The Nile Sacred Rivers with Simon Reeve

I'm going on a series of astonishing adventures...

Wow!

It's absolutely stunning.

..travelling along three of the mightiest rivers on the planet.

These rivers have given rise to some of the world's greatest civilizations.

For centuries, we've worshipped their life-giving waters...

..and feared their awesome, destructive powers.

Current is a killer!

On these epic journeys, I'll meet some extraordinary characters...

HE SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE

..and experience the very different cultures,

religions and countries that have emerged along our sacred rivers.

In this episode, I'll be travelling along the world's longest river,

the Nile.

Two great tributaries form this mighty river, the White Nile

running north from Lake Victoria and the Blue Nile that springs from the

highlands of Ethiopia, where I'll begin my journey from source to sea.

The Nile flows through the arid landscapes of Sudan and Egypt.

It's a site that makes you bite your lip.

The life-giving river is one of the cradles of humanity.

These are some of the greatest treasures of human civilization.

But with populations along the river banks rising,

an ever-greater strain is being placed on the river,

threatening the stability of the entire region.

This is one of the greatest potential flash points in the world.

With the people and countries along the Nile arguing over how

they can use this great river, I want to know who really owns

these sacred waters.

My journey began in the central highlands of Ethiopia.

I was heading for what many Ethiopians say is

the source of the Blue Nile.

Few rivers have captured the imagination quite like the Nile.

For thousands of years, the source of the Nile was a secret

known only to the people who lived beside it.

Explorers sought it out, venturing deep into the heart of Africa.

Many of them never returned.

But here, it's just a stream.

But eventually the Blue Nile will widen -

it will become a river in its own right.

It will join up with the White Nile

and together they will form the all-powerful Nile river.

I grant you, though - it's not very impressive at this point.

I think actually here,

I might even be able to jump that.

I've jumped the Nile!

HE LAUGHS

Ah!

Source is this way.

I've come to this site, Gish Abay, where the waters begin

an epic journey north towards the Mediterranean Sea, because millions

believe it is the source of the Nile and a place of divine power.

My goodness! Look at the number of people here.

So they're here because this is the holiest spot on the Nile.

This is a site that is sacred to both Muslims and Christians,

who believe that this is the source, not just of the Nile,

but of one of the rivers of the Garden of Eden.

Most of the 93 million Ethiopians are Christian,

and pilgrims here had travelled from across the country.

This is the source just over here, I think.

Look at the structure around it.

Not what I was expecting.

Why are you here? Why is the source so holy?

Why is it considered such a sacred site?

-TRANSLATION:

-In the beginning, God created the river as a heavenly river, not as an earthly one.

It is a gift from God.

Since its creation, it has been a source of holy water

and served the first people in heaven.

Now it turns out that this is...

the other source, the proper source is in a building just over there.

Only priests are allowed to go in there.

It's a little bit underwhelming in some ways, because of course,

this isn't the mighty river as we imagine it to be

but this is how it starts.

Every river starts with a trickle.

Ah!

The water of the Nile at the source.

It's wet and wonderful. Very memorable, actually.

Feels very special.

I'll remember this moment long after the water has dried.

Now you can kiss.

Making a blessing. Thank you very much indeed.

There was something very authentic about this simple, remote site.

It's not something created for foreign tourists - and was

full of Ethiopians who believe in the healing power of the Nile.

Salaam, salaam. Salaam, salaam, salaam, salaam.

So you've got a kidney infection

and you believe that the waters of the Nile can help to cure you.

But how will you use the waters and what do you think they will do for you?

-TRANSLATION:

-I believe in the Holy Bible, and it says that if a person believes

and is baptized by holy water, they will be cured.

The holy spring here is a gift of God.

It has the power of God and has just cured me.

I found it upsetting to hear the sometimes desperate hope

invested in the river - but perhaps their faith is understandable.

Most Ethiopians live in remote rural areas with limited access

to health care.

Poverty is rife in Ethiopia.

The United Nations ranks it amongst

the poorest countries in the world.

For many, the Nile is a source of hope and salvation.

It was humbling to witness the strength of their belief.

Some people might think that worshipping a river or even

just the source of a river sounds a little bit exotic,

shall we say, but this river is a life-giver.

It provides water for

and irrigates the fields of tens of millions of people, so to me,

anyway, it makes perfect sense to celebrate it and even worship it.

Salaam, salaam, salaam.

We're off along the Nile.

