Challenges of Living in a Desert Country: Meeting Water and Wood Needs
- Egyptians in the Old Kingdom faced challenges in living in a mostly desert country. They successfully addressed the issue of water scarcity by diverting the waters of the Nile into their farmlands through irrigation. This allowed them to produce surplus food and engage in trade with other nations.
- Another challenge they faced was the scarcity of wood, as there were no tall trees in the desert. They relied on the cedar trees in the northeastern region, known as Lebanon, which provided suitable wood for building boats and coffins. This led to a trade relationship based on the exchange of grain for wood.
- Overall, the Egyptians in the Old Kingdom developed innovative solutions to overcome the challenges of living in a desert country, ensuring a stable food supply through irrigation and obtaining wood through trade.
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お願いします。 There are challenges to living in a country that is mostly desert. By the time the Old Kingdom rolled around, about 2700 BCE, Egyptians were up to meeting those challenges―the most obvious would concern water. Although the derert continually tried to push in on the farmland along the edge of the Nile, the Egyptians had learned how to push back. They coaxed the waters of the Nile inland, filling the buckets of their shadufs and emptying them into channels they had dug through their gardens. Not only were they irrigating their farmlands, they were expanding them. Farmers grew more food than the people could possibly eat. The king's granaries filled. The government organized and financed massive irrigation projects. When you grow more food than you can possibly eat you are left with something to trade with other nations―grain. What Egyptians didn't have they could now get through trade. A challenge less obvious to those nnt used to surviving in a desert environment is the lack of wood. There are no tall trees in a desert. Actually, there are no trees at all, with the exception of what grew right along the edge of the Nile and in the occasional oasis. Egyptians needed wood―a lot of wood―especially for boats and coffins. They had their eye on the cedar that grew to the northeast, in the land that we now call Lebanon. It was ideal for both boats and coffins because cedar resists rot, and a rotting boat or a rotting coffin can be a problem. And so it began―we've got grain, we need wood, you've got wood, you need grain, let's trade. It was not much different, in principle, from trading baseball cards.
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大部分が砂漠の国で暮らすことには、困難なことがあります。 紀元前2700年頃、古王国が、順調に機能するようになる頃までには、エジプト人は、それらの困難に立ち向かうことができるようになっていました ― 最もはっきりした困難は、水に関するものです。 砂漠は、絶えずナイル川の縁に沿った農地を侵食しようとしましたが、エジプト人は、押し返す方法を学びました。彼らは、ナイル川の流れを内陸部へ誘導しました。そして、はねつるべの手桶を満杯にして、彼らが、菜園に流れる様に掘った運河にそれらをあけました。 彼らは、農地を潅漑するばかりでなく、農地を拡大しました。 農民は、人々が食べきれないほど多くの食物を栽培しました。王の穀倉は、いっぱいになりました。 政府は、大規模な潅漑計画を組織して、資金を投じました。 食べきれないほど多くの食物を栽培するとき、あなたはには、他の国と取引するものが残ります ― 穀物です。 エジプト人は、持っていなかったものを、今では、交易を通じて、手に入れることが出来ました。 砂漠の環境で生き残ることに慣れていない人々にとって、より理解しにくい困難は、木の不足です。 砂漠には、高い木が、ありません。 実際、ナイル川の縁に沿って、また、時折、オアシスで、育っている木々を除いて、木は、まったくありません。エジプト人は、木材 ― 多くの木材 ― を、特に、舟と棺のために必要としました。 彼らは、北東の、我々が、現在、レバノンと呼んでいる土地に育っているスギに、目を向けました。 スギは、腐敗に抵抗力があるので、また、腐る舟や腐る棺は、問題になる可能性があるので、スギは、舟や棺に理想的でした。そして、それは始まりました ― 我々には、穀物がある、我々は、木材が必要である、あなたは、木材を持っている、あなたは、穀物を必要としている、取引しましょう。 それは、原理的には、野球カードの交換とそれほど違いませんでした。
関連するQ&A
- 日本語訳を! 1-(2)
お願いします。 Without the Nile you wouldn't have much of a kingdom to rule. Strutting might seem a bit silly. Egypt would be home to nothing more than a few wandering bands of nomads passing through the red land, dusty and dragging from the relentless heat, in search of the rare oasis. The Nile, however, the glorious Nile, brought a narrow band of life to Egypt. It carried rich, black dirt and spread it over the floodplains, creating fields for the Egyptians to plant their seeds. The Egyptians called it khemet―the black land. The change from red land to black land was so abrupt you could straddle the border, standing with one foot in red earth and the other in black. The ancient Egyptians knew tha without the Great River they would have no villages, no fields of wheat, and no cattle. To them the water was sacred. They believed it flowed from paradise and could heal the sick. They wrote songs to the Nike―praising its life-giving force. The Hymn to the Nile began "Hail to thee O, Nile!" and praised the Great River for coming "to give life to Egypt." It may seem as if the ancients got carried away with their praise when they sang, "If you cease your toil and your work, then all that exists is in anguish." But if the Nile did "cease its toil," the people would starve. Maybe they weren't so carried away after all.
