The Nile flows northward through Egypt, gradually broadening as it passes the villages, fields, and distant red cliffs of the valley. As the river broadens into the Delta, smaller streams branch away from the main course and flow through tangled, dense growths of reeds. In ancient times, clumps of easily harvested papyrus grew here in abundance, providing Egyptian villagers with the raw material for baskets, rope, boats, tools, and bedding mats.

Wildlife was abundant in the Nile Delta. Plovers, pigeons, ibis, herons, cranes, ducks, and quail fed on insects and fish. Hippopotamuses shared the marshes with crocodiles, weasles, hares, and wild cats. Birds and mammals all watched carefully for the poisonous snakes that slithered through the long Delta grasses. In most places, the land was too waterlogged or overgrown for farming, and as a result human...