 Egypt's Golden Empire Home New Kingdom Special Features The
Series Resources For Educators River Nile  Egypt's dominance of
the ancient world was a result of more than just determination
and brute force. Ancient Egypt was blessed with an abundance of
natural resources - not least the river Nile.  The Nile provided
vast amounts of fertile land and was a major route for
communications and travel - it was the freeway of ancient Egypt.
Boats moved cattle, grain and soldiers across the Kingdom and
the Nile linked Egypt's provincial centers to its capital,
Thebes. This enabled Egypt to function as an integrated kingdom,
rather than a collection of independent provinces.  The golden
touch  Egypt also had many other natural resources that helped
it achieve new levels of wealth and sophistication. The most
important of these was gold. Egypt's gold turned it into a
superpower, respected and courted by friends and enemies alike.
Gold-bearing rocks were crushed and the fragments carried to the
river by donkeys, where th