Because the well-being of Egyptian society relied on the annual flows in the Nile River, the ancient Egyptians developed methodologies to measure and record flood levels. Oldest records of Nile flood levels were carved on a large stone monument during the Dynasty V (2480 B. C.). The Palermo Stone is the most valuable surviving fragment of the monument, named after the capital of Sicily were it is located in a museum. The Palermo Stone also records a number of early gods, that copper smelting was taking place, records forty ships that brought wood from and unknown region outside of Egypt.
Nilometers were used to measure the levels of the Nile River. At Karnak, Nile levels were marked on the quay walls of the great temple, dating from about 800 B. C. Three types of nilometers were used: simply marking water levels on the cliffs of river banks; utilizing flights of steps that led down to the river; and using conduits to bring river water to a well or cistern. At the Roda Nilometer, south of Cairo, there were 820 floods recorded between the 7th and 15th centuries, of which 73 percent were normal floods, 22 percent were low, and five percent were destructively high (Said, 1993).
The ancient lake sediments and shorelines in the Faiyum Depression (discussed later) in Middle Egypt also provide a record of Nile floods (Mehringer, et al., 1979; Hassan, 1986, 1998). Various lake levels are indicated by former shoreline features and deposits, which allow the inference of variations of the Nile flood discharge in prehistoric and Pharaonic times. The science of geometry arose from the need to perform new land measurements after every flood of the Nile.
World History
