Egypt

Masika and her brother are harvesting the last of the cabbage. cabbage, cabbage, cabbage. It has been a good harvest. Once again, the river has given them plenty of food. The river is called the Nile and is one of the world's longest: six thousand seven hundred kilometers long.

It starts at Lake Victoria, bordering on three countries: Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya, and it flows into the Mediterranean in the north, but Masika and her brother don’t know that. They only know that it's the Nile that allows them to live here in Kemet, their name for the country now called Egypt. Kemet means the black land. It’s fitting, because the soil that Masika stands in, is all black. Every year between June and September, the Nile flows over and becomes between eighteen and twenty-seven metres wider than usual.

The beaches disappear under water. And when the Nile begins to withdraw in late September, left behind is a sticky black soil. This has traveled with the Nile from the highlands of Ethiopia, as the river passes through, on its way to the Mediterranean. This soil is good to grow things in - it’s very nutritious. If the Nile didn’t flood over, nobody would probably want to live here.

It almost never rains, and is completely surrounded by desert. But Masika knows that it has rained once, at least; her name means ‘born in rain’. The Nile is vital to those who live here. They even divide the year into three periods, according to the river’s behaviour. The year begins when the Nile floods, between June and September.

This period is called Akhet. From October to January, Peret, the Nile withdraws. Then Masika and her family sow crops. And during the dry season from February to May, Shomu, it’s time to reap what they sow. People have lived and cultivated along the Nile Valley for over ten thousand years.

First, families lived in small villages. Then gathered into large villages to help each other with canals and irrigation systems, so that they could water the crops even during the dry period. The large villages grew and formed small kingdoms which, just like the villages, also merged together, sometimes peacefully, but also by one kingdom conquering another. Eventually, two large kingdoms had been formed - Upper Egypt in the south and lower Egypt in the north. Masika and her family have lived in what is called Lower Egypt for several generations.

But now something happens. A king named Narmer unites the two kingdoms, and makes them one large kingdom. In fact, the largest kingdom on earth at this time. The united Egypt will be ruled by a king, a pharaoh, and it will be the start of a long period of different pharaohs. Egypt is hard to attack.

To the east and west is desert. To the north lies the Mediterranean Sea and in the south, rapids and waterfalls make it almost impossible to move along the Nile. This allows Egypt to develop without any great impact of enemies from outside. For a long time, almost three thousand years, the country is governed in roughly the same way. It is the river that holds together the Egyptian empire.

People, goods, and building materials travel back and forth through this great realm. The Nile causes farming to flourish, and an abundance of food is created. During flood season when it is not possible to grow or harvest, thousands of farmers work on huge construction projects instead: temples, castles, and pyramids for the pharaohs. Egypt is completely dependent on the Nile, and it will become one of the largest and most advanced river cultures that ever existed. But about this, Masika and her brother know nothing.