Museum of Antiquity: A Description of Ancient Life

by L. W. Yaggy; T. L. Haines

The mode of irrigation adopted by the ancient Egyptians was exceedingly simple, being merely the shadoof, or pole and bucket of the present day; and, in many instances, men were employed to carry the water in pails, suspended by a wooden yoke they bore upon their shoulders. The same yoke was employed for carrying other things, as boxes, baskets containing game and poultry, or whatever was taken to market; and every trade seems to have used it for this purpose, from the potter and the brick-maker, to the carpenter and the shipwright.

Part of the garden was laid out in walks shaded with trees, usually planted in rows, and surrounded, at the base of the stem, with a circular ridge of earth, which, being lower at the centre than at the circumference, retained the water, and directed it more immediately towards the roots. It is difficult to say if trees were trimmed into any particular shape, or if their formal appearance in the sculpture is merely owing to a conventional mode of representing them; but, since the pomegranate, and some other fruit trees, are drawn with spreading and irregular branches, it is possible that sycamores, and others, which presented large masses of foliage, were really trained in that formal manner, though, from the hieroglyphic signifying "tree" having the same shape, we may conclude it was only a general character for all trees.

Some, as the pomegranates, date-trees, and dom-palms, are easily recognized in the sculptures, but the rest are doubtful, as are the flowering plants, with the exception of the lotus and a few others.

To the garden department belonged the care of the bees, which were kept in hives very like our own. In Egypt they required great attention; and so few are its plants at the present day, that the owners of hives often take the bees in boats to various spots upon the Nile, in quest of flowers. They are a smaller kind than our own; and though found wild in the country, they are far less numerous than wasps, hornets, and ichneumons. The wild bees live mostly under stones, or in clefts of the rock, as in many other countries; and the expression of Moses, as of the Psalmist, "honey out of the rock," shows that in Palestine their habits were the same. Honey was thought of great importance in Egypt, both for household purposes, and for an offering to the gods; that of Benha (thence surnamed El assal), or Athribis, in the Delta, retained its reputation to a late time; and a jar of honey from that place was one of the four presents sent by John Mekaukes, the governor of Egypt, to Mohammed.

Large gardens were usually divided into different parts; the principal sections being appropriated to the date and sycamore trees, and to the vineyard. The former may be called the orchard. The flower and kitchen gardens also occupied a considerable space, laid out in beds; and dwarf trees, herbs, and flowers, were grown in red earthen pots, exactly like our own, arranged in long rows by the walks and borders.

Besides the orchard and gardens, some of the large villas had a park or paradise, with its fish-ponds and preserves for game, as well as poultry-yards for keeping hens and geese, stalls for fattening cattle, wild goats, gazelles, and other animals originally from the desert, whose meat was reckoned among the dainties of the table.

It was in these extensive preserves that the rich amused themselves with the chase; and they also enclosed a considerable space in the desert itself with net-fences, into which the animals were driven, and shot with arrows, or hunted with dogs.

Gardens are frequently represented in the tombs of Thebes and other parts of Egypt, many of which are remarkable for their extent. The one here introduced is shown to have been surrounded by an embattled wall, with a canal of water passing in front of it, connected with the river. Between the canal and the wall, and parallel to them both, was a shady avenue of various trees; and about the centre was the entrance, through a lofty door, whose lintel and jambs were decorated with hieroglyphic inscriptions, containing the name of the owner of the grounds, who in this instance was the king himself. In the gateway were rooms for the porter, and other persons employed about the garden, and, probably, the receiving room for visitors, whose abrupt admission might be unwelcome; and at the back a gate opened into the vineyard. The vines were trained on a trellis-work, supported by transverse rafters resting on pillars; and a wall, extending round it, separated this part from the rest of the garden. At the upper end were suites of rooms on three different stories, looking upon green trees, and affording a pleasant retreat in the heat of summer. On the outside of the vineyard wall were placed rows of palms, which occurred again with the dom and other trees, along the whole length of the exterior wall; four tanks of water, bordered by a grass plot, where geese were kept, and the delicate flower of the lotus was encouraged to grow, served for the irrigation of the grounds; and small kiosks or summer-houses, shaded with trees, stood near the water, and overlooked beds of flowers. The spaces containing the tanks, and the adjoining portions of the garden, were each enclosed by their respective walls, and a small subdivision on either side, between the large and small tanks, seems to have been reserved for the growth of particular trees, which either required peculiar care, or bore a fruit of superior quality.