Why the gods chose the Nile? | Irene Cordon | TEDxReus

When a society lives in what could be depicted as paradise, changing your way of living makes no sense, as it seems you can't improve... but can an unexpected climate change destroy a civilization and give birth to another? What is more important: humans' influence over the landscape or geography's influence over how society acts?

Irene Cordón i Solà-Sagalés, born in Barcelona in 1972, has a PhD in Archaeology, Ancient and Medieval History by the Autonoma University of Barcelona (UAB), a post-doctorate and a master in Egyptology by the UAB and a degree in Law by the University of Barcelona (UB). Her specialization is Ancient Egypt and particularly gender studies.
For her Cum Laude PhD she undertook a year-long internship in the American University in Cairo (AUC) as a researcher. She has participated in an archaeologic excavation in Saqqara with a team of the UAB, financed by the Generalitat de Catalunya.
She is currently a member of the Catalan Society of Egyptology, professor at the University of Múrcia (on line courses) and teaches courses and holds conferences on Egyptology, Prehistory and Ancient History in several institutions and centers, she organizes and leads cultural trips, publishes papers on Egyptology in specialized journals and magazines (National Geographic, Sàpiens, Clio Història, Fent Història)

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

(Applause)

Look, I'll start with a quote that says:
"Egypt is a gift of the Nile"

Herodotus set it down in writing.
He is a Greek historian

who visited the country on the
fifth century before Christ.

And how right Herodotus was!

Because without the existence
of fresh water,

in this case without the Nile's existence,

no culture or civilization
could have developed.

The Nile was a resource
of endless sources.

And what does that mean?
It provided the Egyptian people

with everything they needed:
water, plants, fish,

also all the aquatic birds...
Not only that, but also

it was the perfect habitat for
a great diversity of flora and fauna.

Actually, if we pay attention, to some
frescoes and paintings that appear

in some Egyptian tombs'
indoor walls

we can notice the deceased that appears
represented standing over a boat.

They are always very light boats,
made out of light materials,

many of them are rushes or papyrus
and we see that they are over the Nile.

Also, they are really beautiful images
because we can see, for example,

that they always go together
with their family,

and the family is usually the wife
and the possible children.

Always seeing the wife in the background
is a very curious fact.

Pay attention, in this case she is wearing
a linen dress, suggesting transparencies.

She is perfumed,
with the scent on her head,

always holding a flower in her hands,
well, they always appear with...

they have a very passive attitude,
they are secondary.

But the deceased, the males,
are always in a very active attitude.

In this case we see, for example,
that they are holding, in their hands,

a kind of boomerang to hunt
the aquatic birds that they find

around the region. But some other time
we could see them carrying

a kind of spear for fishing
the fish that the Nile provided them with.

Therefore, it was an ideal habit for
this flora, for this fauna,

but do not be led astray by these
idyllic images because there were also

very dangerous animals like,
crocodiles or hippopotamus,

which they feared.

The truth is that the Nile
was not just that, it also was

the main way of communicating.
That was a kind of highway

or road that carried
people and goods

from one side of the country
to the other.

The Nile is the longest river in Africa,

probably the longest river in the world,
because its length is over 6,650km.

It has two main tributaries:
the White Nile and the Blue Nile.

The White Nile originates in the Region
of the Big Lakes, in central Africa,

and the Blue Nile starts in Lake Tana
in Ethiopia, more or less near Khartum

the capital city of North Sudan,
these rivers join creating an only river,

they go through the remaining desert,
they entry through Egypt and, finally,

it disgorges in the Mediterranean sea
in a vast river delta.

What is also true is that, Egyptians,
named their country Kemet.

Kemet means "black"
or "the black land", and it refers back to

the slime's black color that remained
over the Nile's margins

in flooding periods.
These periods happened

during the warmest months of the year.
It happened from the end of June

till September, when the Nile had
an overflow. These overflows happened

due to the monsoon that occurs,
basically, in the Ethiopian massif.

So, was Kemet such big deal?
Kemet was just a living space

and also a cultivable area, because
the moment when the river overflew

the water flooded a whole region,
and after some days

when the water receded,
it left a soft soil, perfect for

working on it and also rich in minerals.
Cultivation was very important.

The Egyptians were agriculturalists,
because, appart from the Pharaoh and some

privileged people like, let's call them
priests, the royal family,

a part from those, the vast majority
of the population were illiterate farmers

who worked on the land. And, from
the very beginning, those farmers

noticed that they were able
to control the overflows

because they built dikes and canals
to improve it.

