Disasters Connected with the Rhythm of the Nile in the Textual Sources

In the course of the millennia of Egyptian history, there is a repeated occurrence of natural catastrophes which placed the individual and society in the face of dramatic phenomena such as destruction and death. Two of these phenomena, famine and epidemics (iAdt rnpt “annual pestilence”), were closely connected with the inundation of the Nile, that annual event which was the bearer of life throughout the land. It may seem paradoxical, but precisely that event which was so beneficial gave rise to lethal results. The famine and the epidemics were wholly unexceptional, even if they did not both occur with the same frequency. In fact, the famine was a less frequent event than the annual pestilence.