Herodotus - the River Nile
Dedicated to Sasha
Written and read by Bertie
Nile illustration by Bertie
Map of ancient Egypt by Adobe
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Hello this is Bertie, and I’m here with some history from the Ancient World inspired by the Greek historian, Herodotus.
But first I have a quick message. 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.
Previously I’ve been telling you about the incredible empire built by the ancient Persians. 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. Young Cambyses set his sights on conquering one of the oldest, richest, and most mysterious kingdoms of the world - Egypt.
Herodotus visited Egypt, when it was ruled by the Persians, and in the second book of his histories, he describes what he found there.
He famously called Egypt “the gift of the Nile” which is why, in this episode, I’m going to be focusing on the river Nile.
As you may know, the Nile is the longest river in Africa, and indeed the longest river in the world. It is over 4000 miles in length.
People have been wondering since ancient Egyptian times where Africa’s greatest river begins. 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.
But where is the source of the Nile?
A 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. There was a border town in the south of ancient Egypt called The Elephant, or Elephantine. It was an island in the river Nile shaped like an elephant’s tusk and is now part of the Egyptian city of Aswan. The rapids were very fierce around the island, and it was impossible to travel by boat along this part of the river.
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. He was often shown holding a jar from which flowed a stream of water.
According to the learned scribe, the waters of the Nile flowed up from a bottomless pit hidden below the swirling whirlpools at Elephantine.
The Egyptian king Psammetichos allegedly proved that the pit went down forever. He ordered his servants to make a long, long rope, and to lower it down into the pit. They could find no bottom to it.
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. 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.
Herodotus has another story that suggested that the Nile flowed from Ethiopia. He recorded that an army of Egyptian soldiers deserted their commanders and marched to Ethiopia. There they helped the King of the Ethiopians defeat some of his own soldiers, who were rebelling against him. As a reward, the King allowed the Egyptians to settle around a lake that is the source of the Nile. Herodotus says it took four months to travel along the Nile, from Egypt, by water and land, to this place. And it is actually true that the source of the Blue Nile starts in Lake Tana in Ethiopia.
But the ancient Egyptians did not know that the longer prong of the river, the White Nile, starts even further south, with a big source rising in Lake Victoria in Uganda, and smaller streams flowing in from Rwanda and Burundi. As late as Victorian times, English explorers like Burton, Speak and Livingstone tramped their way through the deep forests of east and central Africa in a race to discover the true source of the Nile.
Although the start of the Nile was very mysterious to the Egyptians, they of course knew all about how it flowed into the Mediterranean Sea. A large part of ancient Egypt was in the Delta region of the Nile. This is where the river looks a little like the flat palm of your hand, with fingers pointing out into the sea. In between the water channels, the land was very fertile and was one of the best places on earth for growing crops.
By the way, the American city of Memphis, Tennessee on the banks of River Mississippi, is named after the ancient Egyptian capital - Memphis on the River Nile. Both cities are at the head of the fertile Delta regions of great rivers, so the name-sharing between an American city, and an ancient Egyptian one, is no coincidence.
For most of history, the Nile has flooded its banks in Egypt between the months of June and September. The annual flooding only stopped when President Nassar of Egypt built the giant concrete Aswan dam in the 1960s - not far from ancient Elephantine.
The annual flooding of the Nile watered all the lands on either side and made it very easy to grow crops. Herodotus says that unlike almost anywhere else in the world, the Egyptians had no need to break up the frields with ploughs. All they had to do was wait until the Nile had finished flooding, and then scatter seed on the ground. Afterwards they would let pigs loose to trample the seed into the earth.
Naturally Herodotus wondered why the Nile flooded. He considered various theories put forward by fellow Greeks who wanted to gain a reputation for being clever. According to one theory, which he thought was idiotic, every summer, when the snows melt in the mountains of Ethiopia, water flows into the Nile and travels down to the sea through Egypt. Herodotus could not believe that there could be snow in a place as hot as Africa, even though this is what actually happens and is the correct answer to the question, why the Nile flooded. The idea he favoured was more fanciful. He believed that in winter, the blustery north wind blew the sun through the sky to Egypt. When it was there, it sucked up the waters that flooded over the Egyptian fields. That’s why the waters of the Nile were low in winter. He’s clearly describing how water evaporates in the sun.
But in summer, so he said, the sun returned to its normal position in the sky, and the Nile filled up again with water and overflowed its banks. By the way, just in case anyone is wondering, it’s definitely not true that the sun is blown across the sky by the wind. Herodotus got that wrong, but it is interesting to see how he thought over various theories.
Even today, about 95% of Egypt's population live within twelve miles of the river. Were it not for the river and the rich black earth which it swept up, the amazing civilization of ancient Egypt would have never existed. And so Herodotus was right to say that Egypt is the gift of the River Nile.
And I’m going to drop in a personal note here. My 8 year old son, Sasha, is fascinated by the source of the Nile. His absolute favourite TV programme EVER is the Top Gear Africa Special in which the car maniacs Clarkson, Hammond and May, go searching through Uganda and Rwanda for the source of the Nile - he must have watched it a thousand times.
His other great interest is cars - in fact his first word was “car”. And his favourite song, by the way, is Africa by Toto.
