Why was the Nile River Important for the Rise of Successful States in North Africa - Essay Example

?Why was the Nile River important for the rise of successful s in North Africa. The earliest stages of human history are lost to the modern world because all that remains of these early humans is their bones, a few buildings, and a few other archaeological details that have survived largely by chance. Scholars from the modern world have to piece together what they can find in order to make educated guesses about what happened before history books started to be written. One factor seems to be significant in several quarters of the world in early human history and that is the existence of particular regions that ideally meet the needs of human society. River deltas have been established as the earliest recorded locations of major civilizations in ancient times, such as the Persians, the Greco-Roman civilization, the Indians, the ancient Egyptians and the Chinese (Sherman, 2003). Archaeologists believe that human beings first shifted from a nomadic, hunter gatherer lifestyle, to a more settled, agriculture based lifestyle in regions that were fed by great river systems. The nutrients from fresh water rivers were gathered over millennia and over time they created fertile plains which were ideal for growing crops. As early humans learned to plant and harvest crops, rather than just gather fruits and seeds that grew in the wild, they soon developed technologies like irrigation and long term storage facilities. The Nile provided a constant the supply of water so that the planted fields were irrigated, and food became plentiful. Cities grew up to store this food, and with increasing food surpluses humans gained the ability to have specialized professions. People were no longer living from hand to mouth, having to hunt or gather the next meal every day, because stored grain provided a certain security. New skills and trades developed in these cities, and the region around the Nile is one of these great early centers of human development. Much of the land in central and northern Africa is marginally habitable, with many areas of mountain and desert. The long river bank of the Nile provides the possibility of regular water supply and the development of trade between towns from the interior right to the edge of the Mediterranean. Land travel was difficult and slow in ancient times, and so the navigable waters of the Nile were like an ancient highway, allowing goods, people and ideas to be transported back and forth. The great Egyptian civilisation was highly dependent on the Nile as a channel of communication as well as a source of water for all human needs. Two great commodities were also available in the Nile region: vast quantities of clay, and also the reeds that could be soaked, fermented, and made into papyrus. So it was that the Nile provided the basics for writing, first using clay tablets that had marks pushed into them with a sharp, wedge-shaped implement, giving mankind the early cuneiform writing format. The tablets could be baked in the sun, making them a more permanent record. The disadvantage of clay is that it is heavy and it breaks easily. The invention of papyrus for writing on was an important technology that facilitated the transfer of ideas through scrolls that were passed along ancient trade routes. In the two millennia before the common era, the people living along the river Nile, and around its delta, were much more advanced than all of Northern Europe, thanks to the way that they learned to make use of the natural commodities that were available in this particular geographical context. It would be impossible to imagine the glorious ancient Egyptian civilization without the impact of the river Nile. The great monuments that exist even today such as the pyramids and the ancient town ruins would not have been possible without the availability of the slave workers, a great many of whom who came from central Africa and were transported in barges down the Nile towards the coastal region. Many of the stone quarries that provided the raw materials for building were also located upstream. It would have been impossible to drag huge stones across the land, but with the Nile river boat technologies it became standard practice. Culturally also, the Nile has inspired a great deal of poetry and literature, uniting the countries of this region in a shared heritage. In Roman times the Nile was an important strategic location, forming a natural boundary that divided key states from each other, and providing access for administration of the Roman Empire. Trade extended from other African ports up river, to cosmopolitan cities all around the Mediterranean. In trade, commerce and culture, the river Nile was a vital artery that supplied communities from central Africa to distant ports. In those days each small community that grew up along its banks was aware only of the immediate local impact of the river, and had to cope with frequent cycles of flood and drought. It was not until much later that a holistic view of the river could be taken, and policies introduced that evened out the natural cycles of disasters somewhat by means of dam building and large scale water management. Because water is such a valuable resource in this part of the world, the Nile has been a contested territory throughout all of history. Tvedt reports that the issue of “hydropolitics” dominated the colonial era, with many conflicts arising over jurisdiction of the valuable Nile territories reaching from Tanzania and Uganda in the South, through to the Sudan and Egypt in the North: “The British colonial period was also a time, at least in part of the Nile basin, of revolutionary pushes to modernize the Nile control, and thus the water economy as a whole, and hence, (because of the importance of water and the Nile) to modernize other economic sectors of the society” (Tvedt, 2010, p. 3). The highly profitable production of cotton, on which Egypt’s thriving economy was based, came through technology provided by the British to bring Nile waters into agricultural use. Tensions over the control of the Sudan, which persist well into the modern period, were very much a part of this desire to control and manage the whole flow of the Nile. When one compares the relative success of the Egyptian economy, with the relative weaknesses of other states in the horn of Africa, it is clear that the ability to use the waters of the Nile has been a tremendous strategic advantage. Now that the countries of North Africa have become independent, sovereign states, there is no single authority which plans the development of the Nile waterways, and there is a possibility of tension between conflicting objectives at different points in the river system. Whole communities can be affected by small changes which can wipe out tributaries or change the course of the river, and so this has prompted efforts to co-ordinate developments and share benefits. Tourism is increasingly a source of income in Africa, and those countries which have ownership of stretches of Nile water can capitalize on its marketing potential to draw in much needed investment and create jobs and opportunities for local people. The river Nile, therefore, is much more than a geographical feature that has been a boundary and a communication channel between Africa, Asia and Europe. It has been a source of food, which in turn has fuelled population growth and prosperity. It has always been a significant economic asset which has been exploited to boost local economies and build long term strategic alliances. This multi-dimensional quality makes it a very significant factor in the development of all of the Central and North African nations who share ownership of its territories. References Sherman, Dennis. World Civilizations: Sources, Images and Interpretations. Volume 1. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003. Tvedt, Terje. About the Importance of Studying the Modern History of the Countries of the Nile Basin in a Nile Perspective. In T. Tvedt (Ed.) The River Nile in the Post-Colonial Age: Conflict and Cooperation among the Nile Basin Countries. London and New York: Tauris, 2010, pp. 1-12. Read More