Lecture 3: Egypt and the Gift of the Nile

Egypt and the Gift of the Nile............................................................

Lecture 3

T

he fi rst proper civilization is generally referred to as Sumer, which

encompassed a few dozen cities, including Lagash, Umma, Uruk,

and Ur—all of which are in modern-day Iraq. These people practiced

year-round agriculture, created complex irrigation systems, and practiced

monoculture, which involves growing single crops intensively. The fi rst

recorded recipes were found in these cities, which began to fl ourish around

4000 to 3500 B.C. In this lecture, you will learn that a civilization blessed with

great fertility and natural boundaries, combined with court patronage from

the top, is bound to develop a complex cuisine that will last for millennia.

Ancient Egypt

 Egypt is the fi rst place to have a fully developed, socially stratifi ed

civilization outside the Fertile Crescent. The agricultural revolution

was imported there, and it’s the fi rst place that we have full

documentary as well as archaeological evidence of agriculture,

domestication, cuisine, and medicine.

 There is evidence of extensive writings as well as paintings of

foodstuffs; therefore, we can talk about the history of food there.

We also have tons of physical evidence courtesy of the hundreds

of preserved Egyptians—mummies—with whom there was often

entombed jars of food.

 Egypt was ruled almost continuously by the same people from

about 3100 B.C. to about 525 B.C., when the Persians and then the

Greeks came in. Egypt has a very long and stable history of about

2.5 millennia—perhaps the longest continual civilization on Earth,

with the exception of China.

 Egypt had long stretches of peaceful and prosperous dynasties,

unlike Sumerians, whose cities were constantly fi ghting among

themselves. Egypt, in contrast, is a big stable empire with a well-