Early civilization in the Nile valley developed mainly because of heavy summer rains in the highlands of Ethiopia and around the East African lakes. Every year a huge flood reached Egypt around mid July, carrying to the lower parts of the Nile enormous quantities of fertile silt. This settled as soil especially suitable for agriculture and filled up the Delta, originally a bay of the Mediterranean Sea. The timing and intensity of the floods determined whether people would have wealth or famine, depending on the water supply and agricultural production.
The waters of the Nile, the floodplains, and many pools that remained when water receded or evaporated in autumn, as well as the coastal lagoons of the Delta, contained rich resources of fishes and other aquatic animals which were utilized since prehistoric times. There is much evidence for this from archaeological finds, well preserved in the desert, engravings and wall paintings in tombs and temples, and from hieroglyphic inscriptions.
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Sahrhage, D. (2008). Fishing in Ancient Egypt. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_8591
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