Agriculture in Ancient Egypt

Agriculture in Ancient Egypt | Farming Techniques of Pharaohs Facts, Deities, History of What was life like for an ancient Egyptian farmer? Seasons did the Egyptians farming? Agricultural Festivals

Agriculture in Ancient Egypt | History and facts about the agricultural crops of the Pharaohs.

Secrets discovered about the agricultural tools used by the ancient Egyptians, what are The Egyptian Gods of Egyptian agriculture, agricultural Festivals in Ancient Egypt in pharaonic times, and more about Ancient Egypt History.

Agriculture in Ancient Egypt

The Egyptian year began with the emergence of the star Sotis (Sebedet) as in Astronomy in ancient Egypt, which was a sign of the coming of the flood of the Nile River, which represented the beginning of the Egyptian year, it was not in spring, as is the case for other peoples, but in summer.

What season did the Egyptians farming?

The ancient Egyptians divided the Egyptian year in Pharaonic Civilization into three seasons (flooding,  sowing and  harvesting); each season was formed  by four months and the year  began  around  March.

When the summer (flood season) ends, the water from the Nile retreats and the arable and wet land is exposed with water, then the agricultural season begins, and the farmer prepares for the process and takes his cows and machines and begins to plough the land, accompanied by the songs of working the land, then sow the grains in the line behind the plow.

What were the 3 seasons in ancient Egypt?

Agriculture in ancient Egypt. They wait for their plantation to grow until the end of the harvest” when the farmer begins to harvest the wheat, the farmers go out with small sections with their hands, with a fist, and while they find in the work a row, to entertain himself the Egyptian peasant liked to play the flute that he himself made of bamboo, music that refreshes minds.

Another man sings with a loud voice, clapping his hands to make the rhythm and sign the movements and stand up in terms of superiority in the works. When they harvested the wheat spices and wanted to send them on donkeys, they started with new songs that they say while running behind the donkeys on their way to the silos.

What grains were grown in ancient Egypt?

In its economy, Egypt depended mainly on its agricultural crops, which could be divided as follows:

1. Permanent crops: barley, sesame, lentils, flax, wheat, corn, onions, clover, cotton, bean, reeds, cannabis, Halfa, lupine, green beans.
2. Well-known seasonal crops: mint, anas soul, thyme, athal, peppermint, anise, black pepper, safflower seeds, dry myrrh, amber, garlic, aquatic saffron and ground, cotton, cumin … etc.
3. Wooden trees: oak, ficus, pine nuts, wood of life, palm tree, ancestor, juniper, sycamore, acacia, eucalyptus, walnut, olive tree … etc Agriculture in ancient Egypt..
4. Fruits: dates, plums, watermelons, coconuts, berries, buckthorn, figs, pomegranates, pears, apples, folds, lemons.
5. Vegetables: lettuce, eggplant, pumpkin, virility, mallow, boiling, cucumber, cabbage, pus, leeks, radishes, chickpeas, beans… etc.
6. Flowers: incense pebbles, roses, basil, dairy branch, daffodils, sunflowers, dates, henna.
7. Wild plants that grew on the banks of the Nile and in the desert such as celery herbs and resums used in cooking or perfumes, such as papyrus used in writing, ornamental plants such as ivy and susane, dye plants and medicinal plants such as turpentine.

What inventions helped Ancient Egyptians with farming?

1. Axe:  Used to dig or break large blocks of silt, its catch was made of metal and was also used to cut down trees and divert the stream.
2.  Plough: Consists of a wooden knife with two wooden handles and two wooden axis as in Industry in ancient Egypt, and there is a long wooden axis connecting   to the plow in its lower part and sometimes accidentally attached to the plow a piece of wood.
3. The swab (swab):  a piece of wood or Ancient Egyptian Metallurgy attached to a stick used for drilling and flattening.
4. Tights: Composed of a smooth fist held with two fists, it is arched and tied with a rope braided with the weapon. The pregnant woman appeared behind or in front of the plow and the stick was made alone without anything to do with the plow and more about Agriculture in ancient Egypt..
5. Tanbur: A wooden cylinder that connects above has an  arm,  and the tanbour rises on it on two inclined columns in the stream from where the water must be lifted.
6. Aquarius:  It is called the pants connecting to two sets of ropes held by two men about two meters from each other and throwing the bucket together to bring the water to the desired high place.

