The Nile. History’s Greatest River

417 Pages·2012·5.699 MB·English

by  Terje Tvedt

Th e Nile
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Th e Nile
History’s Greatest River
Terje Tvedt
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I.B. TAURIS
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First published in Great Britain 2021

Nilen: historiens elv by Terje Tvedt
Translated by Kerri Pierce
Original copyright © H. Aschehoug & Co (W. Nygaard), Oslo, 2012

The right of Terje Tvedt to be identifi ed as Author of this work has been asserted by the
Licensor in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Cover design by Adriana Brioso
Cover image: Landscape crossed by the Nile, Palestrina, 2nd–3rd century BC (mosaic).
Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Palestrina e Santuario della Fortuna Primigenia,
Palestrina, Italy. (© Bridgeman Images)

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iv
I am like one of those old books that ends up moldering for lack of having been read.
Th ere’s nothing to do but spin out the thread of memory and, from time to time, wipe
away the dust building up there.
Seneca the Younger, 4 bce–65 ce
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Contents
List of plates xi
Maps xiii
Th e Beginning of the Journey
Th e mosaic outside Rome 1 • Th e stream of history 4
Th e Desert and the Delta
Th e desert paradise 7 • Scarabs, rebirth and the river of death and life 9 • Society and
the river’s rhythm 11 • Cities and rivers that vanished 13 • Th e Nile city of Alexander
the Great 15 • Philosophy’s beginnings 16 • Caesar and Cleopatra on the Nile 18
Jesus and Mary’s escape up the Nile Delta 20 • Th e Bible: God punishes those who
claim they possess the river 22 • Islam conquers the Nile Delta 24 • Th e Caliph’s letter
to the Nile 25 • Napoleon on the march 26 • Critique of Orientalism 31
Th e Battle of the Nile: Paris versus London 33 • Th e battle over the Rosetta Stone:
thieves versus thieves 34 • Th e Albanian soldier who became the Nile’s reformer 36
Th e giraff e that sailed downriver and travelled to Paris 39 • Th e long-distance
runner who perished on his way to the source of the Nile 40 • Th e canal between the
oceans 41 • Gustave Flaubert and Henrik Ibsen: ‘From Cairo up the Nile’ 44
Shares and occupation 49 • Where the Egyptians made the Nile a weapon of war 50
At the crossroads of history, river and sea 52
Towards Karnak and the Nile Cataracts
Th e city the Arabs founded and the British took 55 • A Nilometer with nothing to
measure 58 • Conservative colonialists as a revolution’s vanguard 59 • Th e river as
carrot and stick 63 • Th e Muslim Brotherhood will ‘secure the Nile’s sources’ 64
A role awaiting a hero 65 • Th e Suez Crisis and the dam 67 • Th e Soviet Union as the
modernizer of the Nile 70 • ‘Th e Lady of the Nile’ 71 • Adrift on the Nile and a Nobel
Prize winner 72 • An artifi cial waterfall in the desert 73 • Th ebes and Karnak in
danger 75 • Th e Valley of the Kings and ideals of beauty 76 • Where travel literature
arose 77 • Ancient Aswan as a symbol of modernity 79 • Th e downstream complex 81
Monumental monuments now and in ancient times 84 • Egyptian gods and eternal
life 85 • ‘Revolt on the Nile’ and water insecurity 88
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viii Contents
Nubia and the Country Where the Rivers Meet
Eighty kilometres of artifi cial desert lake 91 • Nubia: gold and cataracts 92
Muhammad Ali’s river war 95 • Th e politics of geography 97 • Explorers who
vanished 98 • Wanderings and castles in the sand 99 • Where the great rivers meet
100 • Th e ‘light-bearer’ in Khartoum 102 • Th e dance in the sand 105 • Time and the
river folk’s daughter 107 • Queen Victoria’s river war 108 • Th e British massacre on
the banks of the Nile 111 • Th e unknown engineer and a historical report 113
Th e Blue Nile and the explorer from Norway 115 • Sudan’s possibilities and the birth
of a hydraulic state 117 • A white-spotted gecko and the Prophet 119
Winston Churchill: ‘Munich is situated on the Nile’ 120 • Sudan and Egypt share
the Nile 122 • Dump the whisky in the river! 123 • An Islamic coup 125
Osama bin Laden as Nile contractor 126 • A new city in the middle of the world’s
longest kiss 128 • Sudan rattles its Nile weapon 129 • ‘A project of the century’
(and let them eat that arrest order) 131 • Nubia and Nile control 132 • Th e lion’s