And so that is why I am going to dedicate this episode of Herodotus to my son, Sasha, who has a long standing had a great interest in the River Nile.
And if you would like to hear future episodes of Herodotus you can of course find them on Storynory.com. But if you're the sort of up-to-date kind of person who catches podcasts through an app you better look for Herodotus in iTunes or Stitcher or Google Podcasts or wherever you catch your podcasts. I currently use the Podbean app and we do actually have a dedicated Storynory app - I will post them there too.
Thank you very much for listening, and I hope to catch you elsewhere. From me Bertie, at Storynory.com, for now, Goodbye.
Yay first comment
Smoky the Mexican free tailed app — September 10, 2019
Wow
At — September 11, 2019
Wow
Aryan — September 11, 2019
hello i love you storys
max — September 11, 2019
I like this story
Anil — September 11, 2019
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Cody — September 12, 2019
Loved it!
Knox — September 12, 2019
Please add more Greek myths
Miron — September 12, 2019
how can I download the audio file?
Anonymous — September 13, 2019
wow amazing
Kinzlea — September 13, 2019
I didn’t get this story…….lol
HI — September 15, 2019
i like this story
aditi — September 15, 2019
yes i like it
the — September 15, 2019
I liked the story, it was very interesting. However, there were a lot of words I have never seen and they were hard to pronounce.
LAZ — September 15, 2019
Thank you Laz, not to worry. I’m very shortly starting a programme explaining the meaning of words and phrases here on Storynory, called ‘Improve your English with Jana’, and I will include clips and explanations from Herodotus, as well as many other stories and poems. Stay in touch 😊
Jana Elizabeth — September 15, 2019
hello
I’m a sudanese , i would like to inform that , there incorrect information within this story plz make right, and by the way the river nile is not only in egypt it starts from sudan and then reached egypt i think it is not to exclude sudan , like there was a big kindom called kush was lived beside the river nile .
my gratitude
m.gasim — September 17, 2019
Hi m.gasim We really do mention Sudan in the story, we say that the Blue and the White Nile meet at Khartoum – but Herodotus, 2,500 years ago was writing about Egypt. Thanks for telling us about Kush which is interesting. When we get onto future chapters we should be able to discuss it. Herodotus mentioned an invasion of Kush by the Persian ruler Cambyses (c. 530 BC), who possibly succeeded in occupying the area between the first and second Nile cataract. But first we have two more chapters about Egypt.
Bertie — September 17, 2019
Yes,I like this story.
Li — September 18, 2019
More astro pup
Anonymous — September 19, 2019
this story is useful for me to learn english and improve my listening skill
Khánh Linh — September 22, 2019
good texts relly like it
Anonymous — September 23, 2019
It was really goooooooooooooooood
Anoyamous — September 23, 2019
Really gggggggoood
Gfghtr — September 23, 2019
i love it
Anonymous — September 23, 2019
wooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwww amazing
Anonymous — September 25, 2019
I’m reading this because i have a test so soon……………..
ghala — September 25, 2019
He tried get his boat back but he coodnot find it he had no boats at all.
Yaphet — September 26, 2019
Hello I think you need to reboot the website up a bit. Bertie’s Icon doesn’t seem to flash when he replies to us
Ryan — September 27, 2019
this is good
jake — October 20, 2019
Where is the audiobook?
Fried chicken — October 22, 2019
the story was so good in story nory I read it first when I was 9 years old now I am 11 years old so I read in story nory for two years
ninjago — October 26, 2019
I love it
man — November 22, 2019
This is an fantastic book and if I had to rate this amazing book out of 100 I would rate it 96-100 it is one of the best books I’ve ever read so make another chapter please now!phsch you thought.
Aidan — February 12, 2020
Very cool and good ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻
Hello — March 27, 2020
Very borde
Daniel — April 2, 2020
I LOVE THAT BOOK I CAN READ IT FOR HOURS AND I JUST LOVE IT BUT THIS IS MY FIRST TIME READING IT
SANAI — April 5, 2020
bro this is rubbish
Anonymous — May 6, 2020
Great I loved this book it’s really neat
Leah Cooper — May 27, 2020
Great book I love it.👍😀
Hot dog — May 27, 2020
Honestly, I thought that I wouldn’t like
This book but I did.😅😀🙃
Hot dog — May 27, 2020
its ok but intresting
lazerbeam — June 9, 2020
It was very good yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeettttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt👺👺😈😈😈🤙🏼👍🏼
Jacque — July 13, 2020
Great story. Im karena and this is mine very fr ist time in story nory. Is it only yall reading all story?? or not i may be wrong but u dont have to answer.this will be mine favortive story for now on…But i have to used other story to. Im so happy now cuz i can be better at reading and speeking. every year i have to go somwhere to get mine speeking better and better nice story hopefully mine skill can be better then right know and pass the test! bye love ur story
Karena — August 7, 2020
I like it
Summer jin — November 5, 2020
awesome
hot dog — December 9, 2020
bro, this is rubbish
Anonymous — December 9, 2020
nice but needs improvement
lolmaster — December 17, 2020
Wow
Milky — December 27, 2020