With everything that I said, we can say
that the Nile was the main

responsible for Egypt's life, for
the land's fertility and without any doubt

also for its historic destiny. So,
hence the saying, or the quote

that Herodotus said:
"Egypt is a gift of the Nile".

What I explained to you until now
is very beautiful, but I will be honest,

you can find it all
in any history manual

but it was important
to introduce some background information.

My point is this,
to ask ourselves the origin of everything.

I mean, in which momentum,
how did the civilization appear?

The Egyptian civilization,
how was it born? Because, obviously

it can not appear like a mushroom,
no one could just put them there.

Could it be someone's crazy idea
that, together with a group of friends,

saw that beautiful place and left,
running back to some friends,

and told them: Hey! I have just seen
something wonderful,

why don't we stay here, and we
build some pyramids,

and listen, do not worry because five,
four or three thousand years from now

people will still talk about us,
so what, should we do it?

When I said "someone",
did you imagine a woman?

I would say that almost anyone
could imagine a woman,

and that you thought it was a man,
when I said "someone".

The ancient Egyptians had it very clear.
Everything that was there,

was their God's creation.
They created some myths,

very beautiful ones, that spread orally
from generation to generation,

and they show how
Egyptian Gods created the cosmos,

they also created the Earth, the Nile and
humans appeared from a divinity's tears.

Do not tell me it is not nice!
If we had asked an Egyptian,

from Ramses era, from Keb,
Hatxepsut or Tuthmosis, who created

this world, what would they answer?
Who put the Nile there, what

would they answer? The deities. But,
if we had told the same Egyptian that

in some centuries their divinities
would no longer exist,

they would have been horrified.

How can you live without gods?
How can we live in this world,

they who created us
who protect us,

they who give meaning to life.

Even if in the same Egypt
we had told them that, in some time

the Pharaoh will not exist,
then I think that, directly,

a heart attack is little to say.

And why so? Because by no means
the Egyptians could understand a life

without a Pharaoh. Because the Pharaoh
is the figure of an intermediary

between the divine world and
the land-world.

Well, let's go back to the question:
How does a civilization appear?

Is it the crazy idea of an individual?
Is it, maybe, a divine will?

Or maybe, does mother nature with its
powerful strength have something to do?

I will be honest with you, all three
things scare me.

I will also tell you, that
if the idea of the crazy person,

or the one of the divinities
do not persuade you,

maybe we should start to study a bit more
the Sahara's climatic history.

Look, the Sahara desert is huge
and it covers most of North Africa's

It is as big as USA or Europe.
And I will tell you something

I know that you all like taking
pictures in those red,

yellow dunes, they are
very nice pictures.

But you should be scared,
because there is nothing in that spot,

there is no life. It scares me,
I am really telling you.

Furthermore, it has a very harsh climate,
the Sahara. It is the warmest part

of the Earth, and it is the most extensive
non-polar desert in our planet.

Nevertheless, the Sahara has never
had that arid aspect

that it has nowadays. And if we study
and analyze its climatic history,

we will realize that at the beginning
of the Holocene, more or less around

10,000 before Christ, all the Saharan
plateaus were populated,

full of flora and fauna,
there were even lakes,

some of them seasonal,
but many others permanent,

that were filled thanks to the
monsoon that fell over this Sahara.

The human beings who lived in this region,
that obviously you have to imagine it

all green, full of forests,
full of vegetation.

The humans who lived in this region
even developed a culture

based on hunting, collecting and even
in the use of the aquatic resources

because they had those lakes.

We have to insist, once again,
that the Sahara in that era,

ten thousand years before Christ,
is very humid and it rains, therefore

this was a real paradise. And why do I
tell you this? Because humans lived

in small groups, they were nomads,
they had everything they needed.

They were walking, and suddenly,
they found a fig tree,

they saw it full of fruit and they ate
the figs, or they saw a herbivore

and they went behind it,
trying to hunt it to eat it afterwards.

We have many proofs of all this,
but we can not forget that

mankind, humans, to the contrary of what
people say that we come from the apes,

that is a lie. Why?
Because humans are apes.

And if you do not like the word ape,
call it primate. And we are omnivorous.

And we are very opportunists, and what
does it mean? It means we can eat many

different types of food. Now you'll be hungry.
And why? Because if we were hungry,

imagine all the people in this room
live in this region, and suddenly

we get hungry. If in that moment a frog
or a worm, or a snail passes by,

Mmmm, isn't it tasty? But, what is more
we are also able to eat

an elephant steak,
and we also like vegetables,

and we like fruit and we like root
vegetables, and we can also eat mushrooms

and thanks to the mastery of fire, we can
also cook the food. What does this mean?

It means that foods like cereals,
that if we eat them raw they are

indigestible, when we cook them
they become great nutrients.