The source is more than 8,000 feet above sea level.

As it trickles and tumbles downhill, the water

widens into a river as it's joined by more streams from the highlands.

My goodness. It's grown a bit already.

Since more than a million people died during drought

and famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s,

many think of this as a dry country.

But during the rainy season, this river will swell tenfold.

Ethiopia provides more than 80% of the total flow of the Nile.

It's a curious thing.

When you think of the river Nile, generally you think of Egypt,

Pharaohs and pyramids.

But actually, it's Ethiopia that contributes

most of the flow to the river.

Ethiopia's crucial gift to the Nile has only recently been fully

understood, and it raises a question.

Although we associate the Nile with Egypt,

who do the precious waters of the river actually belong to?

I followed the Blue Nile to the far north-west of Ethiopia,

and the vast waters of Lake Tana.

This beautiful lake, more like an inland sea,

covers an area of more than 1,000 square miles,

and is also considered by some to be the source of the Blue Nile.

The waters here have long provided an abundance of fish

and food for the region, supporting

a way of life with traditions

that have endured

for thousands of years.

Fishermen here are among the last people in the world to still

use boats made from this plant, papyrus.

It grows all the way along the river Nile and it played an enormous role

in the first civilizations

that emerged along the Nile's river banks.

The first books were made from papyrus as well.

Can we ask, what is your name, sir?

My name is Girma.

Girma, how long does it take to make a boat out of papyrus?

HE SPEAKS HIS OWN LANGUAGE

-TRANSLATION:

-About one and a half hours.

My family are all engaged in this type of work.

My father is a fisherman.

So in time, I've been able to learn from him.

So you see yourself as being a man of the river Nile?

The Nile is everything for me.

I've built my life on it and my livelihood depends on it.

Girma supplies dozens of these boats to fishermen on the Nile every year.

Foolishly, I agree to give one a try.

I gather there are no Nile crocodiles on this part of the lake.

Can I just point out that there seems to be some water in it?

Trust me, it will float!

I'm holding you to that!

All right, let's give it a go.

OK.

Whoa! I'm up to my ankles in water.

Oh, bloody hell!

Ahh!

Come on, this is impossible.

I'm off.

Forward motion seems to provide stability.

I'm on a paper boat.

I'm on the Nile!

Oh, this lake suddenly looks very big!

There's a mystical, timeless quality to Lake Tana.

The lake is home to dozens of island monasteries,

guardians of Ethiopia's unique religious history.

Salaam.

This is a land of myth and legend,

said to be home to the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon's mines.

For centuries, tales of treasure on these islands drew explorers

and fortune hunters.

Salaam, salaam, salaam.

I had arrived at the 700-year-old monastery of Ura Kidane Mehret.

Oh, my goodness. Look at this.

Inside, vivid wall paintings tell the story of Ethiopia's

spectacular heritage.

Christianity was declared a state religion here in the fourth century.

This isn't a religion that was imposed on Ethiopia by missionaries.

This is home-grown Christianity.

Long before it was the religion of the Roman Empire,

it was the religion here in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia was the first Christian kingdom in the world.

But it wasn't the only major religion to find an early

foothold here.

Before Christianity, Judaism had arrived

and according to legend, this area has been the resting

place for one of religion's holiest treasures for almost 3,000 years.

An artefact precious to Jewish people and many Christians

and Muslims as well.

It's said to be guarded by priests of the Ethiopian church.

There's lots of amazing myths

and legends surrounding the monasteries of Lake Tana,

the greatest of which surely is that one of them

housed the Ark of the Covenant for a while.

So the ark that held the tablets

on which were written the Ten Commandments.

THEY CHANT

The story is that the Queen of Sheba who came from the land that we

now call Ethiopia went to visit King Solomon in Israel.

She'd heard great stories of his wisdom, wanted to meet him.

She turned up there, they got on very well -

so well, in fact, they had a son together.

He went home with his mum

but went back to visit his dad when he was a young man.

When he returned home to Ethiopia, among his entourage was

brought the Ark of the Covenant.

It was apparently kept safe in a monastery on Lake Tana.

And now, according to many Ethiopians,

it's still here in the country.

Outside, the monks were giving thanks for the waters of the Nile.

THEY CHANT

-TRANSLATION:

-Here in Ethiopia, we feel that water represents life to human beings.

If man doesn't have water, he has to endure drought.

The river Nile, making its way around Ethiopia, nourishes the country.