Who is the god of Agriculture in Ancient Egypt?

God Neberi:

The God of Grain, appears in the form of a full man with a chest hanging and painted grains on his body, and he resembles the God of the Nile (God Hapi), and sometimes appears as a god of the harvest with the generosity of the goddess of the fields.

God Sekhmet

God Sekhmet The goddess of the fields appears with a crossed table holder containing eggs, two small ducks, fish, and geese, and walks in front of her the God Neberi, holding the packets of wheat The Pharaonic Lotus Flower.

God Seshat

God Seshat The goddess of writing, who records the years of the Egyptian Pharaohs kings reign and his works on the sacred tree in Heliopolis and helps him determine the areas of the Egyptian Temples when they are created and measure the earth as inAncient Egyptian religion and is usually depicted as a woman with a stick or leg on which seven leaves and two horns rise in an inverted position.

God Hathor

God Hathor  The goddess of the sky is the daughter of God Ra and the wife of God Horus, usually depicted in the form of a cow (her sacred animal) with a human head, a cow’s horn or the ears of a cow and thick braids surrounding the face.

God Renenutet:

God “Renenūtet , Ernūtet, Renen-wetet, Renenet” The goddess of the harvest and represented in the form of a snake motivated to eat mice that threaten the fields, sometimes meander with (Neberi) the god of the harvest, and sometimes wears the crown of the God Hathor, a goddess of birth and fertilization of the earth and children and provide the dead with linen clothes and mummies with ligaments and more about Agriculture in ancient Egypt..

God Osiris

God Osiris, the fertile god, the world of the dead and the master of eternity, and he was associated with water and the Nile, and may have been associated with the God of the Moon.

God Min

God Min is the god of fertility and sperm, and he was held for the harvest festivals and wore on his head a crown with two feathers, and usually appears with his penis uncovered.

God Geb

God Geb An ancient god of the earth.

What was the Agricultural Festivals in Ancient Egypt?

The most famous agricultural festivals took place during the digging of  canals, when the harvest was collected and deposited in warehouses, when the bridges were cut, to seeds and elsewhere.

All these festivals were related to the stages of planting, in which the statue of God is carried on a wooden compartment and is turned on the shoulders of High Priest of Amun through the villages as in Geography of ancient Egypt and acclaimed by the people, the most important of which are:

Did ancient Egyptians celebrate New Years?

Agriculture in ancient Egypt. This is the anniversary of the emergence of a star (Sid, Sobed, Sirius) or Sotis, which is a sign of the beginning of the flood that begins with (the fall of the tears of God Isis) in the first month of Thot.

The Flooding of the Nile Celebration (Wafaa El-Nil)

When the waters of the Nile rise without damage, people go out to celebrate the river and the God (Hapi) to whom a wife has been thrown, as was said in the Greek news about Egypt.

Eid al-Badar:

And it was with the beginning of seeding and planting where singing accompanies the processes of splitting the earth and ploughing and sowing, and the neutral was a celebration of Osiris where his statues are made of clay and planted with grains growing on the statue, and the celebrations of the birth of children and the germination of beans, because this feast is the occasion of the birth of Horus son of Osiris and  Isis.

What is the celebration of the wheat harvest?

Where the king begins the harvest festivals by cutting the hooks with a gold sickle and presents the first harvest (broca) to the local god of the cities, and also offers to the wheat bride where the hooks and legs of wheat are braided in the form of the Hieroglyphic sign “The ancient Egyptian Pharaonic language” of life Ankh is also presented to the God Min and goddess Renenut and Neberi,  and so the day of the harvest will be a collection of festivals of the agricultural gods, including Isis, the symbol of the land of Egypt and its fertility, and they carry for her and her husband Osiris baskets of wheat spikes.

The Day of Osiris:

This is his own feast as the god of Agriculture in ancient Egypt and he returns to life (resurrected) in the harvest, it is the feast of his resurrection, and to the feast of his death and burial, which takes place at the beginning of the burial of grain in the ground with ploughing and erecting his sacred tree (the oldest and anchor).

