On the Issue of Territorial State in Ancient Egypt
Demidchik Arkadiy E.
The article explores the factors underlying the unusually early formation and long-lasting stability of territorial state in Ancient Egypt. The virtually single-crop system of crop-cultivation and the cattle-breeding deficiency of Upper Egypt made prolonged crop failures deadly for separate nomes. The latter were always in need of a united centralized state that could timely and effectively redistribute the supply of provisions and even their population. Other important factors were: a) the need for the resources of the Mediterranean as well as of Central Africa; b) the necessity to use the whole of the Nile waterway; c) the importance to deliver large cargo from the remote regions of the desert, which could only be carried out by the central government with powerful means of coercion.