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- 日本語訳を! 1-(3)
お願いします。 Life in Egypt revolved around the Great River. Our seasons come and go, marked by weather changes, but not so in Egypt, where the sun always shines. In Egypt the seasoms were marked by changes in the Nile. The first of the three seasons began in July. Egyptians called it akhet. During akhet, heavy rain in Ethiopia poured down from the highlands, swelling streams that fed the Nile. The banks of the Nile overflowed. Flooding may not sound like a good thing, but to the Egyptians it was a very good thing. Those floods left behind that black earth for planting. During the floods, farmlands were covered with water. Everyone uneasily watched the water rise. Would there be enough water? Would the Nile bring enough of that rich, black earth for farmers to plant their seeds? Or would there be too much water? Would whole villages be washed away? It was a delicate balance. If you were the supreme ruler, it would be your job to work it out with the gods so that things went well. You worked with Hapi, the god of the Great River, and more importantly, with the god in charge of the floods, the one with the ram's head―Khnemu. It was your job to be sure there was ma'at, or balance―not too much, not too little. The Egyptians watched the flood levels obsessively. They measured the water and recorded it. They compared their measurements to the good years. They compared their measurements to the bad years. Everywhere you went, people would have had an opinion on this year's flood level. People talked in the market place. People talked along the roads, over dinner, while washing clothes at the riverbank. Would this be a good year? Would the granaries be full? Or would this be a bad year? Would they suffer the anguish they sang about in The Hymn to the Nile?
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- 日本語訳を! 2-(1)
お願いします。 If you had an important story to tell, but most of your audience couldn't read, you might tell the story by drawing it in pictures. If you wanted the story to last a very long time, you might draw those pictures in stone. That's what an Egyptian storyteller did, and his work has lasted more than 5,000 years. It's the story of the first king of Egypt. And the stone is called the Palette of Narmer. Long before the first king, before there were people of great power, before there were towns to lead, before there were villages with headsmen, the people of Egypt lived like all prehistoric peoples. They lived in small groups on the move. They followed the food. Ten thousand years ago the area around the Nile hadn't dried up into desert yet. Rain fell more often and fields of grass grew. Elephants plodded about, flapping their ears in the heat. Giraffes nibbled on thorny trees. Vultures rode the warm air currents in search of something dead to eat. The people of Egypt hunted gazelle and dug root vegetables. By 6,000 years ago, the people of Egypt had begun to herd cattle. When the Nile swelled and flowed over its banks, the people would follow their cattle away from the river. Extended families sometimes joined other groups while the cattle munched in the grasslands. By the end of summer, the heat and the lack of rain shriveled the grass, and the herderr brought the cattle back to the edge of the floodplain―back to the Nile. They planted seeds and grew an early form of wheat called emmer. They grew peas, barley, and melons. Small villages began to crop up along the Nile, just out of reach of the floodwaters. When the people argued, someone from the group would step in to solve the problem. Pretty soon they would look to that person to solve all of the problems. Power was born.
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- 日本語訳を! 1-(4)
お願いします。 At first the Egyptians simply marked the riverbank to measure the height of the Nile. But it wasn't long before the Egyptians invented measuring devices. We call them nilometers. Some looked like a giant yardstick made from marble. Other nilometers were even more elaborate. Workers dug staircases into wells and erected engraved pillars marked to gauge how high the water rose. After the flood months, when the water finally receded and left behind rich, black earth, farmers scattered their seeds, the first of several plantings. The second season―peret―had begun. Farmers lifted water from the steady flowing river with shadufs, devices that looked like catapults. With a bucket for dipping on one end of a pole, and a counterweight to make lifting easy on the other, the shadufs creaked and groaned while farmers raised and pivoted the buckets to fill channels that snaked through their gardens. Farmers tended their fields with care into the third season―shemu. During shemu the level of the Nile dropped, and many side channels dried up. The land parched and the desert seemed to close in. The red sands inched toward the villages. Near the end of shemu, Egyptians began to fret and worry. Would the Nile ever rise again? Had the gods forgotten to release the waters? They sang, "they dread him who creates the heat," and they sacrificed birds and gazelles for the return of the Nile's floodwaters. And then the cycle repeated. "Hail to thee, O Nile! Who...comes to give life to Egypt!"
