through which the Nile flows. The
meandering of the modern Nile is constrained by this canyon to a narrow strip
no more than 12 km wide.
During the annual flood cycle, the White Nile maintains a steady flow but the
Blue Nile, with its highly seasonal swelling of waters from the Ethiopian
monsoon, causes an annual inundation (for more details, see Woodward et al.
2007). Small wonder that life in the Nile Valley started to revolve around the
flood and the seasons were determined by it. First came Akhet (June to
September) when the floodwaters rose and no farming could take place although
mass-transport of goods could occur since the water was deeper and more
extensive than at other times of the year. As the flood receded, it ushered in
the season of Peret (October to February) when as much of the land as possible
was used for agriculture. Activities included sowing and reaping crops in the
irrigated flood-basins as well as grazing of stock or even hunting in the thickets
and marshes that fringed the valley. By March, the harvest was ready and Shemu
(March to May) began. Once the crops were in, preparation for the next flood
season began; clearing ditches and repairing embankments ready for the flood to
return.
Although we can no longer observe the annual flood of the Nile, fortunately,
we still have historic maps and travellers’ accounts as well as the exceptional
photographic record of Lehnert and Landrock who ran a photographic business
in Cairo during the early twentieth century and who photographed the Nile from
all angles and in all seasons. For example, in their image of Dashur, the
settlement huddled on a piece of high ground, appears to be a ship afloat in
the floodwaters of the Nile Valley while a photograph of the Pyramids at Giza
taken at a similar time of year shows boats approaching the monuments.
Although the inundation became a regular feature of life on the Nile, climatic
The Nile 11
change meant that there were times of high and low flood. Macklin and his co-
workers (Macklin et al. 2015) suggest that these recent effects of climate change
on the Nile can be divided into five significant stages (Table 2), characterised by
major changes and shifts in lake levels and river flows. Even though the
seasonality of the Nile floods did not change during the Holocene, the magni-
tude of flood events changed considerably and progressively as climate changed
(Macklin et al. 2015). Sudden reductions in river flow caused widespread
channel and floodplain contraction and these events recurred frequently over
the course of 6,000–7,000 years affecting riverine societies dramatically.
During periods of low global temperature, the Ethiopian monsoon is reduced
and, during the last ice glacial maximum, even switched off so that the Nile is
fed only by the White Nile. Conversely, with global temperatures higher, as they
are now, the Ethiopian monsoon, with its consequent inundation, is restored.
Local rainfall that falls in Egypt, during times of higher global temperature,
augments the Nile rushing into it from the wadis (Rodrigues et al. 2000; Stanley
et al. 2003). In Ethiopia, the monsoon erodes the basalts of the Highlands adding
dark-red mud to the Nile which turns the river red as it travels down to Egypt,
arriving between June and October. As the river channel becomes very full it
eventually spills over the river’s natural levees and spreads across the flood-
plain. At times of very intense inundation, Nile water broadens into the mouths
of neighbouring wadis, extending the cultivable area of the Nile floodplain.
The changing impact of the river on the cultures and beliefs of the peoples of
the region can be seen throughout the last 5,000 years, in literature and in art.
These span the years from the ancient Egyptians and great-irrigation-based
civilisations, with their strong association and dependence on the river, to the
modern-day Egyptians who strive to manage, harvest and control the Nile’s vast
power through dam construction (Woodward et al. 2007). Stanley and Warne
(1994) posit that it was the maturation of deltas near sea level that gave rise to
civilisations across the globe as sea levels stabilised in the mid-Holocene after
a period of rapid rise (Pennington 2016). Together with these successful and
long-living civilisations came developments in agricultural practices and the
emergence of more complex social organisations, arguably as a response to the
climatic changes that they were experiencing at the time. Studies of areas close
to the Nile, such as Faiyum, demonstrate similar patterns with periods of
occupation and abandonment throughout the Holocene.
3.1 Human Adaption in Response to the Change in Climate

Farming and herding in the Nile Valley began around the late sixth
millennium BC. Macklin et al. (2015) explores the correlation of adoption of
Table 2 Stages in the development of the Nile
Stage Date Nile behaviour Human movements (see also Table 1)

1 6,400 – 5,800 cal. BC Significant hydrological variability, characterised Episodic occupation of desert lakes and playas
by high to low water levels in key lakes with seasonal visits to Nile Valley.
contracting channels and floodplain due to drier
conditions and reduced flow.
2 4,500 cal. BC Next major shift in Nile catchment, falling Increasing shift of habitation towards Nile Valley
temperatures in Kilimanjaro and low water and wadi mouths and terraces that connect with
levels in Lake Victoria and Tana, and coinciding it. Early stages of state formation and irrigation
with diminishing river flows in the Nile delta. management begin.
3 2,800 – 2,450 cal. BC Falling water levels and decreasing flow and Saharan habitation restricted to wadi ranges.
cooler temperatures. Concentration of population into Nile Valley
and onto river levees of the Nile. Nile and minor
channel management begins.
4 After 450 cal. BC Water levels never exceed those recorded before Occasional recrudescences of Saharan trade
500 cal. BC. activity. Whole Nile management schemes
intensify.
5 1450–1650 cal. AD Falling and low lake levels in the Blue Nile and Human activity focussed on Nile Valley; only
decreasing flows in the Nile Delta. sparse trans-desert trade routes persist.
The Nile 13
new farming practises and the development and success of new civilisations
with changes in climate, in particular channel and floodplain contraction.
Macklin speculates that a period of river-channel contraction would be advan-
tageous to farmers by exposing nutrient-rich sediment on the floodplain and
making the exposed areas less hazardous and more manageable for agriculture.
An analogous way of life persists among the Bedouin of the Eastern Desert of
Egypt today. Joseph Hobbs (1990) describes a way of life in which the Bedouin
use local knowledge to navigate the desert, anticipating where rain had fallen
and where water could be found at different times of the year. Through a mixture
of harvesting resources and pasturing their flocks where fodder could be found,
the Bedouin are able to subsist in the wilderness (Murray 1935). At times,
anticipating future rains, they plant seeds in a basin and, without tilling the crop,
they hope to return at a later time to find a harvest, a sort of minimalist
agriculture.
The development of farming and riverine societies in the Nile Valley in the
late sixth millennium BC was far later than in SW Asia (Kuper and Kropelin
2006). The transition to the Neolithic economy occurred after a major period of
channel and floodplain contraction between 6150 and 5750 cal. BC, coinciding
with drier conditions. This was advantageous as nutrients and rich sediments
were spread across former floodplains. The channels consequently became less
hazardous, more exposed and more manageable for farmers. In Kerma (Welsby
2001) in Upper Nubia, after 5300 BC there was a shift of occupation to alluvial
plains which had been previously unoccupied. This shift was associated with
the aridification of the local environment although Nile records indicate
Neolithic settlements of the valley floor coincided with higher river flows
than prior to 7,500 cal. BC.
Unfortunately, within the Nile Valley and delta, evidence for early farming in
the diverse habitats of the maturing river system are scarce or non-existent due
to the rapid sedimentation in this area that buries the evidence (Pennington et al.
2016; Yann Tristant 2004 and unpublished book) before 2000 BC. However,
areas where there is large movement of mineral material are those that have the
most fertile soils. For example, Vesuvius, an active volcano on the Italian
peninsula, that although cataclysmically dangerous, provides very fertile soils
which have supported vibrant human populations, or similarly, the actively
faulting basins of Western Turkey that present the perfect growing environment
for fruit and other foodstuffs. We expect that the diverse habitats of the Nile
Valley were ideal for fishing and fowling supported by harvesting of wild
grains.
As the immature river system gave way to a more mature river system with
lower environmental diversity and more stable channels, this habitat became
less fertile and required the adoption of agricultural practices and techniques in
the delta that also spread to the floodplains (Pennington et al. 2016). Hence,
changing diets were a notable feature of this transition: earlier reliance was on
aquatic resources and fish, in particular, were enormously important with
remains of burnt fish prevalent, for example, at Sais in the Nile Delta (Wilson
2006). There are also prolific offerings of fish at temples during this time in
contrast to a relative absence of mammals or any complex or highly developed
animal husbandry techniques. After the stabilisation of the channels this appears
to no longer be the case (Pennington et al. 2016).
Some scholars, for example Kupar and Kröpelin (2006), identify the see-
sawing of climate between warm, humid conditions and cooler, arid conditions
as the motor of evolution in North Africa. As people begin to control the cycle
of grasses and other plants, they select and sow varieties that meet their
requirements. Thus, the involvement of farmers causes adaptation of wild
grasses, for example wheat, that have a higher yield even if this means that
they are more intensive to farm. Ethnobotanists who study botanical remains
from archaeological sites, including the burnt grains in remains from hearths,
see a change in the plants as domestication proceeds. For Egypt, its neighbours,
in this case to the north-east in Mesopotamia, had already developed domesti-
cated species which could conveniently be imported to the Egyptian Delta.
Phillips (Phillips et al. 2012) suggests that people adopted the domestic grains
when environmentally viable and sensible to do so, meaning that the changing
environmental conditions triggered drastic changes in agricultural adoption.
As the deserts dried, Saharan communities continued to flourish but were
concentrated into the residual wet areas. These were terraces of sediment
fringing the river floodplain, the flanking wadis and the oases. The remaining
grasslands of the hinterland still provided ample food when combined with
a diet rich in fish, sourced from the Nile. By the Early Dynastic Period,
unification swept across Egypt, forging both north and south into one political
entity under the leadership of Hierakonpolis, a large site on the Saharan bank of
the Nile near Edfu. This innovation may reflect the concentration of people and
resources into the Nile Valley from the encroaching desert (Kuper and Kropelin
2006), perhaps providing evidence of the impact of environmental change on
populations and the link between changes in societal structure and events within
the broader landscape. At this time, the wadis were still eminently habitable (see
Figure 3) and, thanks to the protective vegetation that reduced the impact of
rainfall, there was little run off or sand erosion.
Hierakonpolis is an example, par excellence, of a site at the transition from
life adjacent to the Nile to life in the Nile Valley (Bunbury and Graham 2008;
Dufton and Branton 2009). There is evidence for continuous habitation there
The Nile 15
Figure 3 Vegetation in modern Peruvian Wadis showing how we imagine the

wadis around Hierakonpolis during the heyday of the site. Photo Nicholas
Warner.
from the predynastic to the New Kingdom but it is for the predynastic excep-
tional finds that Nekhen (later known as Hierakonpolis) is best known. The site
is dominated by a very large mud-brick enclosure, known as the Khasekhemwy
Enclosure. Early excavations by Quibell and Green (Quibell 1900) in the late
nineteenth century revealed many rare items including ripple-flaked, flint
knives that had been turned pink by heat treatment. They were too large to
have been of more than ceremonial use and were accompanied by a ceremonial
mace-head and schist palette attributed to Narmer, one of the early Kings of
Egypt. The early excavations have been followed by many other investigations
(Adams 1995; Hoffman et al. 1986) that have revealed wooden buildings,
elephant and baboon burials and many other discoveries. As the elephants
seem to have died quite young, they are suspected to be imported animals.
Abundant rhizocretions at the site indicate that the silt terraces that flank the
Nile were well vegetated in the past, sustained by local rainfall during the mid-
Holocene (Hoffman et al. 1986) and therefore relatively stable.
Exploration by augering at the site of Hierakonpolis around the temple and
the wadi mouth revealed some fascinating insights into the fluctuating land-
scape in the area. In the late predynastic, the island flank became subject to
incursions of desert clay during wadi-wash events. So, by the predynastic the
wadis were perceived as the ideal site for habitation but this did not last. At the
same time as the Nile channels were stabilising, the opposite was true for the
wadis that flanked the Nile. When rainfall is plentiful, vegetation stabilises the
wadi floor and absorbs water, preventing erosion of the sediments. As rainfall
drops and vegetation becomes sparse, the wadis flow, causing destabilisation of
the wadi sands and gravel. Increased habitation led to further demands on the
land around the wadis, which inadvertently reduced vegetation in the area. The
evidence for wooden architecture (www.hierakonpolis-online.org/) at
Hierakonpolis suggests that the denudation was assisted by humans who felled
trees, culled firewood for brewing and baking (Adams 1995) and grazed
animals over shrubs and grasses leading to wadi wash-out and destabilisation.
At Hierakonpolis, boreholes show evidence for three successive collapses, each
more dramatic than the previous one. As conditions become more arid, the rate
of erosion drops (Goudie and Wilkinson 1977). Eventually, although all the
vegetation is dead, there is no longer any rainfall to erode the sediment and the
wadi becomes relatively stable again.
A similar pattern of erosion is seen elsewhere in Egypt. Work by El-Sanussi
and Jones (1997) in the area of west Cairo show a pattern of wadi-washouts that
produced tongues of sandy sediment that intruded the muds of the Nile Valley
(Figure 4). They reveal that the early settlements from the Maadi period (c.3900–
3300 BC) were in the wadis that flanked the Nile Valley. Some of these settle-
ments were washed away while others were buried by the sediment flowing
down. Later on, during the Old Kingdom at Giza (Lehner et al. 2009), the wadi
through Khentkawes town was again eroded as water rushed down the wadi and
later repaired. With time, settlements in the flanking wadis were destroyed or
abandoned as the ground became unstable, forcing inhabitants to move instead to
the banks of the Nile. Elsewhere, remains of Badarian and other Early Dynastic
settlements survive in the wadi mouths where the desert catchments disgorge into
the Nile Valley (Dufton and Branton 2009). What is clear is that occupants of the
area even then, some 1,000 years prior to the supposed dramatic climate chaos of
the First Intermediate Period, were adapting to changing landscape and climate.
With life in the Nile Valley stabilising and the deserts increasingly hostile,
forays to the known sources of raw materials, particularly precious stone,
became hazardous and labour intensive. It required a powerful king like
Khafra, pharaoh in the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom (c.2750 BC), to
send missions into the desert for example to Gebel el-Asr, an area known for the
‘Cephren diorite quarries’, far away in the south of Egypt (Shaw et al. 2001).
The area, close to the border with Sudan was around 800 km from the great
Pyramid of Khafra at Giza where he used the stone won from the quarries
(Figure 5). The Old Kingdom quarries at the site indicate the extent to which the
climate and landscape have changed.
The Nile 17
m ASL Cultural material Borehole location

