ABSTRACT
The geography of the Nile Valley is, of course, familiar to anyone with an interestin pharaonic civilization, but that familiarity tends perhaps to cloud our appreciation of its unusual and even unique qualities. Essentially a major river system passing through a hyper-arid desert (it has sometimes been described as a ‘linear oasis’), the valley consists of the river itself, with an average width of about 500 metres, and a strip of arable alluvial soil either side, giving a flood plain width varying from three to 12 kilometres. The edges of the valley are of only seasonal potential use, and in times of low floods and during the dry season were used for occasional grazing or abandoned altogether.
