Shaping up Ancient Egypt
The Nile unlike most rivers flowed from the south to the north causing Upper Egypt to be "below" Lower Egypt, but not only the direction the river flows is different people are able to predict the floods for the Nile allowing them to determine when their crops will be watered. The Nile being a river also granted the Egyptians to take the advantage of transportation. Using boats allowed them to carry good throughout Egypt as shown in the picture by Oliver Frey in Living in Ancient Egypt (Document C) . On the lower left corner there are people who are by the boat getting ready to take the goods off and onto the cattle. From the picture there seemed to be several jobs that the Nile opened up, rowers, boat builders, animal care takers, riders, etc. Furthermore it influenced how they organized their calendar and the stars, “New Year was in mid July, when the river began to rise for the inundation; this coincided approximately with the reappearance of the star Sirius (Egyptian Sothis) in the sky after 70 days’ invisibility. Sothis provided the astronomical anchor for the 365 day calendar. The river defined three seasons of four mounths: ‘Inundation’ and ‘Emergence’ (November-March) when the land reappeared and could be cultivated, and ‘Heat’ or ‘Harvest’, when the crops were gathered and the water was lowest.” (The Story of the Nile By John Baines).