The Nile River

Some assumed the existence of an earlier river or ancestor of the Nile in the Western Desert. Still, this hypothesis needs evidence to prove its correctness, in addition to the distance of its source from the current Nile by 100 km. Scientists have discussed this hypothesis and proved that it is not geologically correct.

The Nile River is a river that probably arose in the Miocene era, or at least in the following Pliocene era at the very least, and this is indicated by the following:

1- Pliocene deposits were found in the bottom and on both sides of the valley between Cairo and Al-Fashn (south of Beni Suef governorate)

2- Pliocene remains, and fossils were found scattered between Asyut and Esna, and those remains are due to fresh river water.

In the early Pliocene era, the water level of the Sea of ​​Tizi rose 180 m above the sea level, so its waters were submerged. The land of Egypt was occupied in the regions and low lines so that the Pliocene Gulf, which was deposited on its sides and in its bottom, was the remains of the Pliocene. In the late Pliocene era, the sea decreased, and the land rose. The sea receded, leaving its sediments covering the valley The Nile, which proves the existence of the river at this age in the first place if it did not exist at all from the Miocene era.

Scientists assume that the Nile River was present in Egypt since the late Miocene era. It had several smaller branches that drained its waters into the ancient Sea of ​​Thies before forming the delta. By the end of the Miocene, lifting occurred in the Egyptian plateau that made the land tilted towards the north, which increased the river erosion process. This made the river dig its course and deepen it a few meters, and this river was purely local, separated from the rivers of Abyssinia fed by sources in the Red Sea mountains, but why did the Nile River take its current course ?? The Nile River took its current course because it is the low place between the desert, and this place decreased due to torsional movements and then the fractures that occurred in the Miocene era. In the same way, the Egyptian delta associated with the refractive movements arose in the Sinai Peninsula and the Gulf of Suez.

As for the connection of the river with its upper sources, it happened in the Pliocene era after the waters of the Sea of ​​Tiz invaded the Egyptian lowlands at that time, and the occupation of half of the river at the earliest, and with a process of retrograde carving, the river secured its connection to its new sources in Abyssinia.

In this, and all cases, the Nile does not owe its source to Abyssinia or elsewhere but owes it to purely Egyptian geological conditions. It established this great river that fed the land of Egypt with abundant good and gave its ancient people stability and established on its banks the civilization that the world owes to it, thus becoming the Nile River Itself is a gift for geology, the physical geography of Egypt, or in other words (Egypt is the gift of geology and geography, then the Nile and the Egyptians).

And now how were the valley and the delta built ?? Is the combination of each different ?? How is this, if any ??? What are the compounds of each of them ??

Valley Building:

If the Nile began in the past in the late Miocene period, or the Pliocene era at least, then when did we build its valley ?? How is this valley ?? The sediments of the Pliocene Gulf, which were completely submerged after the sea level of Althiz rose to 180 m above sea level in the Pliocene era, is the common basis between the valley and the delta. It is the first liner that lines the bottom of the entire Egyptian valley. The Pliocene sediments layer in the valley settles directly on the base Eocene, unlike the delta that settles the Pliocene sediments on a Miocene base, and to follow the stratigraphy of the layers in the valley, we find it as follows:

Eocine – Lamiocine – Pliocene – Pleistocene.

The construction process is carried out horizontally from the sides and perhaps on the rise slightly.

The components of the valley structure:

There are three basic configurations, and they are

Sediments down the delta

Old silt

Modern silt

These three formations are the constituents of the delta land as well.

(Wouter) gives a depiction of the ruling classes in Egypt through slides and configurations as follows [2]:

Slide and thickness

Configuration

From zero to 5 m

Hard clay ranging to sandy clay

From 5 pm to 10 pm

Sandy clay

From 10 pm to 3 pm

Clay sand

From 15 to 20 m

Sand rich in mica

From 20m to 25m

gravel

From 25m to 30m

The bottom layer is usually clay

From 30m to 40m

Coarse sand and coarse gravel

Delta Building:

The Pliocene sediments settle in the delta on the Miocene base, and to follow the stratigraphy of the layers in the delta; we find it as follows:

Eocin-myosin-febliocene-phblystocin.

The delta’s growth took place in the form of long and compact lines and tongues from the lines and sediments on radiating longitudinal axes inside the Gulf and at its heart. The sediments of the branches began to close and fill the gaps between these lines and tongues to form over the current ages of the delta, and the progress and growth of the delta were largely in the south and slowing To the north, whenever we approached the sea. When Mina entered the delta, warrior and victorious, and united the two kingdoms, the delta level was less than now by about 5 meters, so there were many islands and swamps in it.

Now, what are the historical developments that have gone through the river ???