But because it is such a precious limited resource,

the Nile has also long been a cause of conflict.

700 years ago, Ethiopia threatened to divert the Nile because of what

it said was Muslim persecution of Christians downriver in Egypt.

Now the two countries are once again locked in a bitter dispute

over ownership and use of the river.

To understand what's happening, I needed to take to the air.

Cleared for take off.

'Clear for take-off, Bravo, X-ray, Echo. Thanks very much.'

There it is down beneath us - the Blue Nile.

On its way through the Ethiopian highlands,

the Nile carves its way through a canyon,

at times 300-feet deep and more than 250 miles long.

We're in the Nile Gorge.

Remote and infested with crocodiles and malaria-ridden mosquitoes,

the Nile has long flowed through this area of Ethiopia untamed

and underused.

Ethiopia hasn't really tapped into the potential

and the power of the river to generate electricity or to

provide water for irrigating crops.

That's now starting to change.

On an isolated stretch of the Nile, Ethiopia has recently started

building one of the world's largest

and most controversial engineering projects.

Beneath us now is what many hope will be the future for Ethiopia.

They call it the Grand Renaissance Dam.

Look at this!

The multibillion pound dam will eventually hold an inland

sea behind it.

Water flowing through the dam's giant turbines will then generate

huge amounts of electricity, tripling Ethiopia's current output.

They are taming the Nile, they're controlling the Nile,

they're going to divert it.

But of course it's hugely controversial.

Downstream, more than 85 million Egyptians depend

entirely on the Nile for their survival.

A colonial-era treaty, drawn up by the British,

awarded Egypt the rights to 66% of the river's entire flow.

Ethiopia, where the majority of the water in the Nile originates,

got none.

We're in a hugely remote part of the planet here, but make no

mistake, this is one of the greatest potential flash points in the world.

Can you find a landing pad, Roger?

I think we can find one.

Egypt fears the dam will allow Ethiopia to siphon off water

that belongs, they think, to Egyptians.

They reacted to the idea of this dam with fury,

even talking of sabotage and war.

It's overwhelming to come here and see this.

Semegnew Bekele is the Ethiopian engineer

in charge of the six-year construction project.

This is an almost biblical effort to control

and harness the power of the mighty Nile.

We are not controlling that mighty Nile.

This is a whopping great wall.

We can't control the Nile. We don't have any plan.

We are really implementing a strategy that fights poverty

without harming anyone.

But countries downstream, Sudan

and particularly Egypt, are worried about what might happen here,

about how you will have the power to switch off the Nile.

-No.

-Should they be worried?

This is an electricity project. Electricity doesn't consume water.

We are not using this project for any other consumptive use.

Only generation of electricity and this is known,

fact, without really affecting their flow.

Officials here say this dam will help to lift the country

out of poverty.

It's a persuasive argument, but economic development here -

as it does everywhere - comes at a moral and ethical cost.

Behind the dam, a vast tract of wilderness will be submerged

under a huge reservoir.

And local tribes will be displaced from their traditional lands.

I can see the benefits of development,

but I still found myself torn.

I find it quite emotional, actually,

to see communities like this down here.

Their whole way of life is going to change.

Less than a fifth of the people here

have access to electricity.

By damming the Nile, Ethiopia could become Africa's biggest

supplier, providing much-needed power for homes, schools,

factories and hospitals.

Ethiopia's not alone in wanting a greater share of this

life-changing river.

I followed the Blue Nile north to the flat arid landscape of Sudan.

Here, temperatures can reach 50 degrees Celsius.

Yet even in this parched country,

a remarkable transformation is taking place along the river.

Blessed with a longer stretch of the Nile than any other country,

Sudan is using its waters to turn its desert green.

This is Al Waha, Arabic for "the oasis".

It's a 22,000 acre state-of-the-art farm, that uses more than

eight million gallons of water from the Nile every day.

It's a model that manager Ali Alshiekh thinks could be

replicated along the length of the river.

Look at this. Two, four, six, whopping great pipes.

So you've got those...

Those are basically in the Nile

and you're sucking the water out of the Nile.

Out of the Nile to the farm, to the main canal.

-Into this massive canal here.

-The main canal.

We have to keep this monster full.

-This monster?

-All the time. All the time.

Is it a hungry beast?

It is never, never satisfied. It has to be full.

The world is hungry. It is thirsty.

-The world is hungry, yes.

-Yeah.

People need food

and that food has got to be produced in the most efficient way possible.

