So did watermelons and other crops from Sudan. By 4000 B.C.E., village
communities stretched from the Nile Delta to Nubia, in modern Sudan.
Small kingdoms appeared and were rapidly united within a single large state.
Around 3100 B.C.E., a southern ruler called Menes (or Narmer) uni¿ ed the
region north of Aswan into a single empire. The Narmer Palette, probably
engraved by a contemporary, shows the pharaoh smiting his enemies.
Cities were less important than in Mesopotamia, though Menes established
a capital at Memphis, south of modern Cairo. Unlike the rulers of Sumer,
who were either priests or kings, Egypt’s “pharaohs” were treated as gods.
Their tombs, the pyramids, reÀ ect their high
status. The largest, the pyramid of Cheops,
was built between 2500 and 2600 B.C.E.,
using 2.3 million limestone blocks.
Despite occasional periods of political
breakdown, Egyptian dynasties ruled the
Nile region for almost 2,600 years. The
regularity of the Nile À oods may explain
why Egyptian civilization avoided the sort of ecological collapse experienced
in many other early Agrarian civilizations. A hieroglyphic writing system
developed early here, possibly under indirect Mesopotamian inÀ uence. Trade
winds heading south and river currents heading north encouraged trade along
the Nile. Egyptian rulers sent expeditions for ivory and gold to Nubia and
Punt and for timber to Lebanon. We still have ¿ ne illustrations of a À eet sent
by Hatshepsut.
Early in the 3rd millennium, cities and states appeared in the north of modern
Pakistan and India. The Indus river brought rich Himalayan silts but À ooded
less predictably than the Nile. By 2500 B.C.E., there were many small towns
and at least two huge cities, now known as Harappa and Mohenjo Daro. Each
had about 40,000 inhabitants. Houses and streets were built along a carefully
planned grid system using prefabricated bricks. There were water and sewage
systems, uniform systems of weights and measures, specialized crafts,
markets, and extensive trade with Mesopotamia and Central Asia. Here,
too, a writing system evolved. Unfortunately, it has not yet been deciphered,
so our knowledge of this civilization depends entirely on archaeology. The
The annual À oods of the
Nile, the world’s longest
river, brought nutritious
silts from the south.