
Scientists find eternal Nile to be more ancient than previously thought - howard941
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-scientists-eternal-nile-ancient-previously.html
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gerbilly
The ancient Egyptians had it so easy. It's probably as close to the garden of
eden as you can get.

Every year, the Nile would flood, bringing in rich alluvial deposits.

All the farmers would have to do is to sow seeds on there plots and then let
the pigs trample it under the soil. No ploughing necessary.

While the crops grew, basically untended, many of the farmers were paid (no it
wasn't slaves) to build the many public monuments, pyramids, temples facades
obelisks etc.

There are even records of workers going on strikes if they didn't like their
work conditions.

The narrow Nile valley was also really easy to defend, which preserved Egypt
from invaders for most of its dynastic history.

~~~
iguy
Maybe.

Or maybe the existence of huge monuments is a sign that someone was somehow
extracting an awful lot of work from other people. Who presumably didn't do it
just for their own amusement.

Maybe the builders got paid. But if they did, the tax money they got paid with
sure didn't reproduce itself spontaneously in the king's basement. More likely
the tax collector had some nice men with pointy implements to encourage
everyone to file on time.

~~~
folli
You don't always need physical pointy implements to achieve this, as a lot of
religious buildings in different points in time show. Sometimes the threat of
eternal damnation is enough. Remember that the pharaos in ancient Egypt did
have a religious significance.

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mrec
Rivers can sometimes feel like surface-level details, but it's surprising how
ancient they can be. One of my favourite geographical factoids is that the
Amazon and the Congo are thought to have once been part of the same river
system in the supercontinent of Pangaea more than 100 million years ago, with
the Amazon part then flowing east to west and emptying into the Pacific.