20
Nile Silt
10 Maadi
0 Pleistocene sand and gravel
W E
1 km
Giza
Pyramids
Figure 4 Map taken from GoogleEarth shows location of section and east–west
section after Branton (2008) and Senussi and Jones (1997) of wadi sediments is
inset. Note how three successive tongues of sediment (white) invade the
sediments of the Nile Valley (grey).
Excavations also show that in the Old Kingdom, the site was supported by
wells, and brewing and baking were conducted in an area near Quartz Ridge.
The surface into which the sledge tracks and wells were cut also hosted
aestivating snails, zootechus insularis, a species that can endure seven years
of drought and is known for surviving in museums for years before a period of
humidity stimulates them to move around inside the display cases (e.g. at the
British Museum). These small snails are another indicator of the relatively mild
climate of the site at the time of Khafra since, by this time, the Sahel had not
retreated as far south as it later did (Kröplin et al. 2008). The most likely route
for the egress of the sledges from the site is through the Wadi Toshka, the same
spillway that formerly fed the Khargan Basin and into the Nile Valley in Nubia,
an area now flooded by Lake Nasser.
The quarries were reused during the Middle Kingdom but workshops and
storerooms were by then tightly clustered around a settlement at Quartz Ridge
with a large number of storage jars being used by the expedition. Even though
amongst these jars – later sealed by sand – a bird’s nest indicated milder
Figure 5 Trackways of a loading ramp for the ‘Cephren diorite Quarry’ at Gebel
al-Asr cut into lake muds and constructed from striped blocks of the same
diorite that was used for the statues at Khafra’s pyramid at Giza.
conditions than today, the impression is more of a fully provisioned mission

than a seasonal settlement. The Middle Kingdom route to the Nile, rather than
take the long way around through the Wadi Toshka, was a donkey trail marked
by cairns that made its way to the closest point in the Nile Valley (Bloxham
1998). The material extracted at this period was exclusively for smaller pieces
such as bowls and jars and many of the latter are found in Egypt associated with
the rite of the ‘opening of the mouth’, part of the funerary ritual. At Gebel al-
Asr, laminated wind-blown sand, characteristic of the early phase of sand
release from the Sahara, encapsulates the Middle Kingdom remains even
though, in the north at Giza, in the time of Khafra, it had already started to
enclose buildings of the earlier periods.
In summary, during the final stages of aridification of the Sahara, the wadis
that impinged upon the Nile eroded at a faster rate, adding sand and gravel to the
Nile Valley, raising the floodplain. The new sediment also infilled marshes and
channels and gradually reduced them to a few main arteries. Although the
channels still moved, they did so more by migration (meandering) than by
The Nile 19
jumping (avulsion) as the multiple channels that preceded them had done. These
new stable channels built larger levees rising two metres or more above the
surrounding floodplain to become attractive spots for settlement. They were
close to the river but safe from the flood. By the same token, in the delta, the
previously isolated sand islands (gezireh) also became more accessible as
the channels and marshes between them began to fill. Early inhabitants,
ever fearful of the destructive nature of the Nile, sought out land on high
promontories that could afford them refuge from the seasonal floods; the
shores of these islands provided the necessary protection for both the living
and the dead. Early populations, who had previously made the desert their
home and only occasionally visited the Nile, now moved to the cusp of the
desert and the river habitats. They made the Nile Valley and the Delta their
permanent home, beginning the process of turning their back forever on their
desert existence.
4 The Old Kingdom

The location of the King’s court known as ‘the residence’ changed frequently
in Ancient Egypt. Although these settlements were more regal estates than
cities in the modern sense (Ragazzoli 2011), I will call them ‘cities’ here for
brevity. The move into the Nile Valley in the Old Kingdom sparked the
formation of the earliest cities around Giza (Lehner 2009). The focus moved
from the Old and Middle Kingdom to Memphis, also in the north, then
southwards to Thebes during the New Kingdom. From Thebes, there was an
excursion to Amarna before the return to Memphis, demonstrating the com-
plex interplay of politics, geology, climate and demography over time. As the
Saharan area declined in importance, populations settled down to a cosy
existence in the Nile Valley. During the Old Kingdom, settlements and estate-
towns were restricted to the safe high ground of the levees and islands. These
levees were long, low swells fringing the Nile and its former channels so the
settlements were strung out along them and confined to the tops during the
flood (Jeffreys and Tavares 1994). As the floodwaters receded, agricultural
and pastoral activity spread out into the surrounding floodplain. Occasional
wetter periods reanimated interest in the deserts, until Roman and Islamic
times (Shaw et al. 1999; Shaw et al. 2001), in particular from mining exped-
itions, but there was generally insufficient water for permanent residence. The
wadi mouths and the nearby desert still supported sufficient drought-tolerant
game to act as a hunting range so despite permanent migration to the levees
and the floodplains, there were still occasional sorties into the desert for food
and mineral extraction.
Eventually, towards the end of the Old Kingdom, the vegetation died and
wind-blown sand from the Sahara started to drift into the Nile Valley in the
north, masking the topography, infilling channels and creating dune-fields over
some of the Nile silts (Alexanian et al. 2011; Verstraeten et al. 2017). The blown
sand gradually mantled areas further and further to the south until by the end of
the Middle Kingdom the whole of Egypt was blanketed with sand (Shaw et al.
2001). The sand incursion led to further floodplain rise and greater consolida-
tion of the delta. The effects of the consolidation of the delta will be explored in
more detail in the following.
Overall, the long-range trend from the mid-Holocene was one of gradual
desiccation as drying commenced in the north and continued southwards
(Kuper and Kröpelin 2006). However, local microclimates and short-range
temperature excursions from the trend meant that the associated landscape
changes were not synchronised across Egypt. Evidence discussed here shows
the kinds of landscape changes that affected the Nile Valley as a result of climate
cycling. We have divided Egypt into four main habitats: In the north, the Delta,
and to the south, the Nile Valley. The valley is surrounded by the Saharan area
itself punctuated by a fourth habitat, the oases. There is a complex interplay
between the four areas but for simplicity, we have described the history of each
area in turn. Figure 2 summarises some of the main events in the landscape
history and maps the movement of people from habitats that have become
inhospitable to those that have become more attractive.
5 The First Intermediate Period

The culmination of the drying of the Saharan region came during the First
Intermediate Period (FIP) which is often looked upon as a dark time – a time of
adjustment, chaos and political disorder in stark contrast to the wealth and
harmony that existed during the Old Kingdom. Middle Kingdom literature
initiated this view by recalling apocalyptical events, failing floods and incipient
riots, as do some more recent authors (Hassan, 1996). The FIP also coincided
with low floods, seen in evidence from the Qarun Lake levels of the Faiyum
Depression; continued encroachment of sand brought forth by winds in the
Sahara; tropical trees displaced by Sahel-type trees and decay of sporadic
vegetation; and rainfall below 150 mm/yr (Kropelin et al. 2008). Coupled
with observations of sands (Goncalves 2019) and flood deposits around
Memphis towards the end of the Old Kingdom, we may posit that the addition
of abundant sediment to the Nile generated an increased number of islands in
the river and produced a period of enhanced floodplain rise. The additional
sediment also hastened the maturation of the delta accompanied by movement
The Nile 21
of the delta-head northwards, as supported by the work of Pryer (2011; Bunbury

et al. 2017).
However, the literature presents a view of the chaos that was formed in the
Memphis area and archaeological work further south at Edfu (Moeller 2005)
and at Dendara (Wendrich, personal communication) suggest that southern
Egypt was not affected by famine or sand influx at the end of the Old Kingdom.
It is unsurprising then that the ancient Egyptians, now becoming so inevitably
bound to the Nile, became interested in measuring and recording flood heights
and taking measures, both secular and spiritual, to control the river (Bell 1970).
Their preoccupation with Nile behaviour can be seen from the earliest writings
from the predynastic onwards. From the beginning of the Old Kingdom
(2700 BC), efforts were directed towards recording and predicting Nile
levels year-on-year. Observations of the peak height of the flood were essential
to the management of irrigation systems and to the setting of the tax levels for
the forthcoming harvests. The extensive tax records of the Wilbour Papyrus
from the New Kingdom demonstrate how complex land registration and tax-
ation systems had become by that period (Antoine 2017). Other literature, also
from the same period, provides ample evidence of the changes in Nile levels at
the time and the lengths to which ancient Egyptians went to monitor and control
its flow.
Beyond these records of the annual cycle, an early Middle Kingdom text, the
‘Prophecy of Neferti’ (Lichtheim 1973) suggests that there was already
a perception of longer-range environmental change, while by the time of
Herodotus (440 BC; see Dewald 1998) there were reports of lake levels in the
Faiyum being different from those in the time of King Moeris, 900 years earlier.
In fact, one could argue that the Egyptian ‘media’ were as preoccupied with Nile
behaviour as Britons are with the weather. Years of abundant floods are con-
firmed in the story ‘Instructions of Amenemhat’, a poem detailing
a conversation between a dead pharaoh and his son, written in the time of the
Middle Kingdom. It tells of excess of food and the success of harvests:
It was I who brought forth grain, the grain god loved me,
the Nile adored me from his every source;
One did not hunger during my years, did not thirst;
they sat content with all my deeds, remembering me fondly;
and I set each thing firmly in its place. [Translated Parkinson 1991]
In addition to the textual evidence, other evidence from animal remains in

owl pellets shows that, during the Old Kingdom, those deposited in the tombs
of Saqqara were those of owls that had dined on damp-loving species of mice
and frogs/toads. By the Middle Kingdom, owl diets had changed to one of
aridity-tolerant species, such as gerbils and desert toads (Pokorny et al. 2009).
In addition to the fauna, the flora of the desert also suffered and was dried out.
Now that the roots no longer protected the sandy wadi-beds from erosion and
the leaves no longer sheltered the sand from the erosive power of a cloudburst,
water and sand rushing down the valley could sweep away large quantities of
sediment as long as there were still rainstorms. With time, even the rainstorms
failed and, although erosion slowed down, restricted to wind erosion or
deflation, people turned their backs on the desert. It is interesting to speculate
whether the increasingly poor reputation of the desert-god Seth, once an equal
if opposite partner of Horus, was related to increasingly negative attitudes to
the now denuded deserts. Figure 6 shows a late image of the king destroying
Seth, by now a diminutive hippopotamus, from the Ptolemaic temple of Edfu.
At the same time that the Nile was becoming tamer, the increasing dryness of
the Saharan region was releasing fossil sand dunes that had been stabilised by
plants into the wind. This sand, carried by the trade winds, flowed into the Nile
Figure 6 King destroying Seth from the Ptolemaic temple of Edfu.

