1 00:00:01,010 --> 00:00:05,009 The ancient Egyptians knew they depended on the river they lived beside. 2 00:00:05,009 --> 00:00:08,009 It gave them everything they needed. 3 00:00:08,009 --> 00:00:13,009 Water for their crops, for their animals and themselves. 4 00:00:13,009 --> 00:00:17,010 A way to transport people and goods. 5 00:00:17,010 --> 00:00:21,010 A supply of fish and water birds to catch and eat. 6 00:00:21,010 --> 00:00:26,010 Without the Nile, they knew they could not survive. 7 00:00:26,010 --> 00:00:29,010 They didn't call it the Nile. 8 00:00:29,010 --> 00:00:33,250 The ancient Egyptians just called it the river. 9 00:00:33,250 --> 00:00:35,329 They knew it well. 10 00:00:35,329 --> 00:00:40,729 They knew that once each year its waters would rise and then fall. 11 00:00:40,729 --> 00:00:46,450 This yearly cycle of the river rising, flooding the land and falling again controlled their 12 00:00:46,450 --> 00:00:54,450 lives. 13 00:00:54,450 --> 00:01:00,070 The Nile had power over them and they knew it. 14 00:01:00,070 --> 00:01:05,170 It could bring them the gift of life or abandon them to starve. 15 00:01:05,170 --> 00:01:14,319 And in different seasons, the river reminded them that it could do both. 16 00:01:14,319 --> 00:01:21,180 In the heat of summer, the Nile showed a face the ancient Egyptians feared. 17 00:01:21,180 --> 00:01:24,480 Nearly all of present-day Egypt is desert. 18 00:01:24,480 --> 00:01:34,950 It forms part of the hottest place on earth, the scorching Sahara. 19 00:01:34,950 --> 00:01:38,769 Very few people live in this harsh environment. 20 00:01:38,769 --> 00:01:50,420 Most of the population live beside the river that flows through the desert, the Nile. 21 00:01:50,420 --> 00:02:00,599 The ancient Egyptians called the desert with its dry sand, the red land, and they called 22 00:02:00,599 --> 00:02:08,860 the land beside the river with its fertile soil, the black land. 23 00:02:08,860 --> 00:02:22,259 And just as in Egypt today, the people lived on the black land. 24 00:02:22,259 --> 00:02:28,360 But during the heat of summer in ancient times, the dry red land threatened to swallow up 25 00:02:28,360 --> 00:02:33,780 their moist black land. 26 00:02:33,780 --> 00:02:39,460 As the months passed, the people watched the water in the river gradually disappear. 27 00:02:39,460 --> 00:02:45,659 It evaporated in the baking heat of the sun, leaving less and less for humans, plants and 28 00:02:45,659 --> 00:02:52,979 animals to share. 29 00:02:52,979 --> 00:02:55,919 The ancient Egyptians knew their river. 30 00:02:55,919 --> 00:03:00,580 They knew this dry season would be followed by a rise in water level. 31 00:03:00,580 --> 00:03:05,240 But they also knew that sometimes this rise came late. 32 00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:12,919 prayed to the Nile because they knew what would happen if it did hail flood 33 00:03:12,919 --> 00:03:26,319 when you are late everyone is orphaned the whole land suffers the ancient 34 00:03:26,319 --> 00:03:33,120 Egyptians called the Nile's floodwater the inundation they never knew where the 35 00:03:33,120 --> 00:03:40,539 water came from they imagined it bubbled up from an underground sea it was 36 00:03:40,539 --> 00:03:45,280 impossible for them to know because the water that flows down the Nile begins 37 00:03:45,280 --> 00:03:50,099 its journey thousands of kilometers to the south of Egypt far beyond the limits 38 00:03:50,099 --> 00:04:00,210 of the world the ancient Egyptians knew every year the people watched anxiously 39 00:04:00,210 --> 00:04:05,370 for a sign that the flood water was on its way the flocks of sacred ibis 40 00:04:05,370 --> 00:04:11,710 Ibis, migrating north, arrived in Egypt at the same time as the rising waters. 41 00:04:11,710 --> 00:04:17,029 As a messenger of the flood, the ibis was much respected in ancient Egypt. 42 00:04:17,029 --> 00:04:21,889 Thoth, god of wisdom, has the head of an ibis. 43 00:04:21,889 --> 00:04:27,050 As scribe to the gods, he dips his pen in ink, just as the ibis dipped its beak in the 44 00:04:27,050 --> 00:04:35,540 waters of the Nile. 45 00:04:35,540 --> 00:04:40,800 Between June and September, the people watched the water level in the river rise, until the 46 00:04:40,800 --> 00:05:07,290 banks burst, allowing the water to flood the land on either side. This was a time for great 47 00:05:07,290 --> 00:05:20,509 celebration. Hail flood. When you rise, there is joy in the land. Every belly is glad. Everywhere 48 00:05:20,509 --> 00:05:34,980 there is laughter. For you, people sing and clap their hands. Emergence. That's what the 49 00:05:34,980 --> 00:05:38,819 The ancient Egyptians called the season after the months of flooding, 50 00:05:38,819 --> 00:05:44,579 because the land emerged, it appeared, from underwater. 51 00:05:44,579 --> 00:05:48,259 By about October, much of the water had drained away, 52 00:05:48,259 --> 00:06:01,329 leaving on the land the rich black silt it had carried for thousands of kilometers. 53 00:06:01,329 --> 00:06:04,370 When river creatures appeared from the silt, 54 00:06:04,370 --> 00:06:06,850 it must have looked to the ancient Egyptians 55 00:06:06,850 --> 00:06:11,250 as if the river waters had brought them to life. 56 00:06:12,050 --> 00:06:14,649 This was the busiest time of year for the farmers. 57 00:06:15,569 --> 00:06:17,290 They divided up the land into fields 58 00:06:17,290 --> 00:06:21,649 and began sowing seed in the new layer of moist, fertile soil. 59 00:06:24,089 --> 00:06:26,389 The main crops were wheat and barley. 60 00:06:31,029 --> 00:06:34,449 They dug ditches to direct water to their vegetable patches. 61 00:06:36,410 --> 00:06:40,110 Within a few months, in these perfect growing conditions, 62 00:06:40,670 --> 00:06:43,730 the fields would be filled with ripening crops. 63 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:24,000 In the face of disaster, the people looked to their pharaoh. 64 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:27,000 He was the guardian of order in ancient Egypt. 65 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:31,000 As the son of Ra, the sun god, 66 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:35,000 he was the link between the people and the gods. 67 00:07:43,040 --> 00:07:46,040 It was his responsibility to provide for the gods' needs, 68 00:07:46,040 --> 00:07:49,040 praying to them and presenting them with offerings 69 00:07:49,040 --> 00:07:52,040 so that they would look with favour on the people of Egypt. 70 00:07:53,040 --> 00:07:57,939 If he did his duties well, then chaos could not triumph in Egypt. 71 00:07:57,939 --> 00:08:00,800 Order would reign. 72 00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:04,660 Whatever disasters came, they would pass, 73 00:08:04,660 --> 00:08:09,860 and the cycle of life in ancient Egypt would continue. 74 00:08:09,860 --> 00:08:14,699 The Nile, the life-giving river, would deliver its flood, 75 00:08:14,699 --> 00:08:18,339 and the harmonious balance of the world of ancient Egypt 76 00:08:18,339 --> 00:08:21,759 would be maintained.