The Nile River

S1 E1: Egypt is a "Gift of the Nile." This famous quote from Herodotus, who traveled through the country in around 650 BC, is still relevant today. Modern-day visitors make the same observation: the Nile is like a green snake winding through the desert. From Rosetta, where it flows into the Mediterranean, to Abu Simbel, where it leaves Egyptian territory to begin its journey through Sudan, the banks of the great river are covered with a thick layer of silt deposited over thousands of years. Today, the majority of Egyptians live on its shores. As in the time of the pharaohs, they fish and channel water from the river to irrigate fields plowed by oxen. These same scenes, familiar to Egyptians of the 21st century, have their equivalents on the walls of tombs and temples in Pharaonic Egypt, some of them over 3000 years old.