Irrigation and the Nile

Irrigation and the Nile

Q:

Is a technological system primarily

the technology?

Th:

Technological systems have hardware

and software.

Land reclamation in ancient Egypt

Tomb in Thebes, @1420 BCE

Singer, V. I, p. 540

Irrigation and the Nile

I. Big and little technologies
II. Nile irrigation: the hardware
III. Maintaining the system: the software
IV. Organizing the great pyramid of Giza

Irrigation and the Nile

I. Big and little technologies
A.

personal use
-- pottery, stone tools, grass skirts

B.

communal/community use
-- granaries, pyramids, ziggurats,
irrigation systems, gardens

Formal Egyptian Garden, from tomb at Thebes, @1450 BCE

Irrigation and the Nile

I.

Big and little technologies, cont.

C.

Irrigation systems
-- enormous public works in Egypt,
smaller systems in Mesopotamia
-- aqueducts since 1000 BCE
-- combination of small and large technologies
-- shadduf
-- small channels

Shadduf, used to water palm garden

Clay counterpoise, sloping funnel
Copied from tomb at Thebes, original @1500 BCE
Singer, V. I, p. 523 (?)

Watering an Egyptian garden with shaddufs

Singer, V. I, p. 544 (?)

Irrigation and the Nile

II. Nile irrigation: the hardware
A.

The Nile cycle

-- strange climate: annual flood, little rain
-- very ancient evidence
-- Pharonic records, tomb illustrations
-- the red river of life: late summer floods

The Nile in flood

www.historyonthenet.com/Egyptians/farming.htm

Nile in flood

Nile River flooding the fields, near Al Uqsur, Egypt, [slide].

Irrigation and the Nile

II.

Nile irrigation: the hardware, cont.

B.

Basin irrigation
-- Neolithic, ancient times: less rain
-- began with dykes parallel to river
-- checker-board system
-- basins of 1000-4000 acres,
each with own system of dykes
and channels
-- flood channeled into sluices
-- 4-6 foot depth of flood
-- water drained back out through sluices
-- silt as fertilizer

Garden of root vegetables, with checker-board irrigation system

Tomb, Beni Hasan, Egypt, @ 1900 BCE

Irrigation and the Nile

III. Maintaining the system: the software
A.

organizing labor
-- laborers and overseers: complementary
units of society
-- ex: moving huge statues with
armies of men

Richard Shelton Kirby, Engineering in History (1956, Dover 1990), 17

Richard Shelton Kirby, Engineering in History (1956, Dover 1990), 22

Irrigation and the Nile

III. Maintaining the system: the software
A.

organizing labor
-- laborers and overseers: complementary units
of society
-- ex: moving huge statues with
armies of men
-- grain storage and surplus
-- royal stockpiles and rationing
-- 11th Dynasty
-- Joseph story

Irrigation and the Nile

III. Maintaining the system: the software,
cont.
B.

organizing space
-- boundaries obliterated
-- government officials re-marked
territory
-- cord-stretchers

Cord stretchers

Singer, V. I, p. 541

Irrigation and the Nile

III. Maintaining the system: the software,
C.

cont.

Flood prediction
-- Nilometers
-- measure height up-river to
predict timing and depth of
flood down-river
-- 20+ found or recorded
-- from @ 3500 BCE on
-- motive for conquest: control of Nile

Aswan Nilometer,
Elephantine Island
December 2002, Hajor

Aswan Nilometer,
Elephantine Island
December 2002, Hajor

Irrigation and the Nile

III. Maintaining the system: the software, cont.
D. authority and knowledge
1) knowledge in physical form
-- records: cords with knots
-- scale on wall of Nilometer
-- control of its physical form is
control of knowledge

Irrigation and the Nile

III. Maintaining the system: the software, cont.
D. authority and knowledge, cont.
2)

knowledge as know-how
-- tacit knowledge
-- skill

3)

technology and power

-- Digger of Canals: governor of province, Old
Kingdom
-- building canals was a royal activity

Scorpion King
cutting first sod
of irrigation canal
Hierakonpolis, Egypt
3200 BCE
Pottery fragment

Great Pyramid of Giza (or of Khufu, or of Cheops)

@2600 BCE (Old Kingdom)

Egyptian dynasties
Alternate between chaos and control

Old Kingdom

2778-2423 BCE

Central irrigation
Giza pyramids

Middle Kingdom

2160-1785 BCE

Kahun/Lahun
pyramids

New Kingdom

1580-1090 BCE

Great temples,
tombs

Irrigation and the Nile

IV.

Organizing the Great Pyramid

A.

The Great Pyramid of Giza

-- what it took to build it
-- Herodotus: 30 yrs, 100,000 men
-- Craig Smith: 10 yrs, 13,200 men

Irrigation and the Nile

II. Organizing the Great Pyramid
B.

The Great Pyramid of Giza

-- who built it? slaves or freemen?
-- Mark Lehner: free men
-- they ate meat and were paid wages
-- Rosalie David: slaves and workmen
-- towns of Kahun & Deir el-Medina
-- even slaves fished and got paid

Irrigation and the Nile

II. Organizing the Great Pyramid
C.

The Great Pyramid of Giza

-- what counts as slavery?
-- most workers conscripted
peasants
-- craftsmens families used slaves
-- absentee records show leniency
-- strikes held in later dynasties

Major strike under Ramses III (@1158 BCE)

advice from chief of police, in Deir el Medina

Behold, I tell you my advice. Go up, collect your
tools, lock your doors and bring your wives and your
children. And I will go in front of you to the Mansion
of Menmaetre (the Temple of Sethos I at Aurna) and
install you there in the morning.

Irrigation and the Nile

Sources
Bernard Bosquet, Les techniques d lirrigation dans les oasis de lgypte pendant lantiquit
romaine, Science et technique en perspective 31 (1995): 1-7
Pierre Briant, Irrigation et drainage dans l'antiquit :
qanats et canalisation en Iran, en Egypte et en Grce (Paris: Thotn, 2001)
Salvatore Circiacono, Land Drainage and Irrigation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998)
Rosalie David, The Pyramid Builders of Ancient Egypt: A Modern Investigation of Pharoah's
Workforce (London and New York: Routledge, 1996)
Guy Demortier, La construction de la pyramide de Khops, Revue des questions scientifiques
175 (2004): 341-381
C.J. Eyre, The water regime for orchards and plantations in Pharonic Egypt, Journal of Egyptian
Archaeology 80 (1994): 57-80
Lutz Knrnschild, Zur Geschichte der Nilwassernutzung in der gyptischen Landwirtschaft von
den Anfngen bis zur Gegenwart (Frankfurt and Bern: Lang, 1993)
Vladimir Novokshchenov, Pyramid Power, Civil Engineering ASCE 66 (Nov. 1996): 50-53
Martin Reuss, Seeing Like An Engineer: Water Projects and the Measurement of the
Incommensurable, Technology and Culture 49 (2008): 531-546
Craig B. Smith. "Program Management B.C.", Civil Engineering 69 (June 1999): pp. 34-41