Sunday, December 23, 2012

Agriculture in ancient Egypt

Agriculture: Backbone of the Economy

Egypt’s agricultural economy was built on a technique known as basin  cultivation. Natural depressions (low areas) that were flooded by the  inundation were surrounded with berms and dams to hold in the water.  Canals let water in or out as these basins as needed. In addition, during prosperous times desert land was irrigated and marshy land was drained to make more farmland. 




The inundation often destroyed or moved boundary markers and  damaged or destroyed canals, berms, ponds, and dams. Once the flood- waters were gone, farmers helped government officials re-measure  croplands. Damaged water control systems had to be rebuilt or repaired  swiftly, so planting could begin. The recently soaked fields needed little or no plowing.

The farmer  scattered seeds and turned his animals and children loose in the fields  to trample it in. A farmer’s tools were simple. They included primitive  picks and hoes, baskets, and heavy pottery water jars carried across the  shoulders on frames called yokes.  Farmers grew two kinds of wheat, emmer (Triticum dicoccum) and  spelt (Triticum spelta). They also grew several varieties of barley (Hordeum vulgare), mostly for beer.

Farmers worked together to harvest one  field after another as quickly as possible, using wood sickles with flint  blades. It was hot, backbreaking work. But they tried to make it easier  with competitions, work songs, and many jars of beer. The stalks of  grain were gathered into bundles and carried by donkeys to the threshing floor in the village.

Emmer and spelt both require vigorous threshing (beating the  grains out of their husks) before they can be ground into coarse f lour.  Animals and children trampled the grain to separate out the husks.  The grain was tossed into the air and the lighter husks blew away.  The heavier grains fell into large, f lat baskets. The grain was then put  though a coarse filter to remove pebbles and insects. Husks and stems  were saved for making mud-brick. The grain was measured, packed  into sacks, and stored in granaries, awaiting the tax collector.

The third major crop was flax (Linum usitatissimum). Bundles of  flax fibers were carried off to be prepared for spinning, weaving into  cloth, and braiding into rope—after the tax collector had taken his cut.
 
 
 




 

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