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お願いします。 Imagine you are the king of Egypt. Strut about a bit, you can. After all, you're the supreme ruler―the Pharaoh, the Great One. You command armies. If you say fight, they fight to the death. You have thousands of servants―a few just to fan you with ostrich feathers when you're feeling a tad overheated. Your brothers and sisters, parents, teachers, and friends have to do what you order. YOU have inherited the right to make laws and dole out punishments. They had better behave. When you walk by, people fall to their knees and press their noses into the dirt. Some tremble when you pass―who knows what you might say to the gods the next time you speak to them? The crops grow because you say so. The Great River flows because you convince the gods it must. Now imagine wielding all that power when you are only six years old. That's how old you would be if you were the Pharaoh Pepi II in Egypt 4,000 years ago. If you were Pepi II, your kingdom would have looked a lot like the barren, red landscape of Mars if it weren't for one thing―the Great River, a river we now call the Nile. Flowing north, the Nile cuts throtgh the deshret, or the red land. Limestone cliffs rise above the river like castle walls. The ancient Egyptians said the gods put those cliffs there to protect them. In fact, your entire kingdom is surrounded by natural barriers that protect it. To the east and west, the desert keeps out invaders. To the north, before the Nile dumps into the sea, it branches out into a triangle of marshland we call the Delta (it would be hard for your enemies to march through a swamp). And to the south the Nile protects your kingdom again, this time with a series of rocky rapids called the Cataracts.
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番号で分けているのでお願いします。 (1) The ancient Egyptians had a god for everything. That palm tree set back from the Nile sprouting on the rise behind your cousin's house? It had a god. The make-up your father applied from his palette in the morning? It had a god, too. More than 2,000 names of gods have been found written in limestone, on papyrus, and scratched on mud-brick walls. Some gods were powerful and worshipped by many, and some were wispy spirits known to just a few. There were gods whose spirits lived inside real things, such as the Nile, the sun , the sky, and the earth. And there were gods for protection against dangers, such as the bites of crocodiles, scorpions, and snakes. There were gods who stood for learning―the art of music and medicine; and there were gods who stood for the learned―the scribes and the architects. You name it, the Egyptians had a god for it. (2) There were good gods and bad gods, and fierce gods to protect you from the bad gods. There were gods for the living and gods for the dead. Some gods were human, some were animal, and some were a little of both. The bulls of one breed were so sacred that they lived like kings, and when they died the Egyptians mummified them, just like they would a pharaoh. They covered the bulls in jewels and placed them in coffins carved out of solid blocks of granite each weighing 80 tons. These sacred bulls even had their own cemeteries. At a burial site at Saqqara archaeologists have found 24 bulls, each in an elaborately carved coffin. (3) The most important god in Egypt was the sun god. The Egyptians pictured the sun god pushing the sun across the sky just as the scarab beetles pushed tiny dirt balls across the ground. Every morning the Egyptians were grateful when the sun was born again like the tiny scarab eggs hatching in the dirt ball. And every evening when the sun set, they worried that an evil snake would swallow the sun as it passed through the Underworld.
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お願いします。 Five thousand years ago some villages grew very large, and their headsmen grew very powerful. Two villages in particular had grown so large that we would call them towns: Nekhen in the south and Tjeni in the north. Location, location, location―it was all about location even then. Nekhen was the gateway to gold. This southernmost town of the Nile Valley was closest to the Nubian gold mines. Gold made Nekhen fat and prosperous. Tjeni in the north was also a gateway. This town developed across the Nile from where the cliffs pinched the river into a narrow roadway. Tjeni controlled traffic on the Nile. And it was also here that tradesmen returning from the west entered Egypt. The goods they brought with them made Tjeni fat and prosperous. The wealth and power of Nekhen and Tjeni grew, and when it did, their leaders grew wealthy and powerful, too. Nothing says wealthy like things. The rarer something is, the more exotic and the finer the quality, the louder it shouts about its owner, "Look at me, I'm rich and powerful, I have all these fabulous things!" Artists no longer had to squeeze their craft making into what time they had left after tending their garden and milking their cows. People would gladly trade whatever the artist needed for the artist's talents. And now enough people lived in one spot to keep the artist busy all year. For artists location meant something, too. One of the best locations for an artist in ancient Egypt was near a cemetery. The more power people had in life, the more fantastic their burial had to be. The dead were steady customers. Artists sculpted stone vases, molded clay figures, crafted gold jewelry, and carved stone palettes for the tombs of the rich and famous.
