New Kingdom Egyptian Agriculture

Situated in the Nile Valley from Aswan to the Mediterranean, New Kingdom Egypt (c.1550-1050 B.C.) had an agrarian economy - almost entirely dependent on agriculture for subsistence. Because the climate was too dry for rain-fed farming, all agriculture was restricted to the narrow Nile Valley floodplain. However, due to spatio-temporal fluctuations in Nile flood levels, the amount of water (and thus arable land) in New Kingdom Egypt could also fluctuate greatly. In order to mitigate the risks involved with too-high or too low Nile floods, a system of floodplain basin irrigation had to be managed and maintained by local people. This was primarily undertaken through the coercive power of local political-economic elite hierarchies that owned most of the land. In particular, teh system of collective basin irrigation maintenance and management was incentivized by (A) profit incentives, (B) subsistence dependence on landowners, and (C) coercion/slavery.