After the emergence of the first women in Egypt, some changes occurred in the course of the Nile River, such as a natural shift from the stage of youth to the stage of maturity. The rivers’ changes, in general, are either continuous or periodic changes or temporary, temporary changes, and the Nile River has known some periods of human history. Changes, whether in its course, its level, horizontally or vertically or in its water level.

The river began to shift from youth to maturity by deepening its course. From the rush of moderation and refinement, and in a regional way, the changes that occurred in the Nile River increased as we descended with the current to the north. Hence, the changes in the valley are less than in the delta, and the changes in the south of the delta are less than in its north.

And the transformations that the Nile River witnessed were reversible transformations between the south and the north, so while the river was raising the level of its bottom and its valley in the south, it was in the north in a reverse direction, and its level declines.

The local changes that occurred to the Nile can be summarized in seven main changes:

1- The high level of the valley

Since the connection of the Egyptian Nile with the Abyssinian Nile, the silts flow with the water and precipitate at the bottom of the river to raise the level of the bottom and the valley, and the average height of the river bed is about 12 cm per century and 1.03 millimetres every year [3]. The course of Egyptian history.

1- The shrinkage of Faiyum Lake

Lake Faiyum (Mai-Ware) is the lake’s pharaonic name, a lake that differed in its breadth and height in prehistoric times. Still, in the historical stage in a general decline and decline in the lake’s surface level, this is indicated by the terraces surrounding the lake, which were once its shores In the stages of its shrinkage. The issue mainly lies in the siltation of the Sea of ​​Joseph, the narrowing of its course, the inability to clear its course at times, the increase in the level of evaporation, and the decreased water coming to the Sea of ​​Joseph. By tracking the scale of the lake, we find that the water level in the pre-date ranges between +25 AD and +22 AD and in the Old Kingdom, Its level was +21 m + 20 m. In the Middle Kingdom, the lake entered into the Egyptian irrigation project and was used to store the excess water through the Al-Youssef Sea, and the lake level was controlled, but it was not witnessed.

The lake is low in its level, as it was in the days of the Ptolemies, as it reached -2 ​​AD. This limit did not reach the lake throughout its ancient history, except this time due to the ambitious agricultural projects of the Greeks, and from that day and the level of the lake below zero from sea level in the thirteenth century AD Its level has reached -30 m. It is currently around -45 m below sea level.

2- Changes in the main course in the valley:

Changes in the main course in historical times are limited to the processes of erosion and sedimentation. At the same time, between the two banks and they decrease as we go south. Therefore we find the most important river changes from the Qena fold and then north to the end of the river. The changes of the river to its course are carving a part of the bank and depositing it in the opposite bank or Transferring an island and building another island. Thus the process of sculpting, denuding, transporting and sedimenting is parallel and equal unless the transfer is from one side to the other for a long period. Thus the river moves its course completely, then cities close to the carved coast disappear, and other cities approach the river from the same coast. At the same time, cities move away Other than the river on the opposite shore due to sedimentation, and this has already happened, it seems in Upper Egypt more than once. The ancient Greeks and Romans who visited Egypt, such as Herodotus and Decor, describe the places of many cities on the two banks and the places near these cities or far from the river, which makes it easier The process of identifying times when the river changed its course during the classical era, and the Nile River changed its course to the west in Islamic times, see (Figure 2)

3- Changes of branches in the delta:

The Delta, the most changed place throughout Egyptian history, has many complex changes that continued throughout ancient Egyptian history and continued in the classical and Arab eras; many branches became extinct and disappeared. What remained of them except the Rashid and Damietta branches, and to follow this development in the classical ages briefly, we mention three important sources in this The connection is only one of them for the geographer. These sources are the historian Herodotus (5th century BC) – the historian of Strabon (1st century BC) – the geographer Ptolemy (2nd century BC).

There is even a simple agreement between the three sources, but some approximation can resolve the difference. Herodotus mentioned 7 branches of the Nile in the Delta (Figure 4). Strabo also mentioned seven branches with a slight difference in their names and location, while Ptolemy is the only geographer among the three. And the only one whose original map he drew by his handwriting was found. Still, he mentioned nine branches of the Nile in the delta and a branch that divides the delta crosswise and connects the nine branches, and this may be industrial dug in Egypt during the Pharaonic era to facilitate the process of irrigation and water delivery all the lands of the delta, and get rid of floodwater Also, by comparing the names of the branches mentioned by Ptolemy with what Herodotus and Strabo mentioned, we find some agreement, and to summarize the matter and present the three sources and compare them, we rely on the following table to better know the sources, and then the group of maps that follow the table for clarification [1]:

Herodotus – mouth

Strabo

Ptolemy

Current label

Belize (Al Farma)

Pelosi

Bob

Al-Sharqawiyah – Abu Al-Akhdar – Faqous

The Saysian (The Beautiful)

Tanisi

Tanisi

Moise and partly hands

Mendesi (Ras El Bar)

Mendesi

The Mendesian estuary and the Busiri branch

The little sea is partly

Albucoli (synthetic)

Fatmiti

Fateenite downstream

And the Atribee branch

Damietta branch partially

Spiniti (Bogaz Burullus)

Spinite

Spinite

Shebin Sea

Polpiti (industrial)

Polypity

next

Partially Rashid branch

Canopy (Abu Qir)

Canopy

Agatho Damon

The Hercules downstream

Bahr Diab and Mahmoudiya

Buti is accidental from the Pelusi to the Canopy.