So we are great opportunists. Which proofs
do we have from that life in the Sahara?

There are many. To start with there are
remains such as gazelle jaws

and next to it we find an
arrowhead. And what is an arrowhead?

It is a litic tool, I mean,
a piece of stone that someone

broke, refined and, therefore
it demonstrates that in that place

people used to hunt. There were also
settlement remains.

Sometimes people tell me that
they just see a bunch of stones

but I always tell them: listen,
stones can speak, these stones

are telling you that in that place, that
is a hut, a shelter.

I usually say a house, but everybody
laughs. So, a shelter, if you want.

The thing is that, next to it, you'll
also find human burial remains,

we will also find in these settlements,
strings made out of ostrich eggs

that they used to create bracelets,
necklaces, and thanks to the carbon-14

it indicates us that they are between
eight and seven thousand years old.

What do we mean by all this? That they are
irrefutable proofs that show us that,

there was plenty of life in this Sahara.
There's another proof that people like.

When we see these desserts
we are not aware,

but it is what I was telling you before
about the stones:

we have to listen to them,
the sand in the dessert speaks too.

For example, in the Libyan
dessert, among all the sand and stones

we can find Saharan art, and the paintings
and the cave paintings are wonderful.

What can we find? For example,
we can see some giraffs in muted colors

that are surrounded by some beasts,
we even see humans.

But what does it all indicate? That those
animals lived in this region.

There are some great cave paintings,
for example this elephant, that also

shows that in the North of Africa
there were elephants

to make those steaks that we
were saying before.

We could take the whole Sahara,
because all its parts speaks.

What else can we find?
If we go further South,

to the Occidental Egyptian desert,
in a region known as Gilf Kebir,

that is almost in the border
with Libya and Sudan, we can also find

some very interesting paintings and
engraves. There is a great one

in which we can see some human figures
around a lake and,

we also see that they are not alone,
there are some animals.

Do you know what probably happened?
They hid and waited for the animals,

that were provably herbivore,
to go to the lake to drink water

and then they would hunt them.

It is showing us that there was
also water in there.

Even a well known cave, a cave
known as the Cave of Swimmers,

we can see that there are
some humans that seem to be

swimming in that water.

Look at that paradise, wasn't it
an idyllic place to live? The Eden.

This paradise broke,
because there was a change:

a variation in the Earth Orbit.
What does this mean?

It means there was a slight displacement
in the Earth's axis, and when

this displacement occurred,
it stopped raining in the Sahara.

What does it imply? It implied a radical
and dramatic change. Why radical?

Because in only two centuries,
all that area in the Sahara that

we were looking at, that was green
due to the fertility of its vegetation,

it will become red, a totally infertile
desert. What will it produce?

Hence comes the dramatic change.
All that flora and fauna

that was living in this region
will disappear, for example,

what will happen to the lakes? They
will dry, and all the life

that was living within those lakes,
within the fresh water,

those shellfish,
those fish will die.

In the desert's sand,
we can find proof of all that.

That is why I say that the sand talks,
that you have to listen to it.

What happened with the trees?
Exactly the same. They could not

resist, and they disappeared.
And what about the human beings?

Those who could, moved East.
They were so lucky

that they found the endless water source
that was the Nile,

and they quickly settled themselves there.
They settled down and they started to

take advantage of the Nile's overflows,
exploiting everything the Nile gave them.

Of course it is dramatic, because
the hunter's culture died,

it will cease to exist. And why?
Because they will become farmers.

It is necessary to become a farmer,
because in the moment when

the environment does not provide you
with the food sources you need to survive,

you will have to do it artificially
and the longer we spend tilling the land,

the fewer time we will have to go
hunting and harvesting.

But this does not have to be
a problem, really.

Seen from the outside, we can notice that
thanks to the Sahara's desertification

The Egyptian Pharaonic
civilization was born.

One of the most shocking
in humanity's history.

In other words, Ancient Egypt
is the result of the drought.

We could formulate another question:
Could another civilization

develop alongside the Nile?
Of course, it could.

There are many variables,
and appart from the Pharaonic,

there are other civilizations
that settled alongside the Nile

and nowadays they are still settled there.

But, probably, their kings
were not called Pharaohs,

or maybe they were not depicted
with a false beard

or with a skirt,
and their gods didn't have,

I don't know, a falcon-like head,
or cow ears.

But what we know for sure is that
they would have learnt to tame the Nile.

I will tell you one thing,
we are all afraid of change,

and we are afraid of it because
we fear the unknown.

But along history if there is
something recurring, you know what it is?

That everything changes.
Thank you so much.

(Applause)