Yeah. Yeah.

We should...just coming behind us here, we've got

a bloke on the back of a donkey and a herd of goats coming past.

-Yeah. Yeah.

-This is the more traditional image

of farming in Sudan, I think, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-And it's quite a contrast...

-Yeah.

..with what you're doing here,

which is scientific, and it's on a massive scale.

But the time will come when all these guys will join us.

Give us a sense of the scale of your farm here.

The centre pivot that we see there. You said that's 440 metres long.

So nearly half a kilometre long.

So each of these circles is about a kilometre wide.

So this is equivalent to 100 football pitch.

And how many of these crop circles, almost, have you got?

We have 102 here.

My goodness!

I have 10,000 football to care about.

THEY LAUGH

In this field, Ali is growing alfalfa, a crop used to feed animals.

Most is exported to Sudan's Islamic neighbours in the Gulf States,

where their remaining water supplies are disappearing fast.

Ali also uses the crop for the farm's own herd of milking cows who

shelter from the searing Sudanese sun in giant purpose-built sheds.

You've got what look like dozens of Friesian cows.

Yeah.

We could be in Lincolnshire or Dorset in the UK.

There are 2,500 dairy cows here, cared for by Dr Mohamed.

-Dr Mohammed?

-Oh, hello.

-Assalam alaikum.

-Assalam alaikum.

He uses the latest technology to keep this European

breed at home in Africa.

In summer, the temperature can reach more than 48 degrees Celsius.

We are using these big cooling fans.

We are using these misters.

All these together reduce the temperature by 20 degrees Celsius

from outside.

The cows produce up to three times as much milk as Sudan's native breed,

thanks to the waters of the Nile.

-Can we go in?

-Yes.

But as populations along the Nile continue to rise

and farming here intensifies,

an ever greater strain will be placed on the river.

How many have you got now?

We've got now 2,500 cows.

Our plan here in two years is to expand to 10,000 cows.

I feel a bit conflicted about what I'm seeing here

because although I'm sure they're farming with best of intentions,

they are using a lot of water from the Nile,

and although they say that the amount they're using is sustainable,

what would happen if there were 100 farms like this,

a thousand farms like this,

sucking water out of the river?

There wouldn't be a lot left to flow on down

through the rest of Sudan and into Egypt.

Who does the Nile belong to?

It comes back to that question.

Who has rights to the water of the Nile?

And it's something that the countries along the Nile

haven't really decided

and haven't been able to come to agreement on.

We're coming to a crucial point on the river.

I was nearing the end of the Blue Nile.

Wow.

This is the confluence of the Nile.

I'm on the Blue Nile.

Down there, that's the White Nile,

joining this river

and together forming the mighty, one, the legendary Nile.

This is an absolutely key geographical spot on the continent.

It's a key spot on planet Earth actually.

The meeting of these two great rivers to form an even greater one.

This has been described as the longest kiss in history,

which is rather beautiful, don't you think?

That is an absolutely incredible sight.

I find it rather mesmerising.

As the meeting point of the two Niles,

Sudan has always been a historical crossroads.

Cultures have met and mingled here.

There are still more than 100 languages spoken in Sudan.

It's something of a cliche

but inevitably there's an element of truth about it -

that way to the south is broadly Christian Africa,

and to the north is mainly Islamic.

Rising up alongside the confluence is Khartoum, the capital of Sudan.

I'd arrived in the city on a Friday.

Islamic mystics known as Sufis were gathering on the edge

of the city to perform a weekly sunset ritual.

It harks back to the earliest days of Islam on the Nile.

These are the whirling dervishes of Sudan.

Journalist Isma'il Kushkush was at hand to help me

understand this magical yet fairly chaotic spectacle.

What are they doing?

Purifying the heart.

Does that mean effectively cleansing the body of evil?

As the Sufis spin to the rhythmic chants of the crowd,

they enter a kind of trance.

Their meditative state is intensified

by the overwhelming fragrance of frankincense.

That's a beautiful, beautiful smell.

Shokran.

Islam dictates almost every aspect of daily life in Sudan.

Under Sharia Law, everything from crime, politics and economics

to sex, hygiene and diet is governed by the Koran.

It feels to me, like, in quite a conservative culture,

this is a chance for some people to let off steam, almost.

This is actually typical and normal Sudanese culture.

This is the essence of Sudan.

The international reputation of Sudan has been hammered

by the genocide and crisis in the Darfur region,

and 20 years of civil war between the north and the south of the country.