The Nile 23
Valley where it was deposited into the river before being carried downstream to
form islands in the Nile and also to hasten the consolidation of the delta after its
early Holocene inundation.
6 The Delta
Although today approximately one third of Egypt’s population lives in the
Delta, 8,000 years ago during the Saharan Neolithic Period, the delta was
much smaller and had been inundated by the sea as ice caps melted at the end
of the ice age. The aridification of the Saharan region and the influx of sand to
the Nile Valley had a downstream effect on the delta creating the landscape we
see today. The extra sand stabilised river channels, a process that gradually
propagated through the delta moving coast-wards. The rapid influx of sand
between the Old and New Kingdoms accelerated this process but created
a habitat poorer in nutrients. The need to glean food from a wider area was an
additional factor in spurring urbanisation (Pennington et al. 2016).
Global sea levels rose at the end of the last ice age 12,500 years ago
(Fairbanks 1989) meaning that sea-level deltas across the world have evolved
in roughly parallel ways (Stanley and Warne 1994; Figure 7). The additional
water from the melted ice sheets initially pushed the coastline of the deltas
inland. Upstream of the old coast, fresh water from the river system was held
4
Data range for eight global locations
2
Sea Level Change (m)
0
2
Mean sea level rise –4

–6
–8
–10
–12
–14
8 6 4 2
Thousands of Years Ago
Figure 7 Global average sea-level curve showing how there was a steep rise in
sea level after the end of the last ice age that slowed around 6–7000 years ago.
After Flemming et al. 1999 and Robert Rohde’s (2006) climate change art
compilation. As a result of the interplay between subsidence and sea-level
change in the Nile Delta, it is not considered a representative locality and is
therefore not included.
back forming marshes and swamps far inland. The number of distributary
branches in this marshy landscape also increased since channels divide to
form distributaries when the base of the main channel reaches sea level. Sea
level continued to rise until around 6,000 years ago when the deltas started to
recover. With time and sediment supply from the hinterland, the marshes were
once again reduced to small pockets and the coastline moved offshore again.
The rate of sediment supply and the geometry of the sea floor close to the river
mouth are the key factors influencing this process (Pennington 2016). Thus,
although not exactly in synchrony, the world’s sea-level deltas all recovered
from inundation by the sea through a series of similar environments. Reports
from the informants of Herodotus (c.440 BCE) even tell us that ‘the Nile
overflowed all Egypt below Memphis’.
Since other deltas are subject to the same processes, we can compare the
evolution of the Nile Valley with models derived from more intensively studied
deltas such as the Rhine (Berendsen and Stouthamer 2001; Makaske 1998) and
the Mississippi (Aslan and Autin 1999). There is a wealth of geographical data
for the Rhine with data collected from 180,000 or more boreholes (Toonen
2013) sunk in the area by generations of geography students. This excellent
dataset can be used to understand the new Holocene delta of the Nile that
overlaid an earlier Pleistocene delta produced by previous oscillations of sea
level during the Pleistocene.
Interpolating data already acquired for the Nile Delta with the theoretical
models, Ben Pennington (Pennington et al. 2016) shows that we should expect
a very rich habitat for humans in the early dynastic (approx. 3100 BC to
2600 BC) but that, with time, as the delta began to grow again, the level of
nutrients available in the environment will decrease. Between 4000–2000 BC,
spanning the predynastic and Old Kingdom, the original marshy environments
became marginalised to the coastal region of the delta as channels became fewer
and better-defined turning into meandering channels. These environments are
known as the large-scale crevassing stage (LSC) and the meandering stage
(Figure 8). During large scale crevassing (A), rivers are flanked by natural
sandy levees which may be breached by the river to create crevasse deposits.
There are many islands and pockets of low ground in which water collects
forming marshy areas within the floodplain. The islands and bars of the river are
constantly shifting as material is eroded and then deposited. During meandering
(B), the river is contained within a single migrating channel. Bars form on the
inside of bends which migrate outwards and downstream in a similar manner to
the Nile in Upper Egypt discussed previously. As meandering develops, cre-
vasse deposits become rare and the floodplain is better drained with fewer
marshy pockets.
The Nile 25
Large-scale crevassing
A
KEY
River
Sand bars
Crevasse (flood) deposits
Floodbasins
River levées
Floodplain deposits
Meandering
Figure 8 Diagram (after Pennington et al. 2016; Weerts 1996) to show the
environments encountered during (A), the large-scale crevassing stage of delta
development and (B), the meandering stage.
As a result of this process, the number of distributary channels began to

decrease and the network of channels became less well connected (Stanley and
Warne 1993). This meant that the delta changed towards the modern geometry
with distributaries reducing in number and radiating from a single point in the
general area of Cairo, often known as the ‘delta head’ in Egypt. Figure 9 shows
how the initially rich network of habitats and channels of the LSC supported
a large number of small communities each of which could travel more-or-less
directly from any one to any other. As meandering replaced the LSC, gradually
propagating north, food resources became sparse in the interior of the delta and
the interconnectivity of the channel network was reduced. At this time, settle-
ments required resources from a larger area to survive and, by the Old Kingdom,
we see a hierarchy of settlements developing with the capital at Memphis in
a commanding position at the head of the delta.
Unfortunately, we know little of the early history of the delta since much of it
is buried; the predynastic occupation of the delta cannot be definitively deter-
mined (Tristant 2004). Examples that we do have, such as the predynastic part
of the town of Buto, have been encountered at depth as the final stage of
Large scale crevassing Meandering
Settlement
Time
Figure 9 Diagram (after Pennington et al. 2016) to show how the LSC,
predominant before 2000 BC, fostered abundant, well-fed and well-connected
settlements while the transition to meandering channels, after 2000 BC,
favoured the development of larger settlements at the nodes of the Delta
distributary system.
excavation of later sites that rise above the delta sediments. Known predynastic
sites are often below the current water table in areas where the later accumula-
tions of settlement have been removed; for example, at Sais where Penny
Wilson used de-watering equipment to reach the remains of predynastic settle-
ments beneath the site of Sais at Sa El-Hagar (Wilson 2006) and at Kom el-
Khilgan (Buchet and Midant-Reynes 2007). Other sites such as Naukratis
cannot be further excavated to determine whether there is a core of earlier
settlement due to the high groundwater levels. Buto’s privileged location at the
edge of a morass meant that it retained a supply of fresh water and avoided the
barari, barren lands that are subject to salt-water conditions in winter and fresh-
water conditions in summer.
The better-known contemporaries of these turtle-back sites are those that
flanked the delta on higher ground; for example, Merimde Beni Salama where
evidence for high bio-diversity in the adjacent swampy habitat is provided by
the hippo-tibia steps (steps made out of hippo leg bones) of houses in the
The Nile 27
settlement (Eiwanger 1992). Micro-predators in the form of parasites and other

pathogens were no doubt also abundant in the marshy areas (Groube 1996) –
living in this area was a case of eat and be eaten.
Sedimentation through the mouths of the Nile generated delta lobes of their
own, such as the one where the Damietta branch debouches into the sea. Long-
shore drift where the prevailing currents sweep sediment eastwards around the
Mediterranean created sandbars along the coastline. The bars blocked the
mouths of the embayments between the mouths of the Nile and created lagoons
of which Lake Maryut, Lake Idku, Lake Borollos and Lake Manzala persist
today (Stanley and Warne 1994). The lakes provided an important access to port
cities like Tinnis during the rougher weather of the sailing season (Cooper 2014)
which coincided with the period of the flood that rendered the lagoons fresh.
Access to the lagoons was through cuts in the beach bar that in many cases were
fortified (e.g. the gate of Tinnis).
The works of Stanley and Warne (1994) and Krom and Stanley (2003)
provide our best insight into the subsurface structure of the delta. The latter
investigation included some 140 boreholes around the margin of the delta in
which they could see evidence for the former mouths of the Nile channel and
the effects of marine incursion into the coastal areas. Drill coring at Merimde
Beni Salama (Rowland et al. 2014) showed that there is red-mud typical of
a body of Nile-supplied still water at around 4 m below the modern delta
surface. The Neolithic activity at the site is located on the promontory created
by the Wadi Gamal adjacent to this lake and we conclude that this site was at
the margins of a large swamp, probably the home of the hippopotami who
provided the bones for the door steps and backed by a slightly greener ‘desert’
than today.
The locations of predynastic sites are likely to have been dictated by the
availability of fresh water throughout the year. At some coastal settlements like
Alexandria, fossil water stored in the ancient beach ridges provided some
degree of water security, while at Merimde Beni Salama, local pools were likely
to have been fresh water and replenished by rains flowing down the Wadi
Gamal. In the interior of the delta, the high Nile of the flood season ensured
a summer fresh water supply but, during the winter the lowered Nile allowed
salt-water incursion. By Roman and Mediaeval times, the site of Tinnis was
storing fresh water available in the summer in cisterns (Gascoigne 2007) for use
during the winter. In the more extreme case of Al-Farama (earlier Pelusium),
water was supplied by boat from further inland; in this case the extra effort was
warranted because the town was a staging post on the well-trodden route to the
Levant. For these reasons, large ports were forced to lie inland to ensure
a supply of fresh water and the work of Stuart Borsch (Borsch 2000) suggests
that in the Islamic period, if not earlier, a type of weir was in use, possibly to
retain fresh water during times of low Nile and to prevent salt-water incursion.
With time, as seen in the Rhine delta, there was a reduction in the number of
mouths of the Nile. Ancient authors such as Herodotus and Strabo (Jones 1932)
corroborate the presence of additional distributary channels. Earlier, we dis-
cussed the movement of the delta coast as Nile waters rose then fell in response
to melting ice sheets and sedimentation. Stanley and Warne (1994) also revealed
a return from saline to fresh-water conditions as the delta coast moved seawards
again. Inland from the coast, gharaghets, or natural saltpans, formed and these
could also be accessed from the delta distributary system and were a source of
highly prized salt for trade.
By the Old Kingdom, the outline of the delta was much as it is today with the
exception of the north-eastern part, now Lake Manzala, which was still part of
the sea (Stanley 1988). For the rest, coastal lagoons were backed by large tracts
of marsh. The delta site of Kom el-Hisn was studied by Wenke (1988), who
made a detailed examination of the faunal and floral remains. There is abundant
evidence at Kom el-Hisn for use of cattle dung as fuel but there are few remains
of cattle among the bones collected, which are principally of pigs, sheep and
goats. In addition, the fish bones are mainly bodies with few heads found,
leading to the conclusion that these were decapitated, preserved fish imported
to the site. A picture emerges of a ranch where cattle were reared in pens for
export to the capital zone while the herders ate other foods including imported
fish. Wenke and his team concluded that in the Old Kingdom, Kom el-Hisn was
the site of a cattle ranch of the type that is depicted supplying the capital zone in
the Tomb of Ptahhotep, with its scenes of cattle being delivered by men from the
delta as well as agricultural activity by delta men who are identifiable by their
stiff reed kilts (Figure 10).
From the end of the Old Kingdom until the establishment of the New
Kingdom, the lagoons, marshes and saltpans of the delta fell under the control
of feudal ‘Asiatics’ (such as the Hyksos, including peoples from the Levante
and the Canaanites) who had strong trading contacts with the Levant and
a mixture of Asiatics and Egyptians were settled at Avaris (Tel el-Daba; see
Bourriau in Shaw 2000). In the western delta, Libyan people, the Meswesh,
occupied the marshes and were in regular conflict with the Egyptian state from
1388 BC. The confrontation led to the creation of defensive fortresses in the
area including that of Kom Firin (Spencer 2014) during the Nineteenth Dynasty.
The New Kingdom opened with military campaigns to the north and south
that reunited the Egyptian empire, under the Pharaoh. By this time, meandering
channels dominated the environment of the Nile Valley and the delta. Trade with
the eastern Mediterranean became increasingly important and regulation (and
The Nile 29
Figure 10 Drawing after tomb relief of cattle herders arriving at the Old
Kingdom tomb of Ptahhotep at Saqqara, west of Memphis.
taxation) of the various mouths of the Nile became of great interest. Memphis,
strategically placed where the delta narrows down, was again renewed as the
capital and the enormous temple of Ptah laid out by Ramses II in boggy ground
between the islands of the garden city of Memphis (Bunbury et al. 2017). John
Cooper (2014) has shown that the central distributary of the Nile was
a strategically poor place to enter the delta since it was vulnerable to strong
winds and the rough water that occurs where the Mediterranean currents
intersect those of the outflowing Nile.
In terms of the basic requirements for a thriving human community, these
ancients would have been looking for sheltered areas (away from the elements);
fresh water (with an abundance of wildlife) and a flat terrain allowing both easy
access to trade routes (either by sea or road) and for the development of
agricultural practices. The subsidiary mouths proved safer to access and thus
important trading towns grew up on these branches, for example Naukratis on
the Canopic branch. Work by Manfred Bietak suggests that the earliest ports
were located around 30 km inland of the delta coast where marine influence
disappeared and where a ready supply of fresh water became available (Bietak
2017). From a navigational perspective, the continued tectonic subsidence of
the Manzala lagoon maintained maritime conditions in a sheltered location.
As the mouths of the Nile reduced in number, so did the area of the marshes
and the lagoons. In addition, the beach ridge of the north-eastern delta gradually
migrated seawards until it approached its current position around 2,000 years
ago. Continued subsidence along the faults that border Lake Manzala to the east
and west ensured that the lagoon only shrank slowly to its current size.
The process of management of the waterways of the delta has continued to the
present day (Takouleu 2019) with interventions that were begun in the 1930s
and continued by Nasser in the 1950s. Irrigation programs designed to reclaim
the low terraces that surround the edge of the Delta have also extended the area
of cultivation into an area that was formerly desert and are visible in historic
images on GoogleEarth. The area of the delta is still vulnerable to sea-level rise
and recent observations of satellite imagery suggest that the coastline is retreat-
ing inland, as a result of sea-level change. The reduction in sediment rebuilding
the delta, now that it is impounded in reservoirs like Lake Nasser, also contrib-
utes to the reduction in its area.
7 Memphis and the Head of the Delta