What is the spring holiday in Ancient Egypt?

Begins with the beginning of the warmest spring when people go out for a walk in the fields and gardens and on the banks of the Nile where they put green onions around their necks and eat salted fish and onions, eat eggs that are the symbol of the beginning of creation and fertility, and eat green chickpeas.

Grape picking festivals: Agriculture in ancient Egypt

Where the celebration of the vines and their picking for the wine industry, where Osiris is celebrated and the goddess Renenut,  the  goddess of fertility, where the offerings are placed and usually represented in the form of a  snake.

Irrigation engineering in ancient Egypt and Nile irrigation methods used by the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs.

Facts Pharaonic Civilization and history of the Nile, what are the seven branches of the Nile, the six waterfalls and other secrets of the Pharaonic civilization.

The Nile imposed its system on Egyptian life, so that agriculture and life in Egypt were organized at its own pace, and one of the most important features of this system was the stability of the dates of the flooding of its waters, the date of the flood had to join hands and force in order to face the danger of flooding by digging canals and strengthening bridges.

This system has also given the Egyptian the opportunity to transform its agriculture from rain-based agriculture to agriculture based on irrigation regulation.

On the religious and mythical side, the Egyptians considered that the waters of the Nile are the tears of Isis who cries out her husband Osiris, and we find this echo in the name of Isis and her sister Nephtis as “the two mourners”,  and the Nile had a god,  Sotis, which is similar to Isis, the God of the Nile and has a famous name (Hapi  or  Haapi),  and the Book of the Dead declares that the Nile was born of Ra, that is, of the sun, and therefore it has light.

Irrigation engineering in ancient Egypt

The sacred name of the Nile was Hapi and the public called it Abor, which is derived from the word “Aber”(yor) i.e. river, and the name of the Nile in Lower Egypt is mentioned by the word  “we’er”,  while the word “Nile” is of Greek origin and means river. And there is an old Egyptian name for him that is (iam) in the sense of a sea.

Irrigation Engineering – Agriculture in Ancient Egypt

“The flooding of the Nile came in late summer and early autumn, so if this last quarter of the year progressed, the floodwaters would retreat from the valley and its delta. We note here that the middle or end of autumn is the time to grow winter grain plants, the most important of which are barley and wheat. In other words, the flood arrived on the land of Egypt with silt and water, then moved away from it at the most appropriate time to grow these plants, even if they were planted, the winter rains in Egypt began.

It seems that these rains in Neolithic times and beyond were better than they are nowadays, feeding the winter plants until they have finished growing, then the rain breaks, and the harvest is resolved.

Thus, two elements were integrated in Egypt, namely the flood element and the winter rain element, and one of the fruits of this integration was that the land of the Nile became available to be the cradle of ancient winter cultures.

Irrigation engineering – Agriculture in Ancient Egypt

Irrigation engineering in ancient Egypt has grown significantly as agriculture develops and the ability to control Nile flooding expands through a period of constant flooding at the beginning of the year. Irrigation engineering was represented by the following events:

1. Construction of river bridges: that tried to control irrigation operations.
2. Pelvic irrigation:  which was done by setting up basins to absorb floodwater and then used to irrigate farms.
3. Dams: like the Lahoon Dam in Fayum, famous for its roaring currents.
4. Small dams: which have been erected in the width of the river water to reduce the speed of water flow and increase its absorption. Water wheels and tanbours:  which were common means in the old irrigation.
5. The Shaduf:  Which was used to raise water from the river to the fields above, a long column based on a high axis and used to lower and lift a bucket filled with water from the river or canal and photographed by the ancient Egyptians in scenes of the tomb of (Iby) in the peak of Deir Al-Madina.
6. Long canals:  which were dug to bring the waters of the Nile to depressions close to it such as the Fayoum Depression and the Bahr Yussef Canal.
7. The Tannusha:    Called the coffin, it consists of a hollow wheel divided into pieces that perform the function of pots in the water wheel and are closer to what is called “the noriah”.

References Agriculture in ancient Egypt: The Book of Egyptian Civilization, Egypt 

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