The Sudanese government has also been accused

of supporting terrorism, committing human rights violations

and denying religious freedom.

Sudan is a country that has its fair share of problems

and many of those problems are well known to the globe.

There is not one form of practising Islam.

There are groups that could be described

as a little more liberal, centrist and conservative.

This is a way of practising Islam that is a little more liberal.

I think before coming here, I had quite a negative view of Sudan.

I thought of it as a very conservative country

that was quite unfriendly,

but this was a magnificently welcoming service and ceremony.

It felt holy and sacred but it felt very inclusive as well,

and I loved it, I loved being here.

The following day I was back on the road, heading across the desert.

This is a part of Sudan beyond the reach of the river,

where little can survive.

I was travelling to a region that was once home

to the ancient Nile civilization now known as Nubia.

It developed along the river 5,000 years ago,

and stretched from Northern Sudan into Southern Egypt.

Archaeologists like Tim Kendall are shedding new light

on a largely forgotten civilization.

When people think of a culture along the Nile in ancient times,

I think they just think of ancient Egypt, but we're in Sudan.

Right. There was a major ancient civilization here.

Urban, literate, powerful kings

that controlled a vast empire in the 8th century,

bigger than any empire that had ever been on the Nile before.

And here we are standing in front of pyramids of these kings,

2,000 kilometres south of the pyramids of Egypt.

This is Nuri, a royal cemetery containing pyramids

for 20 kings and 54 queens of the Nubian kingdom known as Kush.

We climbed the ruined side of the pyramid belonging to Taharqa,

the greatest of all Kushite Pharaohs, who not only ruled Sudan

but the whole of Egypt as well.

What an epic view.

This is spectacular.

Yeah.

This is what some historians recently

and writers have called the Black Pharaohs.

This is a culture and a civilization distinct and different

at some times in its history to the civilization

further down the Nile in Egypt.

But they were closely related, they shared the same religion,

they honoured the same gods.

The Kushites believed that the Egyptian Gods were here

in the Kushite form, in the Nubian form.

Because there's this overwhelming focus on the civilization

of ancient Egypt, it wouldn't be unnatural for modern Egyptians

to think, "We've been here for thousands of years,

"this is our culture, this our land,

"this is our river as well,"

but the fact we are standing on a pyramid here in northern Sudan,

built by people whose descendents may still live around us now.

I have a feeling that that gives them an historical,

more legitimate claim to the land and the water and the space.

It does, you know, but there's a funny thing I noticed in Cairo

and that is that on the facade of the Cairo Museum,

the only dynasty that isn't named is the 25th dynasty.

-And that was...

-The dynasty of Kush which ruled them.

The dynasty of the Nubian kings from here.

They deliberately cut it out.

Some archaeologists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

refused to accept that a black African civilization could have achieved what it did.

They said the people here must have been lighter skinned,

maybe Libyans, maybe even... early Europeans.

It's racism.

There are actually more pyramids in Sudan than in Egypt.

Ignorance of Nubian culture has in some ways

denied the black Africans who live here now, and Sudan generally,

an historical claim to this land, and even to the Nile itself.

Not far from the royal pyramids is Jebel Barkal,

a lone 300-foot high rock,

once considered the most sacred site in Nubia,

partly because of its proximity to the Nile.

For thousands of years,

Nubians and Egyptians climbed the mountain at sunset,

believing it to be the birthplace of Amun,

the father of their gods and the creator of life.

-Assalam alaikum.

-MAN: Assalam alaikum.

Religions often developed out of a desire to explain

and understand the powerful forces of nature and creation.

And the keys to life here were the sun and the Nile.

Oh, my goodness...

-HE EXHALES DEEPLY

-Ah...

This is a...

HE LAUGHS

It's a sight that makes you bite your lip.

Has there ever been a clearer representation

of the POWER of a river?

On the far side, desert.

Out here, desert.

And along the river...life!

It feels like...

..the imagination and beliefs of our forefathers is...

is invested in the rock.

It feels holy, it feels magical, mystical.

Special.

Ancient Nubians and Egyptians worshipped the same gods.

But for thousands of years,

their relationship was marred by conflict...

..and the repercussions of that history are still being felt

along the Nile today.

In the heart of what was once Nubia,

the river now flows into an enormous lake,

stretching 350 miles from northern Sudan into southern Egypt.

HE CHUCKLES

Lake Nasser!

The world's longest reservoir.

