#Ancient cities on the nile series

Herodotus says it took four months to travel along the Nile, from Egypt, by water and land, to this place. As a reward, the King allowed the Egyptians to settle around a lake that is the source of the Nile. There they helped the King of the Ethiopians defeat some of his own soldiers, who were rebelling against him. He recorded that an army of Egyptian soldiers deserted their commanders and marched to Ethiopia. Herodotus has another story that suggested that the Nile flowed from Ethiopia. This was of course absurd, the Nile only flows in one direction - from South to North, but it is true that Elephantine was the place where the Nile entered Egypt. The Scribe told Herodotus that half the water from the pit flowed over Egypt and to the north, and the other half to the South and Ethiopia. He ordered his servants to make a long, long rope, and to lower it down into the pit. The Egyptian king Psammetichos allegedly proved that the pit went down forever. He was often shown holding a jar from which flowed a stream of water.ДЄccording to the learned scribe, the waters of the Nile flowed up from a bottomless pit hidden below the swirling whirlpools at Elephantine. The local god was Khnum, whose head was the shape of a ram, which is a male sheep, and who supposedly watched over the source of the Nile. The rapids were very fierce around the island, and it was impossible to travel by boat along this part of the river. It was an island in the river Nile shaped like an elephantвЂ™s tusk and is now part of the Egyptian city of Aswan. There was a border town in the south of ancient Egypt called The Elephant, or Elephantine. In fact there are two Niles, the White Nile, and the Blue Nile, which join at Khartoum in Sudan and become one great river which flows on to Egypt and the Mediterrainian sea.ДЄ learned Egyptian, The Scribe of the Sacred Treasury of Athena, otherwise known as Egyptian goddess Neith, told Herodotus this following theory about the source of the Nile. People have been wondering since ancient Egyptian times where AfricaвЂ™s greatest river begins. He famously called Egypt вЂњthe gift of the NileвЂќ which is why, in this episode, IвЂ™m going to be focusing on the river Nile.ДЄs you may know, the Nile is the longest river in Africa, and indeed the longest river in the world. Herodotus visited Egypt, when it was ruled by the Persians, and in the second book of his histories, he describes what he found there. Young Cambyses set his sights on conquering one of the oldest, richest, and most mysterious kingdoms of the world - Egypt. When their great leader, Cyrus, died 530 years before the birth of Christ, his son Cambyses took over all the lands that he had amassed, including much of what we now call the Middle East. Previously IвЂ™ve been telling you about the incredible empire built by the ancient Persians.

#Ancient cities on the nile series

We will be spinning off my Herodotus series into a separate podcast, called naturally Herodotus, so if you want to catch future editions of Herodotus please subscribe to Herodotus in iTunes, Stitcher Google Play or your favorite podcast app. Hello this is Bertie, and IвЂ™m here with some history from the Ancient World inspired by the Greek historian, Herodotus.Д«ut first I have a quick message.