Nile Flood Crisis

The yearly Nile flood happened due to heavy summer rains far away to the south in the highlands that typically occurred around September. Rivers from these areasflowed into the Nile. Each year, the floodwaters deposited new fertile silt into natural basins. Farmers did not have to add fertilizer to the soil. After the water soaked into the earth in the late fall, farmers cast seeds onto the rich soil and turned it over with wooden plows pulled by oxen. Nature did the rest until it was time to harvest the crops in the spring. The cycle started all over again with the next Nile summer flood. The early Egyptians had largely ignored this area as a major farming region. Additionally, the early Egyptians did not have the technology to lift or pump water from one level to another except by physically carrying buckets. The Nile flood did this work for them. Only much later in Egyptian history did farmers use a pole and bucket lever to lift water from
Dry periods had taken place earlier in Egypt’s history. When the Nile failures were reaching their peak and drastically shrinking the food supply, Pepy II was in his 80s or 90s. At the end of his extremely long reign, he and his government administrators undoubtedly lacked the vigor and creativity to cope with such a natural disaster. After his death, as the drought continued, the lack of any strong king to emerge and handle this crisis guaranteed the permanent collapse of the Old Kingdom. Over the next 100 years, Egypt split apart. A civil war raged in the Nile Valley between kings at a new capital near Memphis and rival kings at Thebes. In addition, some nome governors challenged the kings on both sides. Meanwhile, below normal Nile floods persisted, causing widespread starvation and death among the common people. No one authority was in charge to deal with this crisis. By the end of this chaotic period the Old Kingdom had completely