As the delta waterways stabilised, starting during the predynastic and continu-
ing until the Old Kingdom the city of Memphis grew up at the point where the
distributaries diverged. Studies of the landscape of Memphis by David Jeffreys
and Pedro Goncalves (Jeffreys and Tavares 1985) with the Survey of Memphis
show how the city adapted through its long history. The city started during the
Old Kingdom on the western side of the ruin field and spread eastwards
following the retreat of the Nile. Parts of the community were established on
a number of river levees in the area. Ana Tavares (Bunbury et al. 2017)
proposes, therefore, that Memphis was a ‘garden city’ with fertile irrigated
(and flooded) areas between settlements that were restricted to the higher
ground. By the New Kingdom, a broader concept of the landscape emerged
and Pedro Goncalves (2019) postulates that a waning channel of the Nile was
dissected to create a new site for the Temple of Ptah that could be accessed from
harbours to the south and to the north and it was in this swampy marshland
between the Memphis islands that Ramses II built his temple complex. It
remains a matter of discussion whether the New Kingdom works at Gurob
(Shaw 2010 and Yoyotte et al. in press), further south, directing water from the
Bahr Yusuf into the Faiyum were, in part, responsible for the emergence of drier
land at Memphis.
Ying Qin (2009; Nicholson et al. 2013) shows that a little later, in Ptolemaic
times, a new connection to an old channel was excavated to provide a defensive
waterway around the city, setting the scene for the siege of Memphis as recorded
The Nile 31
in the Stele of Piye. In the narrative, the attackers cut out all the watercraft from
the ‘North Harbour’ (Parkinson 1991; Bunbury and Jeffreys 2011) and assem-
bled them into a giant floating siege engine, surprising the defenders by
storming the eastern harbour walls at dawn. Westerly channels continued to
diminish and the main river to migrate eastwards until, in the Roman Period
(Jeffreys 1985), a waterfront wall with nymphaeum was established to the east
side of the mounds. To the north-west, perhaps as a result of Delta-head
migration, a new centre was emerging at Egyptian Babylon, where a Roman
watergate remains today. Memphis waned and fell into ruin although new
villages continued to track the Nile as it moved eastwards.
As continued influx of sand to the northern capital reduced its importance,
Memphis still remained a key town at the head of the delta. As delta consolida-
tion continued, the site provided excellent grazing to cattle despite loss of its
strategic and administrative importance. Over time, control of the area grad-
ually shifted to rulers of other lands. Memphis was not the first or last capital to
witness waning fortunes at the hands of the Nile. The dawn of the Middle
Kingdom saw the site of Karnak selected for the location of a new temple
complex further to the south, a town that would also encounter difficulties with
changing landscape due to the rapid climatic oscillations of the New Kingdom.
8 Islands in the Nile

The beginnings of sand encroachment from the Sahara to the Nile Valley
happened relatively early on in the historical timeline of ancient Egypt. By
the end of the Old Kingdom, wind-blown sand from the Sahara started to drift
into the Nile Valley first in the north but gradually settling further and further to
the south until by the end of the Middle Kingdom the whole of Egypt was
blanketed with sand.
This influx of sand into the Nile Valley and delta started to change the
character of the river in the valley. Many more islands and sandbanks were
formed and some dune fields encroached upon the Nile silts, particularly to the
western side of the valley. The landscape effects of this were three-fold: a more
rapid reduction in the amount of marsh downstream in the delta, an increase in
sediment in the Nile spawning more sandbanks in the river and, perhaps most
interestingly, a rapid migration of the delta head, where the distributaries start to
divide, northwards.
The close dependence of populations on the Nile meant that every twist and
turn of the channel and its meandering became a matter of importance to the
residents. Build your temple on the outer bend of the river and erosion and
destruction will result. Conversely, on the inside of the bend, sandbanks
constantly accumulate, silting harbours and rendering the river more distant.
The best way to hedge your bets was to found your settlement on an island.
Study of recent islands and the way in which they are used by farmers or brick-
makers, sheds insight on the archaeological remains that we find associated with
ancient islands. In general, the lifespan of an island is only around a century, no
more than a few generations, and the consistency with which farms and temples
are located on these island environments suggest that folk memory of the way
that islands behave informed the location of new developments.
The rate of river migration is sometimes enhanced by island formation and
capture, as described by David Jeffreys and the Survey of Memphis at
Badrasheen (Jeffreys et al. 2000). This study revealed the pace of change of
islands and the amenities that they offer to their residents. During the early
twentieth century, a sandy island formed in the Nile bed at Badrasheen, east of
the ancient ruins of Memphis. The ownership of the new island was immedi-
ately disputed, with communities on both sides of the Nile claiming it theirs.
However, in due course, the island bonded itself to the west bank and became de
facto a part of Badrasheen. During the 1940s, the island had a minor channel,
partly blocked to the west with the main Nile flowing east of it. The resultant
mud was put to profitable use by the enterprising inhabitants who built a brick
works on the minor branch of the channel to the west of the island. The quiet
harbour created by the partly blocked waterway was an ideal place to load the
bricks, ready for transportation. By the 1970s, the island had lengthened and the
minor channel had begun to infill, a process that, by 2000, had been completed
with the final phase of the infill consolidated by landfill.
By this mechanism of sequential island formation and capture, the main Nile
channel has moved a considerable distance over the past century, around 300 m
in this case. A similar example occurs further south at Banana Island, now also
no longer an island (Figure 11). Katy Lutley’s fastest migration rates (see later
section) were for just such a setting – island capture close to a bend in the river.
Archaeological evidence for channel migration and island formation and
capture is supplemented by more recent cartographic and pictorial evidence.
This type of change was beautifully illustrated by David Roberts (1796–1864)
in his 1838 illustrated tour of Egypt and the Holy Land. Roberts painted Luxor
Temple from the south-east showing a channel in the forefront. The channel that
he painted has now been infilled and used for the construction of the Winter
Palace Hotel. In another example, an extensive borehole survey of the Karnak
Temples (Bunbury et al. 2008) suggested that similar processes had occurred
there.
Much earlier debate has focussed on the rate at which the Nile floodplain rises
but it is now clear that this change is relatively small compared to the more
The Nile 33
Luxor
Temple
1 km
Nile Banana
Island
Crocodile
Island
Field
boundaries
Figure 11 Crocodile Island and the former Banana Island in the Luxor area.
The diagram shows the Nile to the west and the fields of the Nile floodplain to
the east.
dramatic changes due to migration of the river. Rates of floodplain rise have
been calculated by a number of academics at a number of different localities
(see Bell 1970 for an overview). Hekekyan’s early study at Memphis was
ostensibly to work out the rate of vertical aggradation of the Nile floodplain
(Jeffreys 2010). From all these sources, an approximate mean rate of aggrad-
ation is around 1 m/millennium. The long time span is given to emphasise that
the rate is not constant, thus in one year no new sediment may be deposited or
a large amount of 10–15 cm may be deposited by one annual flood cycle,
depending on the dynamics of the river floodplain. The addition of human
detritus raises this rate and in this way many sites have persisted (including
Karnak and Memphis) by rising at a greater rate than the surrounding floodplain
to form a kom (or tell) and thus ensuring that the community remains dry during
the flood season. These koms are sufficiently elevated that many can be seen on
digital elevation models (DEM) of the Nile floodplain.
Although the early research was dominated by discussion of the rate of
floodplain rise, recent interest has shifted to the lateral migration of the Nile
channel. The Nile is a large river set in a sandy, easily eroded bed that rests
within a rocky canyon running through the Sahara Desert. As the river rises after
rainfall, the water initially accelerates becoming erosive as it picks up and

carries larger and larger grains of sediment. Eventually the water, now loaded
with sediment, decelerates dropping and distributing the sediment as it flows.
As the water in the centre of the channel is fast-flowing, it tends to acquire
sediment that it then drops towards the sides of the channel where the current is
slower. This process creates levees, elevated banks that are up to 2 m high on the
Nile main channel. These levees – broad swells up to 200 m wide – may persist
for many hundreds of metres along the length of the river. Levees may also dam
the entrances to side wadis or spillways and, after some further floodplain rise,
be overtopped to form a lake as was deduced in the New Kingdom case of
Abusir (Earl 2010).
Even if the river channel is initially straight, small disturbances in the
shape of the channel will grow until the river forms a meandering pattern. In
microcosm, the meandering Californian stream in Figure 12 demonstrates
these processes at work. The upstream, background bend has a steep erosional
bank to the left on the outside of the bend with a series of point bars to the
right on the inside of the bend. As the river meanders into the foreground, the
water in the channel crosses the riverbed to the outside of the bend to the right
which is the erosional bank while point bars form to the left on the inside of
the bend. Recent work of Toonen et al. (2017) demonstrates that many
Figure 12 Californian stream that demonstrates the process of meandering.

The Nile 35
processes are at work and that we are only just beginning to understand this
complex system.
In many cases, (e.g. Mississippi, USA) bends continue to exaggerate until
alternate bends meet and a loop is cut off to form an oxbow lake. In Egypt,
sinuosity of the river is limited by the relatively difficult-to-erode margins of the
Nile canyon (Dufton 2008 and Stölum 1997) and so meander cut-offs are rare.
The effect is that bends appear to migrate outwards and downstream until they
are ‘turned’ by the walls of the Nile canyon. In some places, like Middle Egypt,
where the floodplain is wide, it may take many thousands of years for the river
to cross the floodplain but in others, like Armant near Luxor where the flood-
plain is restricted in width, this restriction forces the river to remain in one of
two possible channels, divided by an island. Where island formation and
capture are added to the normal migration of the stream, migration rates of up
to 9 km/millennium may be reached, considerably above the normal mean of
2 km millennium (Bunbury et al. 2009).
Slight curves in the channel mean that the current flows asymmetrically and
therefore preferentially erodes the outside of any bends that form while depos-
iting sand, as sandbars, on the inside of the bend and within the channel. In
many meandering rivers, the classic example being the Mississippi, these
meander bends become more and more looped until the narrow neck of land
is cut through. Next the channel takes the short way through the cut while the
abandoned meander forms an oxbow lake. In the Nile, however, meander bends
are common while oxbow lakes are unknown. Meander bends constantly
migrate outwards and downstream across the valley. When the bend reaches
the edge of the valley, which is difficult to erode, it becomes flattened and
eventually a new bend migrating in the opposite direction is formed. Maps of
migrating bends made for the Memphis floodplain by Katy Lutley give the
impression that they ‘bounce’ off the canyon walls. Former abandoned levees of
the river are seen as low swells in the floodplain and may be preferred as sites for
occupation. These relic swells are also a couple of metres high and several
hundred metres long.
Katy Lutley, who made one of the first analyses of Nile migration in the Giza/
Memphis floodplain, showed that the Nile had migrated over much of the
floodplain in the past 5,000 years (Lutley and Bunbury 2008; Bunbury et al.
2009). While complex, the Figure 13 indicates how the Nile can have migrated
across the whole floodplain during the period of occupation. Lutley’s study was
largely theoretical and did not determine the precise position of the Nile in space
and time but indicates the type of geometry and migration rates that we should
expect for any site in the Nile floodplain. She determined that the general rate of
migration is around 2,000 m/millennium with a maximum so far recorded of
Heliopolis
N
Abu Rawash _
Babylon
Giza _
Zawyet el-Aryan _ Maadi
Abusir _
Saqqara _
Dashur _
Mazghuna _ 10 km
KEY
Former Nile
Course
Nile Valley
Desert
_ Pyramid field
Early Delta head
El-Lisht _
Figure 13 Diagram to show the best-fit migrations of the Nile in the Giza area
over the last 5,000 years (redrawn from Lutley 2007).
9,000 m/millennium where island formation and capture are included. From
these rates of lateral migration, we see that they exceed the rate of vertical
aggradation of 1 m/millennium by three to four orders of magnitude. Thus,
when considering the effect of landscape change on a site, the effect of channel
migration is likely to have been larger than floodplain aggradation. Fortunately,
since there are no tributaries to the Nile in Egypt, the rates of river processes are
roughly consistent throughout the whole of the country, making interpretation
by the archaeologist relatively straightforward.
In some places, the Nile floodplain is up to 10 km wide while in others it
narrows to the width of the Nile channel, such as at Aswan and at Gebel Silsila.
Where the river cuts through rocks like those at Gebel Silsila, there is no
migration while in other wide floodplains, such as at Memphis, migration across
the whole plain is possible. There is an intermediate case where the floodplain is
narrow (< 2 km) and the river channel, which is around 500 m wide, therefore
has little room to migrate. Historically places with this morphology show
persistent settlement and may be strategically important since the river is
constrained to remain near to the community; for example, at Armant where
The Nile 37
the Nile appears to flip from one side to the other of a central island (Figure 14).
These points are typically strategic since any settlement can guarantee contact
with the river regardless of its migration. The example here is around the tomb
of the First Intermediate Period nomarch, Ankhtifi. Other examples include
Aswan and Asyut, both towns of antiquity that have persisted.
Nile migration of this type seems to have affected many sites in Egypt,
including Edfu where the Nile channel has moved across the valley since the
area was first inhabited during the predynastic period (Bunbury et al. 2009). In
fact, it could be reasonably said that, unless the Nile is known to have been
restricted by either bedrock (such as at Gebel Silsila) or monuments and
revetment (e.g. Karnak), it should be assumed to have migrated at a mean rate
of around 2 km/millennium with up to 9 km/millennium possible. In practice, as
the amount of water in the Nile was highly seasonal, until the construction of the
Aswan (High) Dam in the late nineteenth century, migration rates were probably
rapid during the flood season, Akhet (from July until October), modest during
the agricultural season, Perut, that followed the recession of the flood (broadly
from November until February) and negligible during the dry season, generally
early May to early September.
Luxor
Desert
Armant
Desert
Tomb of Ankhtifi
Alternative KEY
Nile Town
route Floodplain
Desert
Historic course
Floodplain
N River course
100 km
Figure 14 Diagram to show how, at certain points where the Nile canyon
narrows, the river is constrained to flow through a relatively narrow gap.
We know from images on the mace-head of the King Scorpion (around

