The civilization of Ancient Egypt grew up around the Nile River. A lot of the area to the East and west on the modern map was desert then, just as it is today, and in ancient times as in modern ones, the vase majority of the population lived along the banks of the Nile or its triangular northern Delta. In concept, its better to look at the land of Egypt in a way much different then the modern map. Think of it as looking like the sacred and beautiful lotus flower, with the Nile River forming its stem and the broad Delta as its bloom!
The Nile is the longest river in the world, stretching about 4,200 miles. It has two major sources, the highlands of Ethiopia and the lakes in east Africa. These two Niles, known as the blue Nile and the White, respectively, converge near the city of Khartoum, in what is today the country of Sudan. From there, through a series of six "cataracts," of rapids, until reaching the area of the modern city of Aswan. Flowing north for several hundred miles, the river splits into two major branches just past modern Cairo before emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. [In ancient times, there were seven branches of the Nile flowing through the Delta region.]
The following statement by the Greek author Hecataeus seems to be quoted in nearly every introductory book about Ancient Egypt, so why not here as well? "Egypt is the gift of the Nile." Such a simple statement, but, oh, so true. It was the Nile River and its natural cycles that allowed Egyptian civilization to develop and thrive. Every year, (up until when the ugly and hubristic Aswan High Dam was built) the river would go through a flood stage, leaving in its wake a nutrient-rich deposit of silt that would renew the agricultural farmland. This process is known as the inundation. As you can imagine, the coming of the inundation was something of a concern - too much water could cause some serious damage to settlements, but, probably worse, too little could cause food shortages! A perfect inundation was obviously something desired by all, a combined with intensive irrigation, such inundation's turned Egypt into a fertile bread basket!
As a geographical bonus, the Ancient Egyptians were blessed not only with agricultural renewal, but also with a river that flowed north and prevailing winds that blew south. This, of course, allowed for travel up and down the Nile because travelers could use the current to propel them north, to lower Egypt, and the wind to propel them south, to upper Egypt. This facilitated the transport of goods and political and military control.
The Desert areas to the East and west of the Nile agricultural regions hemmed in the majority of the population, but several Oases to the West were home to settlements from time to time. Southwest of modern Cairo, is a region known as the "Fayyum" which was a Nile-fed Lake. Today this lake, Birket Qarun, is brackish and greatly reduced in size, but the Fayyum still serves as a major agricultural region as it did in the past. The Eastern desert features a chain of mountains from north to south and was regularly visited for quarrying and mining of precious materials such as gold. There were also routes to the East that provided access to the Red Sea.
The geographical nature of the land also played a role in Egypt's belief system. To the West, where the sun set, lay the underworld, or the land of the dead. Consequently, many cemeteries were established on that side of the Nile. The cycles of the Nile and agriculture also inspired religious notions of fertility and rebirth.
As the Egyptians divided their country into two parts, the South and the North, so they divided the river, and thus there came into being the Neter of the Nile of the South, and the Neter of the Nile of the North. An attempt has been made to show that the Nile of the south was that portion of the river which flowed from the Sudan to Philae, but this is not the case, for the Egyptians believed that the Nile rose in the first cataract, in the Qerti, or "Double Cavern", and the Nile of the South was to them that portion of the river which extended from Elephantine to a place some little distance north of the modern Asyut.
The Neter of both of those Niles is the Neter Hapi. When depicted with his two Niles associated to Him He holds the two plants, papyrus and lotus, or two vases, from which He is believed to pour out the two Niles. Hapi is identified as one of the great primeval, creative Neteru, and finally He is declared to be, not only the maker of the universe, but the creator of everything from which both it and all things therein sprang. He is the embodiment of the Nile, and its gifts it gave to Egypt.
There was, moreover, something very mysterious about Hapi, which made him to be regarded as of a different nature from Ra, for while the movement of the Sun-Neter was apparent to all men, and His places of rising and setting were known, the source of the waters of the Nile-Neter was unknown. The Egyptians, it is true, at one period of their history, believed that the Nile rose out of the ground between two mountains which lay between the island of Elephantine, and the island of Philae, but they had no exact idea where and how the inundation took place, and the rise and fall of the river were undoubtedly a genuine mystery to them. The profound reverence and adoration which they paid to the Nile are well expressed in the Hymn to The Nile, as found in a papyrus of the 18th or 19th Dynasty.
It must be noted too that in one aspect Hapi is identified with Asar, and this being so Aset became His female counterpart, and it is probable, as E. A. Budge says: "When offerings were made to Osiris, i.e., Osiris Apis, or Serapis, in late dynastic times, when every sanctuary of this double God was called a 'Serapeum", Hapi was held to be included among the forms of the God."
In Asar's aspect of a water-Neter, He is the personification of the falling Nile, or the Nile in winter, but he is, nevertheless, the cause of the fertility of Egypt, which was personified as Aset, and was the father of the young Heru, who in due course grew into an Asar, and produced by means of Aset a young Heru to take His place, Becoming thus the "Father of His Father."
Among a people like the Egyptians, it would not be very long before the rise, and inundation, and fall of the Nile would be compared to the chief periods in the lives of men, and before the renewed rise of the Nile in the following year would be compared to man's immortality, which in Egypt was associated from the earliest of times.
