The ancient Egypians were greatly influenced by the Nile River. The flooding of the Nile was sustainable but not perfectly reliable, creating the belief in gods and social stratification.
At the top of the social structure were gods such as Ra and Osiris because the Egyptians believed that they controlled the universe. The Egyptians tried their best to please the gods because if they were happy, then the Nile would flood producing an abundance of crops and preventing famine. After the gods, came the pharaohs in social status. The Egyptian people believed the pharaoh to be a god in mortal form. They had absolute power over the dominion which required protection through the help of government officials and soldiers. The rest of the people’s status went in the order of scribes, merchants, artisans, farmers, and finally slaves.
The Nile became known to the Egyptians as “Father of Life” and “Mother of All Men". Hapy was one of the gods of the Nile.
Without Hapi, the land would have been desolate and uninhabitable, and uncommonly severe fluctuations in the level of the Nile floods were thought to be due to Hapy’s absence. Hapi was shown as a man with the breasts of a woman, signifying his fertility. Egyptians did not understand why the Nile flooded, but they thought it had something to do with Hapi coming down the river — thus they called it “the arrival of Hapi” As explained before, it is important to keep in mind that the Egyptian gods were personifications of the things they represented. If without Hapi the Egyptians believed that there was no life, then this was also true for the Nile itself.