3100 BC), breaching the banks of the water channels with his hoe
(Figure 15), that water management was an important function in ancient
Egypt. The floodplain could be divided into basins that were irrigated in turn
to produce crops and, as is the way of all things, taxes. By the New Kingdom,
the extensive taxation records of the Wilbour Papyrus (Antoine 2017) reveal
that a variety of types of arable land were recognised, each with a characteristic
taxation rate. The basin divides (Gisr), built up to manage the process of
irrigation, also acted as roadways that could be kept above the flood level.
Figure 15 Late predynastic king depicted wielding a hoe preparatory to

breaching a dyke and thus ceremonially commencing irrigation. Redrawn from
the Narmer Mace Head from Nekhen (Hierakonpolis), now in the Ashmolean
Museum.
The Nile 39
These roadways were often associated with canals and have preserved ancient
agricultural topographies since silt, accumulating in the channel, was dredged to
raise the roadway. As there was no benefit to moving the basin divide and a great
deal of labour entailed, they were seldom moved unless the changes were part of
a larger project. More recently, in Graeco-Roman times (300 BC to 800 AD) the
half a million documents found at Oxyrhynchus (160 km south of Cairo) and
reviewed by Parsons (2007) reveal that the maintenance of reservoir banks and
channels was still a major occupation during the dry season. In Middle Egypt,
Roman remains – for example, the study of Eva Subias et al. (2013) – suggest
that active management of future water courses by excavating pilot channels
could be undertaken during this period.
The characteristics of migration are seen in the Abydos area (Figure 16)
where islands form on the bends at A and B and can accelerate the process of
migration by island capture. Hôd (field-group) boundaries, shown with thin
lines, record the passage of the river showing that at C, for example, migration is
towards the north-east. The relative solidity of the rocky walls of the canyon
means that at C the river is straightened and a bend migrating to the south-west
is likely to emerge next. Arrows elsewhere indicated the inferred direction of
C Desert
migraon
A Nile Valley B
cultivation
N
River Nile
Scale
5 km
Figure 16 Diagram (drawn from GoogleEarth satellite images of the Abydos

area) showing how the Nile River (black) meanders within the Nile Canyon
(white area).
river migration at that point. It should be noted particularly that the Nile cannot
be said to be generally migrating towards any particular direction but that
migration is a product of local topography and morphology.
Our knowledge of the scale, speed, direction and pattern of river migration
has improved with the invention and development of technology and explora-
tory processes. Overlaying satellite imagery with street maps and ancient
documentation, provides a picture not only of what is (geographically speaking)
but of what was (in historical terms), allowing us to postulate with some
accuracy as to how this happened and how quickly. The uses of remote inspec-
tion of meandering can be illustrated by a study of Hermopolis (Parcak 2009;
Bunbury and Malouta 2012). The Middle Egyptian city, which has Old and
Middle Kingdom roots, was said in its foundation myth to have been built upon
an island in the Nile around 2100 BC although it is now around 6 km from the
main Nile channel (Figure 17). Satellite images revealed that the claim to have
been founded on an island is entirely reasonable since mean migration rates
would mean that a channel migrating eastwards from Hermopolis would have
reached the eastern border of the valley by the time of the foundation of
Antinoupolis by Hadrian in 130AD.
Antinoupolis was also founded on the Nile, to the east of Hermopolis, to
commemorate the death of Hadrian’s lover Antinous who drowned there. Both
cities, but principally Hermopolis, are mentioned in papyri, many of which are
KEY
Settlement
Channel
River
Floodplain Antinoopolis
Wadi
Desert
Hermopolis Hod
boundaries
Desert
Bahr Yusuf
N
Canal SCALE 5 km
Figure 17 Map to show the landscape in the Hermopolis–Antinoupolis region.

The Nile 41
from Oxyrhynchus and the Faiyum and include deeds, accounts and private
correspondence. Consideration of the direction of migration from field patterns
after its foundation around 2100 BC, eastwards away from Hermopolis suggests
that it could have reached the location of Antinoupolis by the time of the
foundation of that city. The analysis reveals why documents relating to the
recruitment of sailors in the town also refer to their transport to the harbour since
the Nile had migrated away from the city by the time of the Roman correspond-
ence (Bunbury and Malouta 2012).
Antinoupolis, a new city adjacent to the desert edge, was at that time
undoubtedly in a more accessible position than the ancient city of
Hermopolis. However, Antinoupolis was founded with little land since it is
located where the Nile abutted the desert edge and Heidel (personal communi-
cation) surveys and excavation reveal that many of the monuments were laid out
over the desert behind a revetted harbour. The paucity of agricultural land
explains why, until the sixth century, many deeds refer to the transfer of land
from Hermopolite owners to those from Antinoupolis. The revetments at
Antinoupolis mean that the Nile has been unable to migrate away from the
city since it was founded. However, the bends to the north and south have started
to migrate westwards. Interestingly, deeds from the period after the sixth
century tend to be for land transferred from the Antinoupolite population to
the Hermopolite one, whose land was, by now, being re-eroded by the Nile.
At Hermopolis, we see how the migration of the Nile across the floodplain
influenced the locations of cities and bore upon their relative importance in the
landscape. Close inspection of the single large site of Karnak in Luxor shows
how, at a smaller scale, river migration and island formation also bear upon the
development of an individual site. The temples of Karnak in Luxor were built
over a long period starting in the Middle Kingdom and, allowing for continuity
of piety, have continued to the present time with the shrine of Sheikh Labeib
constructed within the temple. The extent of the temples is seen in the air
photograph (Figure 18) taken from the west. In the foreground, the First
Pylon dominates the centre of the image with the Sacred Lake formalised by
Tutmosis III behind it. The earliest recorded part of the site, known as Tell
Karnak and dating to the early First Intermediate period, is close to the top right-
hand corner of the lake. The white strip visible nearby is the staging of the Son et
Lumiere. Small white specks in the foreground are the visitors and the tomb of
Sheikh Labeib, indicating the continuity of piety, can be seen emerging from the
trees in the bottom right-hand corner of the image.
Sedimentary evidence from excavations and boreholes across the area of the
temples suggests that the earliest Middle Kingdom limestone temple was con-
structed on an island in the Nile. The temple was supported by a community
Figure 18 Air photograph of the temples of Karnak, Luxor. Photo Angus

Graham.
located on the banks of the then-minor eastern channel (Millet and Masson 2011)
and later connected to the mainland as the channel filled in. An en echelon sandbar
was also occupied with a shrine at Opet to the west and the Mut Island to the south
was the location of another settlement. With time, the minor branch of the Nile was
completely filled in and by the late Eighteenth Dynasty (New Kingdom)
Akhenaten could construct his temple (Gmp-aten) on the infilled channel. That
temple was later demolished after Tutankhamun’s return from Amarna but its
foundations can still be seen in the village to the east of the temple enclosure.
Another temple, ‘Redford’s Temple C’ was also constructed within the new flat
land provided by the infilled channel (Redford, personal communication).
By the Eighteenth Dynasty the northern part of the island had been stabilised,
partly by the addition of rubble to the waterfront, if 10 m of core containing
more than 1,000 sherds is taken as a guide. On this newly consolidated land,
Tutmosis III (Eighteenth Dynasty) constructed his treasury. At the same time,
Hatshepsut and Tutmosis III also developed a new waterfront with a number of
temple courts along the western frontage of the temple. With consolidation of
the southern (Mut) island, a temple was developed there by Hatshepsut
(Eighteenth Dynasty) and eventually the area between the two filled with
sandbanks and a ceremonial way was constructed between the two sets of
The Nile 43
temples that can still be seen today. As the land consolidated, new constructions
filled the available land and expansion to the west led to the construction of
a new waterfront (Figure 19). This waterfront was equipped with a revetted
ramp giving access to the river that flowed, at that time, across the foreground.
The ancient waterfront wall can be seen to the left of the ramp. With time, the
river migrated away from the First Pylon exposing new ground and earlier
stonework was then reused to create a more gently sloping ramp/slipway that
could connect the temple to the new position of the river.
Migration and further development of the waterfront continued into the
Roman Period with the construction of a new set of Ptolemaic baths
(Figure 20) on what had been the earlier waterfront (Boraik et al. 2017). The
team photographed working in the excavation augered high-energy river sands
containing fresh lumps of the sandstone that was used to make the New
Kingdom harbour wall indicating that, at the time of its construction, it abutted
the river. Later, the Ptolemaic baths, which were constructed over the then-
defunct waterfront, are visible in the background, in particular the individual
washing cells to the top right of the image. A drain serving the baths is visible to
the right of the upper figure cutting through the old New Kingdom wall and
passing over later sediment that had accumulated against it.
Figure 19 Mansour Boraik’s excavation outside the First Pylon at Karnak in

2008.
Figure 20 Excavation by Salah El-Masekh showing the northwards

continuation of the waterfront wall in Figure 19.
Hillier showed that the Nile had receded further from the temple towards the
west bank but that the Nile is now migrating eastwards at this point back
towards the temple (Hillier et al. 2007). Revetment and erosion management
around Luxor means that migration is now very slow through the town. The
movements of the Nile around Karnak are summarised in Figure 21.
The distributary channels of the delta also meander, albeit on a smaller scale
(see, for example, GoogleEarth at 30° 51’ 28.16” N, 30° 46’ 40.27” E) and the
changes in the Saharan region and in the Nile Valley that we have already
discussed also affected the delta. Stabilisation of the river channels gradually
propagated through the delta moving coast-wards, a process that was acceler-
ated by the influx of sand between the Old and New Kingdom.
The migrating Nile is a fact of life for those living in the Nile Valley during
and since the Old Kingdom and those who lived or made their living near the
Nile certainly made the most of the changing landscape. They were enterprising
and resourceful, seeking out new opportunities where they could like their
twentieth-century counterparts who founded the brickworks at Badrasheen.
They also adapted to new ideas and technologies like those to manage the
The Nile 45
A B
C Temple D
Built
Unbuilt
KEY
Pool
Sandbank
River
Floodplain
Figure 21 Maps to show how Karnak, now around 500 m from the Nile (A) was
initially founded on an island (B) Middle Kingdom temple shown as thick solid
lines. As the island extended and consolidated (C) there was further
construction during the New Kingdom. With continued Nile migration the river
moved away from the complex (D). Pools and the river Nile are shown in black.
Key to all fills and lines is shown in B.
water cycles and the seasons. For ancient Egyptians, understanding the factors
driving the changing landscape gave them a new confidence to begin to control
their habitats; for modern academics, it has helped to place the Nile in the
historical context of its surroundings, that of shifts in geographic power and the
dawning of a new ‘classical age’ and a powerful and reunited Egypt.
9 Renewed Strength in the South