share 134 • Th e Middle East’s granary and a sugar company 134
Th e Nile Wetlands and the New State
Th e land of distances 137 • A dictatorial river 139 • Th e Nilotic water world and a
river chieft ain 141 • A thread that winds everywhere 142 • Arabic invaders from the
north 144 • European adventurers in the swamps 146 • Europe on the brink of a
water war in South Sudan 147 • A sacred pool 150 • On travelling the swamp and
theories of Africa’s development 151 • Jonglei: a new aqueduct to the north 154
Razzias and peace 155 • ‘A human zoo for anthropologists to study’ 157 • World-class
colonial research in the swamps 159 • A ‘Nile Republic’? 160 • Stop the canal! 161
In the shadows of the rainforest 163 • Th e new Nile state and George W. Bush 164
Another Nile granary? 167 • State formation and hydrodiplomacy 169
Th e Country with the Great Lakes
Th e race to the source 173 • Th e adventurer and his slave wife 175 • ‘Discoverers’ or
discoverers? 176 • Naked resolution and scientifi c evangelism 178 • Th e African
kingdom at the Nile’s source 181 • Th e missionaries arrive 182 • Decisive for Egypt’s
future 185 • London seizes control of the Nile lakes 187 • Where the animals rule
(by the grace of humankind) 189 • Waterfalls and images of ‘the other’ and ‘us’ 190
‘Baker of the Nile’ 191 • Winston Churchill in the jungle 192 • Bogart, Hepburn and
Hemingway at the Nile Falls 194 • A Nile empire full of inner contradictions 196
Owen Falls: ‘Uganda’s beginning’ 199 • A British prime minister as ‘water warrior’ 201
Idi Amin claps for well-fed crocodiles on the Nile 203 • Th e woman and the water
meant to bulletproof warriors 205 • Stories about the sacred water 207 • Th e Wizard
of the Nile and the Lord’s Resistance Army 208 • New discoveries: oil in the Nile! 211
Contents ix
Central Africa’s inland lake 213 • Darwin’s Pond, evolution’s teaching and mass
extinction 215 • Th e Speke Resort, Museveni and the Nile 217
Th e Industrial Revolution comes to Uganda 219 • Th e world’s largest
insect swarms and Nile time 220
East of the Inland Ocean
Th e train through the country at the source of the White Nile 225 • Sleeping sickness
and colonialism 226 • Th e railway that created a country 227 • Th e Asian and the
Jewish questions 229 • Th e white tribe on the high plains 231 • A Nile state with no
nation 233 • Olympic masters from the ‘stony river’ 236 • Masai Mara 238 • Th e Luo
and Barack Obama’s journey 240 • Kenya and the Nile question 243 • Humanity’s
cradle 245 • Bismarck and the rock at the water’s edge 246 • An unknown European
naval battle on a Nile lake 249 • Colonial agreements and the Nile’s present 251
A country with gift economy 253 • Th e wildebeest crossing 255
What is the Nile? 256 • Pumping the lake and defying Egypt 257
Towards the Nile’s Sources in Central Africa
Where the river splits and collects 261 • Plastic bags and fi re extinguishers 262
Hotel Rwanda and the river road 263 • Letter from Ground Zero 264 • What is
ethnicity? 265 • A metamorphosis 269 • An American pastor at the source of the
Nile 272 • A new era as the border shift s 274 • Gorillas in the mist 275 • Th e Nile
source in the rainforest 276 • Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad and a
Nile biography 278 • A snow-covered Moon Mountain on the Equator 282 • King
Leopold, a robber state and Nile diplomacy 283 • Th e Congo Nile 286 • Lake Albert
or Lake Mobutu 288 • A shift ing border 290 • ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume’ 291
Kingdom and colony 292 • Self-refl ection and masks 294 • Rivalry on all fronts 295
Th e guerrilla leader redeemed by a Norwegian preacher 296 • Courtship, carpets
and water 298 • Th e pyramid at the source 300
Th e Water Tower in the East
A train trip and an art deco capital on the Horn of Africa 303 • Italy as a Nile power
305 • Eritrea in exchange for a Nile dam 307 • Th e river as metaphor and boundary
309 • An outcast among nations 311 • Troublemaker or peace ambassador? 313
A surprise visit to Asmara 314 • To the Nile’s water tower 315 • Aksum and the
highlands 317 • Th e moment’s limitations 318 • Monastery island, the sea and the
world’s end 319 • An Ethiopian philosopher and cave dweller 321 • Mass baptism
in Bahir Dar 322 • Th e sacred Nile and the Scot who posed as discoverer of the
source 323 • Prester John and the Virgin Mary govern the Nile 325 • Occupation or
agreement 326 • Rome and London’s secret plot 329 • Mussolini at the lake 331