And it's all down to this incredible structure that I'm standing on,

this whopping great dam.

I'd arrived in Egypt.

The Upper Aswan Dam was built in the 1960s to generate electricity,

provide a reservoir of water for farms

and control flooding along the Nile -

the result of the rainy season in Ethiopia.

Before the dam, heavy floods could decimate crops,

often resulting in famine.

The dam gave Egypt control over the levels of the Nile downstream,

but at a heavy price for many Nubian communities.

Down there...

are the remains of Nubian settlements, dozens of them.

They were home to more than 100,000 people.

And their homes and fields

were swallowed by the rising waters of the lake.

An entire way of life... their civilization, their culture -

they'd been here for thousands of years -

swallowed and submerged.

The Egyptian authorities relocated many Nubians

to new settlements in the desert,

far from the fertile land of the Nile.

In the Nubian communities that survived the arrival of the dam,

I found Nubians trying to use their culture and traditions

to carve out a living in Egypt's flagging tourist industry.

They've got a crocodile on the side of their house.

Assalam alaikum.

Why do people have crocodiles outside their homes?

TRANSLATION: Those who kill them hang them like this.

Because tourists used to come and look at them.

As a community, are you scared of the crocodiles?

Do they pose a threat to you?

I have one in my house. A live crocodile.

Sorry, did you just say you have a live crocodile?

-I do.

-Can we see it?

Yes. Please, come in.

Oh, dear.

Why have you got a crocodile... in your house?

Because tourists used to visit me.

They would sit down and look at the crocodile.

In many houses there are crocodiles, that's normal.

This croc doesn't look entirely happy in there.

Do... Do you ever get it out? Does it get to walk around?

No, I don't take it out.

If I took it out, it would go away, it would go to the Nile.

Yeah, perhaps not surprisingly.

When it grows... Did you see the one outside the house, the dead one?

When it grows like this, we will kill it, stuff it

and hang it on the door.

Right.

Doesn't have a great future then, does it?

It was disappointing to see one of the Nile's oldest inhabitants

treated like this.

Crocodiles were once worshipped by locals here -

in the form of the god Sobek.

But now this community is struggling

and people are trying to make ends meet any way they can.

The Nubians have lived along the Nile for as long as almost anyone.

They still have their faith, their traditions,

their connection to the river, but times have changed and so have they.

What they really want here now is a few more tourists.

There have been centuries of tension along the Nile

between Arabs and Nubians.

25 people were recently killed near here and many more were injured,

during clashes between Arab and Nubian families.

Many Nubians still feel ostracized from Egyptian life.

Back on the Nile, I went to visit an ancient temple

that nearly suffered the same fate as nearby Nubian settlements

and was almost submerged by the rising waters of the river.

When the Nile was dammed and the lake began to rise...

..Egypt's ancient monuments were under threat.

Some of them were swallowed by the water, but some of them were saved.

My God, look at this!

This is the Temple of Isis at Philae.

Built more than 2,000 years ago,

in 1972 it was saved from being submerged in the reservoir

that rose behind the Aswan Dam.

The entire temple was chopped up into 40,000 blocks, moved,

and meticulously rebuilt on this new site.

This is absolutely breathtaking.

It is actually quite hard to believe, in some ways,

that the Egyptians did what they did, WHEN they did it,

at a time when the rest of the planet, or most of it anyway,

was in intellectual darkness.

The Egyptians were creating magic and mystery...

..and stuff that lasts!

In its day,

the temple attracted pilgrims from across the ancient world.

This is a temple to the god Isis.

She's absolutely central to the story of the Nile

because ancient Egyptians

believed that the river was swollen by her tears.

The temple bears witness to seismic shifts in our history,

to the rise and fall of civilizations.

The stones here tell an astonishing story.

They're covered in inscriptions and graffiti.

And here...we've got the last known text written in hieroglyphics.

The last gasp of a culture and a civilization

that had endured for centuries.

A bit of writing here, and then... Pwoof! ..it's gone.

Other inscriptions carved into the ancient stones

tell of a new force travelling up the Nile.

Look, there's a cross here.

Times changed and Christianity came to the shrine.

In fact, this became a base

from which monks went on missions to the south,

to convert the Nubians and other tribes to Christianity.

Egypt was Christian for hundreds of years,

until Islam swept across North Africa.

Today, Egypt is home to almost 80 million Muslims.

It has the largest Islamic population in the Middle East.

But religious strife and political conflict dog this Nile state.