If we look closely at the table, it becomes evident that the names mentioned by some as branches may be the mouths of a branch originally from the branches mentioned in all sources. Still, the strange thing in the table is what Herodotus mentioned about the Rashid and Damietta branches: industrial, that is, humans split them. Is it reasonable For industrial branches to inherit this gigantic natural network ???

From the next maps, it appears that the Blues Branch was crossing the Bitter Lakes to pour into the Red Sea at the Gulf of Suez, so was the Nile from the beginning a Mediterranean and Red River at the same time ?? As the following maps show?

The branches of the delta according to Herodotus, according to Paul’s interpretation.

The branches of the delta at Herodotus according to the interpretation of the age of Tosson.

In the Arab era: the image of the delta also appears with some complexity and difference. Still, the picture can be summarized far from the difference in important things that benefit the research more and more. In the Arab era, a group of Arab geographers visited Egypt and drew their explanatory maps of the delta and mentioned the number of its branches that did not exceed three branches in the Arab era were blocked by the Damietta and Rashid branches. The third branch began to disappear, and among these geographers, Ibn Abd al-Hakam (9 CE) Ibn Sarabiyoun (10 CE CE) al-Idrisi (12 CE CE), and the opinions of these geographers can be summarized in the following:

A – The number of branches did not exceed 3 only, even if Ibn Abd al-Hakam disagreed with that and mentioned four branches.

B- The two branches of Rashid and Damietta occupied the foreground in the reduced network, but they did not exist in their current form until the tenth century AD.

C- The old branches have disappeared or suffocated and come out of the two branches (Rashid and Damietta) and return to flow into them again, forming a group of islands along the two branches, such as the Shebeen Sea.

4- subsidence of the coast and the north of the delta:

During historical times, the northern coast of the delta has been subjected to subsidence, the loss of some of its parts under the water, and the scientific process is beyond doubt. The evidence and documents prove it conclusive evidence, and there is no room for doubt, even if scholars differ in their causes and interpretation. The questions that arise themselves in this regard are many, especially after these are related. The phenomenon with two other phenomena is the emergence of coastal lakes and the emergence of prairies, in a way that makes it difficult to determine which of the three phenomena was the first, and among these questions when did the coast descend, whether the land fell or the water rose, and what are the causes, are they natural or human, or both, …. .etc.

The phenomenon of coastal subsidence of the delta has many pieces of evidence, such as the Ptolemaic monuments submerged in Alexandria in Shatby, the effects of Kom al-Shuqafa submerged under groundwater in Alexandria as well, as well as the sinking of the island of Antirudus, which was in the middle of the eastern port in classical times. Then it was submerged by the sea and sank below it. The area adjacent to Abu Qir and the estuary Canopy was submerged under the sea (Herakleum – Manutis – Canopus), and these cities were populated in classical times. In the middle and east of the delta, many remnants are indicating the subsidence of the coast. Lake Manzala is a museum of the remains of sunken cities and villages, and the prairie itself is a sure witness to The occurrence of this coastal subsidence.

And what is historically supported by this decline is what Al-Maqrizi mentioned (14 AD) of the sea’s invasion of Lake Tens (presently the status quo) and the flooding of many cities located on it, and the scholars differed into two groups, one of whom said that the land fell. The other said that the sea waters rose, but the first theory is more widespread.

5- Formation of delta lakes:

Scientists differed as to when the lakes appeared and whether they appeared after or before the coast’s descent. Still, according to al-Maqrizi’s previous account, the existence of the lakes appears before the landing of the northern coast of the delta. The scholars also disagreed about the origin of the lakes, whether it is marine or riverine, or both, so that the lakes were formed from the extinct branches of the Nile. Then I called the time of the landing of the coast to the sea, which is the closest to the general opinion of scientists.

6- the genesis of the prairie:

The last phenomenon, the prairie, mentioned the Pharaonic texts and then the Greek travellers that the delta was a centre of ponds, prairies, and swamps. This is the same as any river that was recently deposited in an area such as the delta’s estuaries. Humans in the purification and drainage of these low-lying areas of the delta (human factor), and maybe workers together, and the prairies crawled after their formation during successive eras.