During the Middle Kingdom, Thebes began to grow in importance and temples
in the area that is now known as Karnak were founded on sandbanks emerging
from the Nile. The theme of architecture on islands is prominent in ancient
Egypt and a number of important sites have a foundation myth that includes an
island. By the New Kingdom, Nile management had reached new peaks and
evidence from Karnak, the Faiyum and Memphis illustrate the scope of land-
scape projects that were envisioned by the state. Climate amelioration during
the early New Kingdom ushered in a period of relative stability and prosperity
with the Egyptian Empire reaching arguably its greatest extent with connections
to the south with Nubia and as far north as the Levant. The return of some rain to
the deserts allowed old waterholes and routes to open up in the wadis around the
Nile Valley such as the area of the Theban mountain and some more long-
distance ones through Kharga and Dakhla.
The first king of the New Kingdom, Ahmose I, from his base at Thebes,
launched a campaign to regain control of the delta (Petty 2014) at that time ruled
by the Hyksos. When he succeeded, it ushered in a reign that was ruled from
Thebes, towards the south of Egypt. The territory of this realm extended south
into Nubia with gold-mining operations in northern Sudan. To the north, abso-
lute conquests into the near East were supplemented with treaties with kings
further northwards, as far as Hatti, the kingdom of the Hittites (Bryce 2005).
Panels at Karnak temple report the later Nineteenth Dynasty victories against
the Hittites at the battle of Kadesh Thebes, which testify, although perhaps in
exaggerated form, to a wide range of conquests. Further evidence for powerful
connections overseas comes from the communities of expatriate workers that
came to Egypt, for example linen workers at Akhmin in Middle Egypt or the
horse breeders of Thebes who used a specially constructed area along the side of
the Birket Habu, a large reservoir, for horse training the imported beasts.
Expeditions to the south, to Punt (probably modern Ethiopia) during the time
of Hatshepsut and depicted in her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri, brought
back many valuable goods including myrrh trees, remains of whose roots still
survive at the temple (Figure 22). The milder temperatures probably ensured
that the myrrh trees and other tropical species could be grown more easily
during this period.
By the time of Amenhotep III, large amounts of gold were being won from
Nubia (Spence et al. 2009) and used to sweeten relations with kings to the north,
including the Mitanni, a people who had a kingdom that spanned modern day
south-east Turkey and the northern parts of Iran and Iraq (Moran 1992). The
New Kingdom archive of The Amarna Letters (cuneiform texts on clay tablets)
contains much correspondence from kingdoms to the North requesting gold
among other riches. In Nubia, examination of the extensive mining around the
temple of Sesebi (Spence et al. 2009) suggests that conditions in the area were
wetter at that time than they are now. There is also some indication, from mining
activity in the wadis to the north of the temple, that there was at least seasonal
rainfall that could be used in the extraction of the gold by riffling over the
natural schist rocks.
Rodrigues (2000) studied fresh-water mussel shells in the nearby Wadi
Howar that indicate much wetter conditions there than further to the north
where sites such as Giza had already been enclosed by drifting desert sands
The Nile 47
Figure 22 Photo of myrrh roots still remaining at Deir el-Bahri on the West
Bank at Thebes (Luxor).
(Bunbury et al. 2009). Similarly, Gebel al-Asr, a little to the north, was not
encapsulated by blown sand until after the Middle Kingdom use of the mines
and buildings around Quartz Ridge (Shaw et al. 2001). To the east in the
Dongola Reach (Welsby 2001) of the Nile, over 450 sites were found, together
with clear evidence for palaeo-channels of the Nile, the banks of which were
densely settled during the Kerma period (c.2500–1500 BC). The demise of
these palaeo-channels resulted in a dramatic fall in the population of the region
by the first millennium BC (www.sudarchrs.org.uk/fieldwork/fieldwork-
northern-dongola-reach/).
By the New Kingdom, techniques in the management of both islands and
channels are evident, including the use of the minor channels near islands as
harbours and the laying out of new temples within strategically blocked old
channels. Chains of islands are common in the bends of the Nile channel, where
sediment that has been eroded from elsewhere is re-deposited. Generally,
sandbars and islands form close to the bends where the channel profile is
asymmetric and the water flows faster and therefore erodes the outside of the
bend. As the river enters the straight on the way to the next bend, the channel
broadens and becomes symmetric in profile. This spot is known as the ‘ferry-
point’ since it is where it is easiest to cross the river by ferry. Towards the next
bend the channel starts to become asymmetric again and sand is deposited as
bars on the inside of the bend. This pattern continues through the length of the
river.
Small sandbars accrete and consolidate with time, eventually emerging as
islands through processes that were studied by Duckworth (2009). The island
habitat has a number of advantages. It has easy access to river transport and
fresh water, it has freshly deposited rich soils and it is relatively safe from
erosion since the channels on either side can transfer water from one to the other
without eroding the island. These advantages were evident to ancient inhabit-
ants of the Nile Valley as much as to the modern inhabitants.
Excavations at Luxor Old Garden Site by the SCA (Supreme Council of
Antiquities) dig school show that, as the island there accreted and changed,
there were adaptations to the way in which the island was occupied. However,
the lifespan of an island was probably less than a century, since the minor
channel tends to become blocked at one end leaving it stagnant and starved of
sediment. Subsequent inundations gradually fill the channel until it becomes
a marsh and eventually fills in. Taryn Duckworth’s work (2009) helps to
illustrate the ways in which islands can be used and why they were so important
in ancient Egypt. Islands, being in the middle of the Nile channel were easily
accessible to river traffic and provided fresh water. The channel on one side was
generally fast flowing while the other, minor channel, was a backwater. These
backwaters remain a rich habitat today with reed-beds, fish and birdlife
(Figure 23).
Angus Graham (2010) has studied sandbars in detail and finds that, in the
Nile, they are generally horned bars. Initially, a sandbank forms and, as the
current is decelerated to either side of the sandbank, more sand is deposited to
form a horseshoe shaped island. At the upstream end, there is solid ground
suitable for a few fields or perhaps a farm building while inside the horseshoe is
a swampy area where fish spawn and rich silt is deposited. Agriculture on the
island is supported by the fertility of the fresh sediment and the ready access to
fresh water. Figure 24, based on studies of the islands of Luxor, shows how
agricultural activity and other uses leads to the development and stabilisation of
new islands.
In the Luxor reach today, fishermen use light skiffs to explore the inner
horseshoe while herdsmen force cattle through the water (Duckworth 2009) to
graze on the fresh plants on the island and stir and enhance the sediment with their
hooves and their dung. Reeds and other plants that arrive with the cattle, baffle
further sediment, increasing the stability of the sandbar until it grows large enough
for more substantial buildings and more extensive crop planting during the low
season of the Nile. In the days of the flood, additional silt deposited during the
inundation prepared the ground for a new crop. A sequence of thin silts at Karnak,
The Nile 49
Figure 23 The still backwaters of the Nile rich with biodiversity. There is
abundant weed-life, habitat for fish in the shallows which provides food for
waterfowl that live in the reed-beds. The palm trees indicate the agricultural
Nile floodplain beyond the reed-beds. Photo Rose Collis.
separated by burnt layers, may be indicative of just such a use of the original
Karnak island (Bunbury, Graham and Hunter 2008). Alongside the island, the
minor channel was an ideal location for domestic activity, landing boats, brewing,
baking and no doubt laundering, activities that we know took place at the river’s
edge from the ‘Satire of the Trades’ (Lichtheim 1973).
“The washerman washes on the shore with the crocodile as his neighbour.”
From the ‘Satire of the Trades’, Tr Lichtheim, 1973
The area around the son et lumiere at Karnak, sometimes described as Tell
Karnak, appears to show a river levee with steps down to the water, very similar
to the stone steps that serve the riverbank in modern times (Millett and Masson
2011). Alongside any island with its attendant domestic activity, the minor
channel, although it may be deep, has slow water and is a suitable habitat for
large fish. Seining (fishing using nets) for large fish still takes place in these
minor channels in the Edfu area and the prevalence of these in the remains from
the temple at Nekhen/Hierakonpolis (Friedman 2009; Van Neer et al. 2002,
2009) seems to indicate that the practice has persisted since the Old Kingdom,
Marsh
Marsh infill with
Pool
clay and anthropogenic
debris
Sandy part of island
suitable for housing
and farming
Original bar
Figure 24 Diagram after Duckworth (2009) to show how a sandbank evolves

into a horned bar, then an island and, around a century later becomes bonded to
the riverbank.
when a channel flanked the site. With these combined resources – access to fresh
water, transport and a variety of foodstuffs – islands seem to have been idealised
and many appear in tomb scenes of the rivers of the afterlife, particularly in the
scenes from the Nineteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom. Heaven was indeed
an island in the Nile.
Evidence from other archaeological island sites suggests that there was
a sophisticated set of strategies involved in managing islands including groins
composed of pots of rubble at Karnak (Ted Brock, personal communication),
retaining walls at the Luxor Old Garden Site (AERA excavation visit) and the
use of low-lying areas for industrial processes – for example brick clamps –
during the dry season resulting in a scatter of slag and other waste materials left
behind. Other examples of island foundation myths and topography include
Hermopolis (Bunbury and Malouta 2012).
Excavations at Karnak suggest that the point where boats landed at the
temples were celebrated at barque shrines, although, as the channels migrated
away, the shrines became more distant from the water and, in the examples at
Karnak, were then incorporated into the temple structure while new barque
shrines were added to the waterfront. For example, the barque shrine of Seti
I was subsequently incorporated into the court of the first pylon at Karnak. No
doubt the opportunity for new display provided by the freshly accreting land
was relished by the extant ruler since the new waterfront could then be
The Nile 51
occupied by their monuments. Similarly, waterfront structures such as slip-

ways were modified to bring them back to the contemporary waterfront.
Dufton (2008) in his work on the koms of the Abydos area postulated that
towns had ‘rolled’ as the river moved. The old town, further from the water as
the river migrated, was superseded by new developments along the water-
front and as migration continued yet more new developments were made. The
old town by this time was falling into disrepair and in a similar example at
Naslet es-Saman (near Giza) and at Memphis, the ruined town then became
a quarry for stone for the new construction zone. The product of this ‘rolling’
is a raised area of the floodplain (with few standing monuments) over which
the town has passed.
New Kingdom Memphis provides us with an example of an ambitious project
to segment a waning channel. By building dykes, Pédro Gonçalves (2019)
shows us that low ground left by a waning channel could be used to provide
a new temple site for the Ptah Temple. The remains of the channel served as
harbours to the north and south. Much of the early evidence was then muted by
an even more ambitious Saite (seventh century BC) scheme to develop a large
mound at Kom Tuman as the seat of the palace of Apries (Gunn 1927).
However, sufficient evidence of the earlier New Kingdom project remains to
reconstruct the landscape intervention.
Pédro Gonçalves (2019), in his work analysing the Survey of Memphis cores,
has reconstructed the development of this site. He shows how the early settle-
ment at Memphis was founded around the shores of an island in the Old
Kingdom and developed further during the Middle Kingdom. Manetho, in his
history, attributes the founding of Memphis to Menes, one of the earliest kings
of the united Egypt. Gonçalves posits that, at times of low Niles, the settlement
expanded towards the river but that at times of high Niles it was eroded and
forced to retreat. With time, and during the Middle Kingdom, marshy areas
became gradually infilled by anthropogenic activity but, by the New Kingdom,
more ambitious landscape-management schemes were being planned. These
included segmenting the waning channels of the valley to produce an area of
reclaimed land between two harbours where the Temple of Ptah at Memphis
was constructed. The main Nile continued to migrate towards the east as a series
of islands formed and were captured. In common with Karnak, the site con-
tinued to develop in the waterfront area while older parts of the city were
abandoned and quarried for stone and landfill material.
Memphite monuments explored by the Survey of Memphis and AERA are
shown in Figure 24 with the inferred positions of ancient waterways as
described by Gonçalves in his interpretation of some 150 exploratory cores
from the area. Evidence from fine-grained mud and contemporary New
Kingdom sediments at the same level show that the waning channel was
dissected by east–west embankments and the temple laid out on the new low
ground. The North Birka (N) and the South Birka (S) remained wet and may
have been used as harbours. The map (Figure 25) shows the main ruins of
Memphis around the modern village of Mit Rahina. The site is so complex and
extensive that the mounds are divided into a number of smaller eminences
(Koms) whose names are shown here. The pale shading shows channels extant
during the early Middle Kingdom development of the city in the areas around
Kom Rabi and Kom Fakhry, while the dark shading shows the formalised
waterways of the New Kingdom. Much of western Memphis was later cut
down to build the eminence of Kom Tuman by the Saite pharaohs. Not long
K. Aziz
K. Tuman
Palace of
K. Dafbaby
Apries
N K. Nawa
Mit Rahina Ptah Temple
Enclosure
Ptah Temple
West Gate Birka
K. Fakhry K. Arba’in
Apis House
West Building
RII Chapel
Open air museum
Tombs of
High Priests Sekhmet Temple
Hathor
Temple K. Qala’a
K. Rabi’a
S N
K. Helul
K. Babakha
Ruin fields 200 m
of Memphis
Figure 25 Map of the ruins of Memphis with reconstruction of the ancient
channels.
The Nile 53
after these developments, Memphis fell into disuse and was replaced by other
sites in the Babylon (Old Cairo) area.
Evidence that, at this time, not only was Nile management reaching new
levels but that climate amelioration was reopening the desert to travellers,
comes from the Theban Mountain, a block of up-faulted limestones, close to
Luxor. New arrivals in Egypt are often struck by the sharp boundary between
the green of the cultivation and the sandy yellows of the desert. The Theban
Mountain in the Luxor area is no exception and today the massif forms a largely
barren area, a refuge for jackals and gerbils with almost no groundwater and
little vegetation. However, in the New Kingdom, the area became a very busy
necropolis with valleys devoted to the burial of kings, queens and nobles,
including the Valley of the Kings. During the Nineteenth Dynasty, we know
that water was not very abundant in the area from texts found at the settlement of
Deir el-Medina. Here they had no access to water themselves and were depend-
ent upon water carriers to supply them as well as sending out the laundry to be
washed at the Nile as we learn from the numerous ostraca that were thrown into
an enormous pit at the settlement (McDowell 1999). Indeed, the excavation of
‘The Great Pit’ may have been an ultimately unsuccessful effort to dig a well
deep enough to reach the groundwater and its use as a giant rubbish tip was
a secondary purpose.
By the New Kingdom, there seems to have been a good understanding, on the
part of the inhabitants of the Nile Valley, of how the river and its islands
behaved. This working knowledge allowed them to exert a degree of control
over the mighty Nile waters, turning what might have been environmental
disorder and chaos into meaningful and advantageous habitats, capable of
sustaining not only life but livelihoods. The scene was set for even larger and
more elaborate river-management schemes from the New Kingdom onwards.
10 High Tides of Empire

Arguably periods of high global temperature promoted the expansion of suc-
cessful empires, by expanding the Nile floodplain and greening the deserts and
their wadi systems. The New Kingdom and the Roman periods, both times of
high global temperature, were also times when empires expanded to their
maximum extent. They are therefore understandably the periods in which
water-management schemes were at their most ambitious.
We already know from the Gurob Harem Palace Project (see gurob.org.uk for
details; and Yoyotte et al. in press) that, by the time of Thutmose III in the early
New Kingdom, the king could arrange large landscape-scale projects such as the
provision of water to some 100 km2 of the Faiyum basin through a regulator at
Gurob. The Gurob Harem Palace was constructed on the desert edge just to the
south of the entrance to the Faiyum Oasis (Figure 26). From the Neolithic to the
Old Kingdom (4000–2200 BC) a lake filled the Faiyum basin reaching almost to
the 20 m contour. The extent of the much-reduced modern Lake Qarun is shown
with dark shading.
The Faiyum Oasis was naturally refreshed during the annual flood as water
poured through a spillway that led from the Nile. After the end of the Old
Kingdom however, the lake started a punctuated process of drying down to
form the rather briny residual lake of Lake Qarun that remains today. Its
surface is currently 47 m below sea level and has caused deep scouring of the
earlier lake sediments. From the Middle Kingdom, schemes, particularly that
of Amnemhat III, were conceived to regreen the oasis. These were succeeded
by the New Kingdom project to create a precursor of the Hawara Canal
overseen by the palace at Gurob. Boreholes reveal that water was diverted
(Figure 27) from the Bahr Yusuf at A into the depression restoring the lake to
the 17 m contour (grey shaded area) and commemorated by the construction
of colossi at Biahmu.
Recent work with Ian Shaw at the Gurob Harem Palace Project and
including a range of cores drilled by Ellie Hughes (Shaw 2010) shows that
there was a New Kingdom channel that was dug along the base of the desert
scarp, rounded the corner at Lahun and fed into the oasis. No doubt the mud
excavated from the channel was a useful contribution to the construction of
an impressive palace from which the water could be controlled. Earlier
excavators including Petrie and Brunton and Engelbach (1927) described
a strong building that they tentatively identified as a ‘fort’. The fort, which
is surrounded by an industrial area from which kilns have been excavated by
Desert
Lake Qarun Faiyum Basin

Ð47m
Biahmu
Crocodilopolis
Hawara
El-Lahun
+17m Gurob A
+20m
20 km
Bahr Yusuf
Figure 26 Contour map of the Faiyum Basin after Gasperini (2010).