Liberal and conservative Muslims are battling physically

and intellectually for the soul of the country.

There is a small,

but not insignificant group of Islamic fundamentalists in Egypt

who want to tear temples like these down and destroy them.

They want to rid Egypt of its pre-Islamic past.

They think these places are... idolatrous.

These are some of the greatest treasures of human civilization.

I think to tear them down would be obscene...utterly obscene.

Temples like Philae were central to life in Ancient Egypt,

but of course, they're also central to economic life here today

because tourism is normally one of the country's largest industries.

But in recent years, terrorist attacks on foreigners

and violent political protests since the revolution in 2011,

mean tourist numbers have plummeted.

There are guards everywhere here.

We've got guards following us around all the time

and there are guards at all of the major tourist sites here now.

Egypt cannot afford to have another terrorist attack

on visitors to the country.

We're taking the train.

It was time to head north.

So WE are off to Cairo!

I was catching an overnight train and I had plenty of company.

We have got an extraordinary entourage with us.

Endless layers of security.

We've got local security, regional security, we've got train security.

We now also seem to have a secret policeman with us,

blokes with sub-machine guns under their jackets.

Partly to protect us and partly to control us and to keep an eye on us.

Egypt is a difficult country to film in.

What I find extraordinary about the situation here,

is that several years now after the revolution,

Egypt is back where it's basically always been,

with the military in control of national life.

We won't be short of company

if we fancied a five-a-side in the corridor...

Bye, chaps.

Ah, look! What a magnificent flow.

-Cold, hot.

-Cold, hot. OK, brilliant.

Yes, yes... It's got a curtain.

Don't know who he is, or where he's come from.

HE MOUTHS

He might be standing guard...

..for the whole night!

The train to Cairo tracks close to the Nile.

The greenery of irrigated crops means it's easy to forget

that Egypt is one of the driest countries on the planet.

95% of Egyptians live on a narrow ribbon of land alongside the river

that constitutes only 5% of the country.

And Egypt's population has soared in recent decades.

Much of the growth has been in Cairo,

which in the last 50 years has seen its population triple

to more than 18 million, and it's still rising fast.

This city is absolutely rammed.

There are some predictions that say by 2050,

there will be nearly 40 million people in Cairo.

HORNS BEEP

40 million?!

The one thing that won't change in the future

is Egypt's complete and utter dependence on the Nile.

So far, Egypt has been able to discourage or threaten

other Nile states

to prevent them tapping into the supply of Nile water.

Most Egyptians believe it's their historical birthright.

On Rhoda Island, which sits at the centre of the Nile in Cairo,

I went in search of a rather forgotten site

that illustrates the enormous importance of the river

for the whole of Egypt.

Assalam alaikum.

This place isn't really on the tourist trail in Cairo.

I think that might be the toilets.

Where is it? This way? OK.

Oh, my...

Now this is a fascinating place,

absolutely central to the story of the Nile.

This is...the Nilometer!

SIMON CHUCKLES

It does what it sounds like it does.

It measures the height of the Nile.

Long before the Aswan Dam regulated the flow of the Nile,

the Nilometer recorded the critical level of the annual flood.

So there are three points where the water would come in.

The water would fill this cavern, it would rise up through the chamber.

The height of the water could make or break the Egyptian harvest.

In effect, the Nilometer measured the health of the country.

It did mean, however, if it reached the right level,

that everybody would be taxed.

Built after the Arab conquest of Egypt,

the Nilometer was one of Islam's first great constructions here.

The grandeur and craftsmanship of the building was perhaps

an acknowledgement that the Prophet Muhammad

said the Nile was holy and one of the rivers of Paradise.

The dome here was rebuilt after a fire and around the base of it

are inscriptions and quotations from the Koran.

They talk about how...

water is a gift from the skies.

And how rainfall can create a paradise with...

..fruits and grapes and palm trees.

Almost all of the religions, the great religions,

revere water in some way because of what it offers, what it brings.

The river has always brought life to this city and to this country.

But do modern Egyptians assume

the river will just keep flowing like this forever?

Certainly for ancient Egyptians, the river was just always there,

something they could set their calendars by.

Now, with countries to the south demanding the right to take

more water from the Nile, some commentators are saying

Egypt cannot expect to have a monopoly on the river

and might need to adapt to a future with a smaller share of the flow.

I met up with Egyptian politician Mona Makram-Ebeid.

Has Egypt taken the Nile for granted?

