The Nile A Journey Downriver Through Egypt's Past and Present

303 Pages·2014·4.81 MB·English

by  Toby Wilkinson

ALSO BY TOBY WILKINSON
Early Dynastic Egypt
Royal Annals of Ancient Egypt
Genesis of the Pharaohs
Dictionary of Ancient Egypt
Lives of the Ancient Egyptians
The Egyptian World (editor)
The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt
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THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2014 by Toby Wilkinson
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of
Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited,
Toronto, Penguin Random House companies. Originally published in Great Britain by
Bloomsbury Publishing, London.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House
LLC.
Chapter illustrations are from The Nile; or, Glimpses of the Land of Egypt by W. H.
Bartlett (1849).
Other images are from the author’s own collection unless credited otherwise.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wilkinson, Toby A. H.
The Nile : a journey downriver through Egypt’s past and present / by Toby Wilkinson.
—First American edition.
pages cm
“Originally published by Bloomsbury, London, in 2014.”
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-385-35155-3 (hardcover) ISBN 978-0-385-35156-0 (eBook)
1. Wilkinson, Toby A. H.—Travel—Nile River. 2. Nile River Valley—Description and
travel. 3. Nile River Valley—History. 4. Egypt—Civilization. I. Title.
DT116.W55 2014
962—dc23 2013045874
Jacket photograph: The Cheops pyramid at Giza, Egypt, during a flood of the Nile, ca.
1875, by Antonio Beato. Adoc-photos / Art Resource, N.Y.
Jacket design by Isabel Urbina Peña
Maps by John Gilkes
v3.1
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For Umm Toby
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Egypt … is an acquired country—the gift of the river.
—HERODOTUS
Egypt is always herself, at all stages in her history.
—JEAN-FRANÇOIS CHAMPOLLION
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Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Map of the Nile Valley
Preface
ONE The Nile Egypt’s Eternal River
TWO Aswan Source of the Nile
THREE The Deep South Where Egypt Began
FOUR Luxor City of Wonders
FIVE Western Thebes Realm of the Dead
SIX Qift and Qena The Centre and the Provinces
SEVEN Abydos Place of Mysteries
EIGHT Middle Egypt Cradle of Religion
NINE The Fayum A Lake in the Desert
TEN Cairo Egypt’s Capital
Postscript
Appendix: Timeline
Notes
Further Reading
Acknowledgements
A Note About the Author
Photo Insert
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Preface
The country is a palimpsest in which the Bible is written over Herodotus, and the
Koran over that.1
—LUCIE DUFF GORDON
Egypt is the most populous country in the world’s most unstable
region. It is the key to Middle East peace, the voice of the Arab world,
and the crossroads between Europe and Africa. Its historical and
strategic importance is unparalleled. In short, Egypt matters.
Understanding the country and its people is as vital today as it has ever
been.
The key to Egypt—its colourful past, chaotic present and uncertain
future—is the Nile. More than two thousand years ago, the ancient
Greek historian Herodotus famously remarked that Egypt is “the gift of
the river,”2 and so it is. Egypt is the Nile, the Nile Egypt. The river is
the unifying thread that runs throughout Egyptian history, culture and
politics. It has shaped Egypt’s geography, controlled its economy,
moulded its civilisation, and determined its destiny. From Egypt’s
earliest art (prehistoric images of fish-traps, carved into cliffs
overlooking the river) to the Arab Spring (fought over on the bridges of
Cairo), the Nile has been central to Egypt’s story. Throughout the
country, the connections between past and present are many and deep.
Travelling down the Nile, past villages, towns and cities, dazzling
ancient monuments and ambitious modern developments, is the best
way to feel the pulse and understand the unique character of this
chaotic, vital, conservative and rapidly changing land.
As I write this, in a boat on the Nile, Egypt stands at the most critical
juncture of its recent history. With a past longer than most countries,
its future has never looked less certain. Its first democratically elected
leader—in five thousand years—has assumed dictatorial powers.
Parliament and the courts are at loggerheads. Islamists and secularists
are fighting (and dying) over radically different visions of Egypt’s
future. The balance of power in the Middle East and the entire
trajectory of the Arab world rest on the outcome. The world holds its
breath.
Yet with the sunlight sparkling on the water, waves lapping gently at
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the sides of the boat, herons wading in the shallows and fishermen
casting their nets in mid-stream, there is a timelessness to life on the
river that belies the momentous events sweeping the country. Political
Egypt seems a world away, a distant sideshow. Rural life continues
much as it has for millennia—sowing and harvesting in the fields,
fishing on the Nile. The river and its rhythms, not the pronouncements
of politicians, are the measure of people’s lives. As one Victorian
traveller to Egypt remarked, “There is a sense that transcends the
passage of years or the stirring events of history. The visitor to the Nile
can smell the same smells as the Ancient Egyptians, of hot dust and
damp reeds, of the river itself as it flows smoothly toward the north.”3
In a country heavy with history, the continuities and
interconnections of Egypt’s past and present are particularly visible
along the Nile. The same stretch of water along which I am now
passing has conveyed pharaonic battleships sailing south to crush
rebellions in Nubia and returning laden with the spoils of battle;
barges carrying great obelisks from the granite quarries of Aswan to
the temples of Thebes; Ptolemaic grain-ships and Roman troop-
carriers; papyrus skiffs and Cook’s Nile steamers. On the banks,
satellite dishes sprout from the roofs of mud-brick houses, churches
and mosques jostle for space with the ruins of pagan temples, and men
in galabeyas ride donkeys while talking on mobile phones.
Egyptians are acutely aware of their rich inheritance. They could not
fail to be, with physical manifestations of their past all around. A
common complaint about the Muslim Brothers is that they are
ignoring Egypt’s long history of diversity and accommodation. As an
Egyptian friend put it, “They think we forgot the last seven thousand
years; we didn’t.”4 In an attempt to comprehend the enduring
influence of those seven thousand years, this book sets out to tell the
story of Egypt from the vantage point of its great river. Down the
millennia, disparate periods, places and people have been united by
the common experience of the Nile. Together, their stories weave the
history of an entire country—a country in flux, a country that demands
to be understood.
By the time this book is published, Egypt may have resolved its
current crisis and charted a new course—or it may still be in limbo. It
may have embraced democracy or it may have reverted to its more
accustomed tradition of autocratic rule. For the vast majority of its
long-suffering and resilient people, life will continue as before, a daily
struggle to make ends meet, put food on the table, nurture the next
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