The Nile 55
Desert
Burials
GUROB
North N
Old Walls Town
Industrial area
“Fort” AS02 Culvaon

Ramp AS03
Water
front
Palace Section
2012
200 m
SCALE
Figure 27 Map of Gurob after Brunton and Engelbach 1927 and incorporating
the work of the Gurob Harem Palace Project (unpublished Supreme Council of
Antiquities (SCA) reports).
Anna Hodgkinson (Shaw 2010), may be more of an administrative centre

than a defensive structure. A ramp leads from the fort down to a landing area
(Figure 26).
Satellite image analysis by Sarah Parcak (2009; and BBC Lost Cities docu-
mentary) showed that there were other possible buildings to the north of the fort
(North Town). Today, erosion has flattened the topography of the site and only
a thin veneer from the base of the mud-brick walls remains of these northern
constructions but the prevalence of ‘lady-on-a-bed’ clay figurines, perhaps
votive, that have been catalogued by Jan Picton, suggest that the inhabitants
shared the normal domestic concerns of the period. Recent excavations by Anna
Kathrin Hodgkinson and Dan Boatright (2009 and 2010) in the area near
magnetic anomalies show that there were kilns and other industrial activity
near to the fort (Figure 28) further strengthening the impression of a burgeoning
elite community at the palace. Although the site today has an aspect of almost
unparalleled bleakness, our reconstructions suggest that at different times, the
settlement was composed of the palace and the fort (Marine Yoyotte, personal
communication) served by an adjacent channel, the Bahr Yusuf. The town
continued to develop during the Nineteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom
and also into the Ptolemaic Period.
Figure 28 Excavation of kilns in the area of the ‘fort’ by Anna Kathrin

Hodgkinson (Hodgkinson and Boatright 2009 and 2010).
In the south in Thebes (Luxor) we see landscape design in the work of

Amenhotep III who, from the Theban Landscape and Waterscapes Project
(Graham et al. 2015), seems to have brought a channel to his reservoir of
Birket Habu, alongside the palace at Malqata to continue in front of his
memorial temple. The Birket has an area of around 2 km2 and lies at the western
edge of the floodplain. The basin required the excavation of a large amount of
sediment and may have been an extension of an earlier natural basin (Aude
Grazer-Ohara 2012). Unfortunately, its original purpose is obscure although the
scale of this and some other similar earthworks to the east, of less certain age, is
indisputable. It is notable however, that the basin of Birket Habu captures two of
the streams that flow from the wadis into the Nile Valley at this point, indicating
that they were likely to have been active at that time.
An additional birket to the east may have had a similar channel to attach it to
the Nile and the provision of quays at the temples of Medamud and Tod suggest
that they also were provided with access channels. These projects demonstrate
a clear understanding of how mud excavated from supply channels could be
used to provide embankments or mud-brick for palaces as part of a civil
engineering project. Or similarly how, with the excavation of Birket Habu,
a raised area could be created to house the settlement and to provide an artificial
The Nile 57
plateau and mounds. These elevations were suitable for horse training and
viewing equestrian contests as well as festival flotillas on the lake.
The subsequent attempt by Akhenaten to establish a completely new city at
Amarna on a patch of desert (Kemp 1989), may have reflected excessive
ambition on the part of Akhenaten. It may equally reveal an unexpected change
back to dryer conditions that rendered the site unworkable soon after it was
constructed. The Nile is now around 300 m away from what appears to have
been the original waterfront. During the Ramesside (Nineteenth Dynasty of the
New Kingdom) Period and after the return to Thebes, many of these earlier
Eighteenth Dynasty schemes were taken up and renewed.
Ambitious projects during the Ptolemaic Period include a link from the
Pelusiac branch of the Nile excavated towards the Red Sea, later re-excavated
after the Roman annexation of Egypt, to join the Nile and the Eastern
Mediterranean to the Red Sea via the Bitter Lakes. The next peak of global
temperature dates to the Roman Period which began in Egypt in 30 AD. The
grain-producing potential of Egypt was exploited as it had earlier been during
the New Kingdom. Grain harvests were taxed and during the flood season large
grain barges travelled northwards, accumulating grain to supply Alexandria as
well as the capital of the Roman Empire. Luxury products from the region
included wine which was said to be of high quality.
While the main channel of the Nile remained difficult to manage, the minor
channels could now be controlled and having less water and lower velocities
meandered on a much smaller scale than the main river. During Ptolemaic and
Roman times this manageability was developed and exploited. The Bahr Yusuf,
the minor western branch of the Nile, was an ideal partner to the development of
a town and, from the example of Oxyrhynchus, a sophisticated pattern of
location within the landscape and symbiosis with it emerges. As we have seen
from the New Kingdom examples of Karnak and Memphis, sites in the Nile
Valley were vulnerable to alienation from the Nile channel, during migration.
From Ptolemaic times a new approach was developed. The solution was to build
in the desert and bring the river to the site. These techniques, first developed on
the more manageable Bahr Yusuf were eventually developed during Roman
times to include the main Nile (see also Hermopolis).
At Oxyrhynchus (Subias et al. 2013), the minor channel of the Nile, the Bahr
Yusuf, was diverted to the desert edge where the town was founded. Physical
remains of the Roman town are visible but more exceptionally its enormous
archive of rubbish, dumped in the desert also survived. From these documents,
we learn of lovers’ tiffs, a kind gift of a puppy to a lonely bride now far from
home and many more mundane matters pertinent to the running of the town
(Parsons 2007). The combined record of the archaeology and the documents
shows that a leat (gently sloping channel), taken from the Bahr Yusuf upstream
where it joined the desert edge, brought water to a large tank at the upper, desert
edge of the town. From here, a grid of channels served the town in all but the
lowest part of the river’s annual cycle. The channels brought fresh water into the
houses and delivered the used water to the river below the town where there was
a waterfront wall. At times when the water was exhausted, a man was employed
to raise water to the town and we learn from his correspondence that in
a particularly long dry season he felt disgruntled. A downstream embankment
probably also provided a nutrient-rich marsh.
In Middle Egypt, the floodplain is wide enough to have preserved traces of
much past activity, a strategy emerged of digging cross ditches between sets of
levees associated with abandoned channels and minor channels like the Bahr
Yusuf (Subias et al. 2013). Most of these abandoned channels flow broadly
north–south so relatively short cross-links between them could be dug to bring
water to new areas or to turn an abandoned channel into a reservoir. Arguably, it
was the Romans who had finally attained mastery of the Nile.
To the north in the delta, the defensive capabilities of the waterways were
exploited at sites like Kom Firin. The site in the west of the delta along a now-
extinct branch of the delta distributary system was long-lived. It formed part of
a chain of sites, located on mounds that flank an ancient waterway close to the
modern Firiniya Canal (Spencer 2007, 2014). Delta towns were frequently
menaced by marauders from the west and Kom Firin’s location on an island
surrounded by channels made it a good defensive position.
The core of the site was a relict Pleistocene gezireh at the western end of
which a settlement mound (kom) accumulated. Burials from the Middle
Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period (SIP) nearby suggest that there was
earlier settlement but the town burgeoned during the Nineteenth Dynasty of the
New Kingdom. An imposing Ramesside temple and enclosure were built on the
south-eastern part of the mound to protect against invasion. Settlement con-
tinued around the flanks of the site, which borehole surveys in the local fields
show was surrounded by water for much of the year (Hughes 2007; Bunbury
et al. 2014). Even though it was a defensive settlement, no moat was required
since there was natural protection of the islands by water. Kom Firin continued
to be inhabited for the next 1,500 years during which there were periods of
growth and revival.
After a period of political uncertainty, Psamtek I reunified Egypt under the
nearby capital of Sais and Kom Firin experienced a renaissance. By this time,
the northern branch of the waterway that had formerly enclosed the site seemed
to have dwindled and the new enclosure was laid out on a much grander scale
expanding well beyond the earlier Ramesside enclosure that nestled in the
The Nile 59
southeast corner of the new enclosure. The evidence from a steep scarp to the
south of the site and a relict lake along this front suggest that the settlement was
still served by a waterway to the south for much of the year. Spencer (2014)
concludes that at this time the community had grown from a frontier village to
an established population of some tens of thousands who had limited connec-
tions to the nearby Greek trading emporion at Naukratis.
The town continued to thrive during Ptolemaic and Roman times and pottery
has been reported from the site continuing until the Arab Conquest. During this
period, the dwindling waterways of the delta meant that the site became less
attractive. Since the site was extensively mined for sebakh, the paucity later
stonework and architecture can be attributed to the exposure of the latest periods
of occupation to upcycling, particularly the production of lime and sebakh for
fertiliser.
The management of the Nile’s resources and effective irrigation of flood-
basins required co-ordination of groups of people up and down the Nile. Textual
evidence suggests that the functions were co-ordinated by priests on behalf of
the king, whose responsibility was to maintain ‘maat’ (the balance of things)
and keep out the forces of chaos. The many texts from the walls of Edfu temple
were beautifully preserved by the occupation mound that grew over it and later
revealed by the early twentieth-century excavators (see Moeller 2010, for more
detail). One religious journey to the Ptolemaic temple of Edfu, described in the
texts, is reminiscent of similar, independently conceived pilgrimages to manage
water distribution like those of the Balinese water temples (Lansing 2007).
Horus of Edfu was host to an annual visit of the goddess Hathor who travelled
upsteam from Dendara to Edfu in the south. The feast was placed in the middle
of the agricultural season (Blackman and Fairman 1942) towards the end of
the second month of Peret, after the planting and as the early growing season
proceeded. As the goddess travelled upstream, her retinue was augmented by
representatives of towns along the Nile until the flotilla arrived at Edfu. By the
time it arrived at Edfu, the assembly would have included representatives from
five successive nomes (ancient provinces).
At Edfu, the goddess Hathor was closeted with the god Horus while the
retinue feasted and participated in religious drama. The scenes enacted cele-
brated the triumph of Horus over his enemy Seth (the desert god). First actors
representing the demons and other enemies of Maat, the divine order of things,
attempted to approach the temple by boat but were repelled by Horus and his
supporters. The drama culminated with the dismemberment of Seth, apparently
in the form of a hippopotamus modelled from bread (Blackman and Fairman
1942), and ensured that the next season of inundation could be as successful as
the current one had been. Blackman and Fairman also suggest that the extensive
renditions of the dramatic texts, accompanied by lists of props and dialogue

were intended to continue the good work of maintaining order even should the
physical ritual cease.
During the New Kingdom, understanding of the Nile and management of it
had developed but the sheer extent and complexity of tributary management
during the Roman occupation enabled unprecedented growth and development
of the empire. Roman technology maximised Egypt’s capabilities commercially
in the form of mineral trade and mining, and settlement expansion throughout
previously uninhabitable lands. The milder climate allowed city dwellers to
flourish because of previously unavailable produce and an abundance of grains,
shipped up on barges whilst farmers benefited from new markets. The Eastern
Mediterranean formed one marketplace of which Egypt formed an important
part. The development of new irrigation and water distribution strategies
coupled with a beneficent climate brought the Nile to heel.
11 Coptic-Islamic Times
Roman innovations in management of the Nile established the patterns which
persisted until the twentieth century. The ebb and flow of empires, Byzantine,
Arab and Muslim, saw continued migration of the Nile accompanied by gentle
rising of the floodplain.
Coptic Cairo is an excellent illustration of the interplay of floodplain rise and
river migration. Early churches in the area, founded in the third to fourth century
are now far below the surrounding ground level. In another example, the
‘Hanging Church’ of St George was built over the bastions of an existing
Roman watergate in the third to fourth century. Those original Roman
Bastions are now far below ground level and visitors must descend steps to
go down from the modern floodplain level to the ancient one (Figure 29; and
Sheehan 2015). FIgure 29 shows how St Barbara’s Church in Cairo is now
somewhat below ground level and must be reached by steps from a street level
that is itself below the level of the surrounding landscape. The approximate rate
of rise of around 1 m/millennium is clearly visible in the rising floor levels of
successive foundations. Coptic Cairo and the adjacent Fustat, the first capital
under Muslim rule which formed the early part of the Islamic city, were
originally on the Nile bank and incorporated quays but have now, as a result
of migration westwards, been left 500 m from the bank.
Nilometer records that had been kept so faithfully elsewhere began to be kept
on the island of Roda in Cairo where the nilometer (Figure 30) is famous for
having records going back to the eighth century. Water entered from the river
through the archway into the nilometer chamber. The chamber was furnished
The Nile 61
Figure 29 Entrance to St Barbara’s church in Coptic Cairo.
Figure 30 Roda Nilometer, Cairo from the Nile.