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お願いします List of the items left behind by me in the village: [the words that are in italics are words we don't know the meaning of or how to translate them] ・3 sacks barley ・1 1/2 sacks emmer [grain] ・26 bundles of onions ・2 beds ・sheqer-box ・2 couches for a man ・2 folding stools ・1 pedes-box ・1 inlaid tjay-box ・har ・2 griddle stones ・1 gatit-box ・2 footstools ・2 folding stools of wood ・1 sack lubya beans ・12 bricks natron [salt] ・2 tree trunks ・1 door ・2 sterti of sawn wood ・2 hetep-containers ・1 small hetep-container ・1 mortar ・2 medjay ...Please have Amen-em-wia stay in my house so he can watch it. (6) Think about listing the entire contents of your house. Egyptians had far fewer belongings than we do today. The sacks of grain were the equivalent of cash. In a barter system you trade what you have for what you need. Do you need a donkey? Maybe your neighbor will trade for your bed. (7) Guests were never invited beyond the main room. The back of the house was private. Only the women, children, and immediate male members of the family were allowed there. It must have been a punishment, similar to making a child sit in the corner, to be sent to the back of the house. We know this because when Egyptians were trying to convince someone they were being sincere they would swear, "May I be sent to the back of the house if I am not telling the truth." So what was in the back of the house that was so awful? The kitchen was in the back of the house. At Deir el-Medina the kitchens were open air, with brick ovens in the shape of a beehive and stairs leading to the roof. Today getting sent to the kitchen isn't so bad. But in a hot desert climate, the room with the oven probably wasn't the most pleasant room in the house. In fact, the place in the house that seemed the nicest was the living space on the roof. Houses were dark and airless with no windows to bring in light or fresh air. Perhaps that's why the Egyptians often ate and slept on the roof.
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(4) Considering that 19 types of excrement are mentioned in the cures, from fly excrement to ostrich excrement, it's no surprise Egyptian doctors had a problem with disgruntled patients. They handled malpractice efficiently, though. Diordorus writes, If they follow the rules of this law as they read them in the sacred book and yet are unable to save their patient, they are absolved from any charge; but if they go contrary to the law's prescriptions they must submit to a trial with death as the penalty. If you're a physician and you follow the rules, all's well. But get creative with your treatments and you won't be treating anyone, unless it's in the afterlife. (5) Just as medical doctors do today, in ancient Egypt doctors specialized. The Greek historian Herodotus writes, "The practice of medicine is so divided among them that each physician treats one disease and no more. There are plenty of physicians everywhere. Some are eye-doctors, some deal with the head, others with the teeth or the belly, and some with hidden maladies...." The Ebers Papyrus even had a section on psychiatry, directing doctors on how to diagnose and treat depression. (6) The Egyptians had a cure for the common cold that was probably as good as anything you can find in a pharmacy today. It required a dose of the milk of a mother who had given birth to a boy, while chanting the spell, "May you flow out...who causes the seven openings in the head to ache." The Egyptians understood injuries caused by an accident, or in battle. They understood parasites and worms such as tapeworms, which they called "snakes in the belly." But for germs that couldn't be seen, Egyptians believed demons were responsible. There's nothing like a good spell to rid the body of evil spirits. The Ebers Papyrus states, "Magic is effective together with medicine. Medicine is effective together with magic." And so many medical treatments were odd combinations of science and magic.
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お願いします (6) The Hyksos army was made up of professional soldiers. They drove chariots, wore body armor and leather helmets, and wielded bows designed to shoot arrows farther than ordinary wooden bows. It's no surprise that the Hyksos beat the Egyptians in those first battles. But the Egyptians learned from the encounters. They stole the ddsign of the chariot from the Hyksos and then improved upon it. The Egyptians made the chariot lighter. The redesign positioned the driver over the axle and they covered the wooden axle with metal so that it turned more smoothly. These changes made it easier for the horse to pull the chariot. The driver stood, holding onto straps for balance, with a soldier at his side. The soldier held a shield and was armed with a bow and arrows, a sword, and a javelin. The back of the chariot was open so that the charioteers could jump out with ease and engage in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. (7) The Egyptians trained. They held battle competitions in front of the king. Archers shot at targets. Wrestlers grappled with one another. Swordsmen clashed blades. What had once been a rag-tag scrabble of men became an organized military. But they still had work to do on their style of waging war. Before a battle, the Egyptians notified the enemy which day they planned to attack and where. If the enemy wasn't ready, the Egyptians rescheduled. And if the enemy retreated into their fortress, rather than rudely barging in, the Egyptians would patiently wait outside hoping to starve them out. Unfortunately, Egypt's enemies weren't always as courteous.
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