I guess so, for a very long time. Nobody has asked.

Probably many of the population here doesn't know that other people too

are sharing the Nile waters.

Unless you're educated,

-which is not the case for a lot of people.

-Mm.

40% of the people are illiterate.

So I think you're right, in a way,

Egyptians have taken the Nile for granted for a long time.

Now they have to wake up.

So what does that mean for Egypt today in the 21st century

when countries to the south are starting to build giant dams

and they will have the power to turn off the taps?

Some of these countries who are at the source of the Nile

think that it is their right to have more of a part of the Nile

than they had until now.

I think that we need people who understand,

who are experts on the Nile,

to see what would be the equitable distribution.

Who owns the Nile?

SHE LAUGHS Who owns the Ganges?

I think Indians would say, they do.

The Egyptian will say the same thing.

The Nile has always been synonymous with Egypt.

The Ancient Greek historian Herodotus called Egypt

"the gift of the Nile".

Nowhere is this more evident than in the country's breadbasket...

the Delta.

From above, it's been described as a flowering lotus plant,

as the river splits into thousands of channels,

flowing through a vast expanse of some of the most fertile land

on the planet.

Over half of all Egyptians live in the Delta,

many growing fruit, vegetables and thirsty crops like rice and cotton.

The Delta is famous for being the source of the luxury

Egyptian cotton sheets sold on our high streets.

To see where they come from, I met up with farmer Mosbah Oman.

What is... What's going on?

TRANSLATION: They're planting cotton, the whole aim is to plant cotton.

We plant cotton and then it grows like this.

Do you need a bit of help? Or, I'm here to assist.

FARMERS LAUGH

God bless you, God bless you. Work, kids!

Ululate, girls, ululate. WOMEN ULULATE

Can one of the ladies show me what to do?

Oh, blimey! You plant them close together, don't you?

ULULATING CONTINUES

She's fast! Right, come on, come on!

Does all this ululating help you to focus on the job?

Does it keep you happy?

-TRANSLATION:

-The ululating helps us to stay happy during our work.

We encourage each other so that we go home with happy hearts.

SHE ULULATES

-WOMAN SHOUTS COMMANDS

-Honestly, I've got a bad back!

TRANSLATION: I have a dancing horse. It dances, a horse, tell him.

Would you buy it?

No, I do not want to buy a dancing horse!

Producing the cotton for a single T-shirt can require more than

2,500 litres of water.

So huge amounts of water are pumped out of the Nile here

and flooded over tens of thousands of fields.

It's a hugely inefficient and untargeted way of irrigating crops.

But many farmers believe they have a historic God-given right

to this limited resource.

What would you say to an Ethiopian farmer

who says, "The waters of the Nile are mine?"

TRANSLATION: This is unfair, an injustice.

I would say, "This is an injustice."

What can one do about his food?

He blocks my food and the food of my young children and the people.

God won't let them.

Because Egypt, glory be to God, is the mother of the Nile.

Egypt is the mother of the Nile, glory be to God.

It's hard to talk to a farmer here who says,

"I'm poor and this water is a God-given right,"

when I've also spoken to people in the south, south of Egypt,

who say, "We're even poorer and we need this water as well."

Somehow these countries are going to have to sit down and talk

and discuss and agree how they use this incredibly vital,

precious, sacred river.

From the lush green fields of the Delta,

the waters of the Nile flow onward towards the sea.

Standing guard at the Mediterranean is the great port of Alexandria.

I had come to the end of my journey down the Nile.

At last, the Med!

I'd travelled almost 3,000 miles,

through three very different countries,

united by one extraordinary life-giving river.

I think what this journey has really shown me

is the astonishing legacy of the Nile.

Of course, some of the world's first great civilizations

grew up on its banks, but it was also central to the development

of some of the world's great religions as well.

What's surprised me the most is just how important the Nile is today

in shaping the beliefs, but also the politics

of the people who live along it.

The key question about the Nile is who owns it?

The answer will help to determine

whether the river is shared peacefully or controlled by force.

Personally, I suspect most people would say

that it should belong to everyone in the countries of the Nile.

The Nile today is as important as it has ever been.

Hundreds of millions of people and entire countries depend on it

and they've got to find a way to share it.

On my next journey I'll be travelling along the Ganges,

the great artery of India.

I'll be taking a dip in its sacred waters...

And...three!

..and visiting a city said to be as old as Babylon.

This is an utterly overwhelming place.