Everyday Life
Also shown in Document B where they describe the Nile River Flood Cycle and what the Egyptians, mainly farmers, do during each season. The Nile was so important for the Egyptians that they dubbed their land the “Black Land” the area where the Nile floods to fertilize the crops and the “Red Land” which was the desert. “The Black Land represented life. The Red Land meant danger. For Egyptians, the Nile literally meant the difference between life and death.” (The Nile & Ancient Egypt Mini-Q). In A Hymn to the Nile recorded by Sallier II, it describes hailing to the Nile as it's a god because it does all of these wonderful things such as making barley, making trees grow, bringing water to the meadows, etc. all of this "to keep Egypt alive!" so the author of this believed that the Nile brought life to Egypt but the Nile is so great that he believe that it must be an actual god.
“Hail to thee, O nile, that issues from the earth and comes to keep Egypt alive! …
He that waters the meadows which He created …
He that makes to drink the desert …
He who makes barley and brings emmer into being ..
He who brings grass into being for the cattle …
He who makes every beloved tree to grow …
O, Nile, verdant art thou, who makes man and cattle to live.”
Which leads to the inundation god Hapy, although this god was not a major one. “He was not depicted as a normal god but as a fat figure bringing water and the products of abundance to the gods. He had no temple, but was worshiped at the start of the inundation with sacrifices and hymns at Gebel el-Silsila, where the hills meet the river, north of Aswan," according to Baines in, The Story of the Nile. However a major god that was somewhat related to the Nile would be Osiris, “his death and revival were linked to the land’s fertility” because they believed that the river floods because of Isis tears for her dead husband, Osiris. Osiris was know as the god of the afterlife and seeing how the Egyptians who did not live very long were fairly focused on the afterlife. In Document D it shows a painting dubbed The Field of Reed which was a paradise that the dead go to after they have passed the judgment of the heart ritual. You can see that in the Egyptians and what they considered "paradise" it includes the Nile river, so going back to the "black land" and "red land" they found the Nile river as being a vital source of life. The Nile was one of the 4 holy rivers in the Bible (Ethiopia Struggle Over the Nile).
Or Herodotus likes to describe it,
Or Herodotus likes to describe it,
"Egypt is truly a gift of the Nile"