How Did The Nile River Contribute To The Development Of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

There is no doubt that the annual flooding of the Nile River was the greatest environmental factor contributing to the development of early Egyptian civilization. The Nile snakes through a vast desert wasteland with the world’s largest desert, the Sahara, to the east, and several smaller deserts to the west. These deserts are inhospitable to most life forms, but the earliest settlers to the region, around 6000 BCE, were drawn to the banks of the Nile by plentiful fish and abundant fruit trees. (ushistory.org, 2014) These settlers figured out, over time, how to harness the annual rise and fall of the river, turning the “barren wasteland into a thriving empire.” (Hoyt, 2014) The inundation of the Nile occurs around July every year and the