with steps for access and a central calibrated pillar from which the flood-level
rise could be monitored. Although it has suffered damage during this period and
been renovated many times, the original nilometer is thought to have been built
in around 715 AD (www.waterhistory.org/histories/cairo/). Cairo itself has had
many centres and Mark Lehner proposes that we should rather think of the Cairo
area as a ‘Capital Zone’ with migrating centres that were, in part, dependent
upon the location of the Nile within the valley. Early construction seems to be
mainly in the Saqqara and Giza areas in the Old Kingdom when we infer that the
Nile or at least a western branch of it was towards that side of the valley. The
easterly site of Heliopolis was also at that time on a branch of the Nile and from
this Pryer (2011) has proposed that the delta head, where the branching of the
Nile began, was further to the south than it is now.
From the Thirteenth Dynasty (c.1800–1650 BC) the delta came under new
management, that of the Hyksos (rulers of foreign lands) who by the Fifteenth
Dynasty had largely taken control of the area. The emergence of the southern
capital, Thebes, during the Middle and New Kingdom resulted in a power
struggle for the delta, which was finally ‘re-Egyptianised’ during the early
Eighteenth Dynasty. This conquest was accompanied by the construction of
fortifications such as those at Kom Firin (Spencer 2007, 2014) on one of the
geziereh (turtle-backs). Although the channels and the areas between the turtle-
backs continued to dry out, the locations of former channels were still visible in
maps from the chains of swampy land and minor lakes that marked their former
progress until the late nineteenth century. During the period of Mohammad Ali,
canals were cut to drain the swamps and regulate the flow of water for irrigation
and the earlier pattern of channels was over-written. A second period of water
management began in more contemporary times, e.g. during the leadership of
Nasser.
Burgeoning trade with the eastern Mediterranean during the New Kingdom
had led to the development of ports along the delta fringes and these links
continued into the Coptic and Islamic period. Suitable port locations relied upon
a supply of fresh water, some of which may have been delivered from a source
further upstream and good access to seaward routes and inland connections
through the waterways of the delta. John Cooper’s (2014) study presents
a fascinating insight into the Nile as a working, dynamic river, charting its
importance during the Islamic period for cultural, navigational and trade pur-
poses. Tinnis, an important textile production and trading port, was said to have
become an island during the earthquake of 365 AD (Gascoigne 2007) and
continued to be used until the thirteenth century AD. Exploratory borehole
work by Ben Pennington suggests that Tinnis was founded on a number of
shelly ridges, produced by longshore drift eastwards along the coast of Egypt.
The Nile 63
When Atilla (1954) bored in this area, he reported muds containing cockle
shells supporting this hypothesis. Longshore drift distributed sediment from the
Damietta branch of the Nile across the mouth of the lagoon enclosing the marine
cockle spits and the city of Tinnis sprang from the archipelago. The principal
sailing season was during the summer when the weather was stable (Tammuz
2005) and the floodwaters were higher, filling the lagoon.
Trade goods were produced during the Mamluk period across Egypt and, at
times, made use of extensive irrigation works to produce the crops desired.
Agricultural basins of this type occur at Shutb, just south of Asyut and at
Akhmin, both well known for their textiles. At Asyut, to form the Zinnar
Basin, a system of dykes was created to control irrigation of an area around
150 km2. The crops grown in this area are unrecorded but the investment in
creating the dykes included up to two hundred oxen and many men labouring to
create a lightly baked brick double wall with an earth filling. The importance of
the indigo trade at this time (Balfour-Paul 2016) and the importance of the
export of blue-dyed cloth from Asuyt to central Africa at that time suggest that
a species of tropical indigo was part of the purpose of the irrigation. Augering in
the area of Shutb (ancient Shas-Hotep) within the basin revealed that around
three and a half metres of sediment had accumulated during the period of intense
agriculture, a rate that exceeds the normal rates of accumulation. The provisions
for maintaining the Mamluk wall included its maintenance and defence,
a further indication of the value of the crop.
Further to the north, the changing geometry of the river meant that what is
now southern Cairo became more suitable for the pre-eminent settlement in the
area than the earlier sites of the capital further to the south-west, including
Memphis.
In the annual cycle as well as longer cycles, there emerge a number of phases:
flooding, greening, harvesting and desiccation. From the earliest unification of
Egypt, the annual cycle was well understood. This knowledge formed the basis
for the Coptic calendar and was closely monitored by the Egyptian state using
nilometers. As described earlier, the calendar was divided into three seasons:
Akhet (June-September), Peret (October to February) and Shemu (March to
May). In the first phase, Akhet, the river started to rise in the south and the flood
travelled north over the following weeks. As the river rose, levees were stra-
tegically breached to irrigate flood-basins and the inhabitants were forced to
retreat to high ground including the flanking terraces of the Nile Valley, river
levees and, in the delta, among the ancient gezireh (islands). A flood too low
was disastrous and resulted in famine while one too high caused widespread
disruption of irrigation networks and dwellings. Prayers were directed towards
a rise of sixteen cubits, neither too little nor too much, and taxes were set
accordingly. Ancient accounts tell of the flooding of Karnak temple and Roman
papyri from Oxyrhynchus (Parsons 2007) describe the emergency measures
used when an embankment was accidentally breached, including men and
furniture pressing into the gap while earth could be recruited to stem the flow.
As kemet, the fertile soil that gives rise to the name ‘the Black Land’ as the
ancient Egyptians knew it, emerged once again from the floodwaters, the
agricultural season, Shemu, began. Although in the oases a local supply of
artesian water meant that there could be year-round agriculture, in general in the
Nile Valley there was a relatively short growing and harvesting season; as the
land dried out, the season of preparation began. Again, we know from Roman
accounts (Parsons 2007) of duties shirked, that a labour tax was exacted from
each able-bodied member of the community so that the cleaning, digging of
ditches and repair of embankments could be completed before the flood-waters
rose and the cycle began again. Indeed, to garner sufficient food in anticipation
of the inactivity of the flood season, it was crucial to improve irrigation and
productivity as far as possible. Since grain was the main currency, bread and
beer being the standard payment from the Old Kingdom (2686–2160 BC) and
raised revenue through taxation, the state invested a good deal in the expansion
of irrigation. Juan Carlos Garcea Moreno (personal communication) suggests
from the records that marginal marshes and swamps were an important source
of fish, fowl and game – an alternative larder upon which the population drew
more heavily when state intervention was weaker.
In antiquity, the involvement of a network of priests and scholars who
assisted the king in monitoring and measuring the Nile and its behaviour
through the annual cycle was essential to life in the Nile Valley. It wasn’t simply
the living who engaged in the taming of this extraordinary river, the ancients
called upon the highest power they could – the Gods – to help them. It’s clear
that mythical narratives involving the Nile played an important role in its
management and control. The ancient Egyptians hoped that the Gods would
support them in their battle to survive and thrive in the floodplains. The stories
also ensured that knowledge of the cycles of the Nile would be passed through
the generations, creating an enduring and practical guide to life on the banks of
the Nile and in the delta for future populations to use and build upon.
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Acknowledgements
We owe thanks to the many inspectors of antiquities in Egypt who have assisted
our work as well as to the ministers and secretaries of the Ministry of
Antiquities/ Supreme Council of Antiquities under whose aegis permission
was granted. Particular supporters include Mr Mansour Boraik and Mr
Suleyman Ibrahim in Luxor. To our colleagues and students, we owe a great
debt not only for work shared but also for many discussions of our ideas. The
errors of understanding in this Element remain our own.
Our work has continued through the generosity of The Egypt Exploration
Society, The British Academy, The British Museum, The Gurob Harem Palace
Project, The Friends of Nekhen, Ancient Egypt Research Associates, New
Kingdom Research Foundation, Centre National des Récherces Scientifiques,
Metropolitan Museum, American University in Cairo and Cambridge
University. We are also much indebted to our families for their practical support
and to the Farouk family of Luxor who have provided logistical infrastructure
and many cups of tea.
Since no book project can continue without the encouragement of its editorial
team, I extend our thanks to Edgar Mendez and the reviewers for steering us so
deftly through the process.
Ancient Egypt in Context
Gianluca Miniaci
University of Pisa
Gianluca Miniaci is Associate Professor in Egyptology at the University of Pisa, Honorary
Researcher at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL – London, and Chercheur associé at the
École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris. He is currently co-director of the archaeological
mission at Zawyet Sultan (Menya, Egypt). His main research interest focuses on the social
history and the dynamics of material culture in the Middle Bronze Age Egypt and its
interconnections between the Levant, Aegean, and Nubia.
Juan Carlos Moreno García

CNRS, Paris
Juan Carlos Moreno García (PhD in Egyptology, 1995) is a CNRS senior researcher at the
University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, as well as lecturer on social and economic history of ancient
Egypt at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He has published
extensively on the administration, socio-economic history, and landscape organization of
ancient Egypt, usually in a comparative perspective with other civilizations of the ancient
world, and has organized several conferences on these topics.
Anna Stevens
University of Cambridge and Monash University
Anna Stevens is a research archaeologist with a particular interest in how material culture
and urban space can shed light on the lives of the non-elite in ancient Egypt. She is Senior
Research Associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and Assistant
Director of the Amarna Project (both University of Cambridge).
About the Series

The aim of this Elements series is to offer authoritative but accessible overviews of
foundational and emerging topics in the study of ancient Egypt, along with comparative
analyses, translated into a language comprehensible to non-specialists. Its authors will
take a step back and connect ancient Egypt to the world around, bringing ancient Egypt
to the attention of the broader humanities community and leading Egyptology in new
directions.
Ancient Egypt in Context
Elements in the Series

Seeing Perfection: Ancient Egyptian Images Beyond Representation
Rune Nyord
Ethnic Identities in the Land of the Pharaohs: Past and Present Approaches in
Egyptology
Uroš Matić
Egypt and the Desert
John Coleman Darnell
Coffin Commerce: How a Funerary Materiality Formed Ancient Egypt
Kathlyn M. Cooney
Ceramic Perspectives on Ancient Egyptian Society
Leslie Anne Warden
The Nile: Mobility and Management
Judith Bunbury and Reim Rowe
A full series listing is available at: www.cambridge.org/AECE

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Bunbury and Rowe

The ancient Egyptian kingdoms, at their greatest extent,

Mobility and Management

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of

Mobility and Management

Elements in Ancient Egypt in Context

Abstract: The ancient Egyptian kingdoms, at their greatest extent,

Supplementary video available at www.cambridge.org/bunburyrowe

© Judith Bunbury and Reim Rowe 2021

2 Humans and Climate Change 1

3 The Early Holocene Climate Seesaw 9

4 The Old Kingdom 19

5 The First Intermediate Period 20

7 Memphis and the Head of the Delta 30

8 Islands in the Nile 31

9 Renewed Strength in the South 45

10 High Tides of Empire 53

2 Humans and Climate Change

Dakhla Kharga Oasis o Thebes (Luxor)

EGYPT Nekhen o o El-Kab

Gilf Kebir SAHARA DESERT Spillway

Gebel Uweinat Nabta Playa

alternatively as an important route out of Africa, a home to one of the greatest

2.1 Geological Origins of Egyptian Landscape

2.2 Landscape and Early Egyptology

Table 1 The main periods of Egyptian history referred to in this text

consideration in the occupational patterns of prehistoric humans and those that

2.3 Landscape in Egypt

level backs up water visitors begins unstable schemes controls flow

Oases part of Local rains fail; fossil Faiyum irrigation

3 The Early Holocene Climate Seesaw

Mediterranean and covering an area of 3 million square kilometres, it is unique

3.1 Human Adaption in Response to the Change in Climate

Table 2 Stages in the development of the Nile

Stage Date Nile behaviour Human movements (see also Table 1)

Figure 3 Vegetation in modern Peruvian Wadis showing how we imagine the

m ASL Cultural material Borehole location

0 Pleistocene sand and gravel

conditions than today, the impression is more of a fully provisioned mission

4 The Old Kingdom

5 The First Intermediate Period

of the delta-head northwards, as supported by the work of Pryer (2011; Bunbury

In addition to the textual evidence, other evidence from animal remains in

Figure 6 King destroying Seth from the Ptolemaic temple of Edfu.

Mean sea level rise –4

As a result of this process, the number of distributary channels began to

Large scale crevassing Meandering

settlement (Eiwanger 1992). Micro-predators in the form of parasites and other

7 Memphis and the Head of the Delta

8 Islands in the Nile

rainfall, the water initially accelerates becoming erosive as it picks up and

Figure 12 Californian stream that demonstrates the process of meandering.

We know from images on the mace-head of the King Scorpion (around

Figure 15 Late predynastic king depicted wielding a hoe preparatory to

Figure 16 Diagram (drawn from GoogleEarth satellite images of the Abydos

Figure 17 Map to show the landscape in the Hermopolis–Antinoupolis region.

Figure 18 Air photograph of the temples of Karnak, Luxor. Photo Angus

Figure 19 Mansour Boraik’s excavation outside the First Pylon at Karnak in