Watch: Ancient Egyptian farming
Child: A quern for grinding grain to make flour.
Wow! That must have been really hard work.
These tools are so basic. It’s all so primitive!
Ancient Egyptian person: I beg your pardon. Did you say primitive?
Child: What I meant to say was…
Ancient Egyptian person: This is the cutting edge of farming technology!
Child: More ‘grinding’ really.
Ancient Egyptian person: And I suppose you think it’s easy growing wheat and barley in heat like this?
Child: Well no, but…
Ancient Egyptian person: Well it’s not! We need to know exactly when the river will flood, so that we plant our crops at the right time.
That way, we can take advantage of all the nutrients left behind by the floodwater.
We even measure the level of the River Nile to see how much flooding we can expect.
We have three seasons: Akhet, the flooding season, Peret, the growing season and Shemu, the harvesting season.
During growing season, the fields are ploughed, either by hand, or with oxen.
And we set up a complex network of water channels, for irrigating the crops, otherwise they would dry out.
Child: Wow, that’s really clever!
Ancient Egyptian person: The grain is held in big stores to keep it preserved. We exchange it for other goods like cloth or bread.
So the stores are a bit like banks, where we can keep our grain, or take it out when we need it.
Child: Cool! So what re you grinding in your quern?
Ancient Egyptian person: We’re making flour for baking bread.
Child: Ow! There’s some stone from your quern in my bread.
Ancient Egyptian person: Ok, we’re good at farming, but we’re not perfect.
How did the three farming seasons work?
The ancient Egyptians based their farming around the annual flooding of the River Nile.
There were three seasons in the Egyptian calendar:
| Akhet | Also called the Season of the Inundation. Heavy summer rain in the highlands of Ethiopia each year would cause the Nile to flood as it flowed through Egypt. Farmland could be covered by up to two metres of water. |
| Peret | Also called the Season of the Emergence. As the floodwaters went down, the land beside the Nile was left covered in thick dark mud which was very fertile. Farmers used this season to plant grain, barley and other fruits and vegetables. |
| Shemu | Also called the Season of the Harvest. Egyptians harvested the food they had planted, collected seeds to plant the following year and stored grain in large silos. |
What techniques did farmers use?
To make the most of the annual rising and falling of the Nile, the Egyptians dug channels and walls to divert flood water away from cities and towards fields for farming. This was called basin irrigation.
They also invented tools like the shaduf. A shaduf is a long pole with a bucket attached to the end, which people could use to raise and move water from rivers or lakes onto land.
Why was farming important?
Farming was the basis of the entire Ancient Egyptian civilisation. The flooding of the Nile and the fertile soil allowed them to build a wealthy empire. The ancient Egyptians were amongst the first groups of people to farm on a large scale, growing stable crops on a regular basis.
Activities
Activity 1: The farming seasons
Can you name the farming seasons?
Activity 2: Quiz – Ancient Egyptian farming
Activity 3: History Explorer game
Play this game to test your knowledge and learn even more facts about Ancient Egypt.
History Explorer: Secrets through time
History Explorer: Secrets through time: KS2 History
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