\paperw3900 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 Almost all the cultivable land in Egypt was exploited.\par
The fields were irrigated by a network of canals, which were used to distr
ibute the providential floodwaters of the Nile.\par
Diodorus of Sicily wrote, ôas the water flows slowly by, they divert it easily by means of small dikes and draw on it without difficulty by opening these whenever they consider necessary. This flooding
so lightens the work in the fields that the majority of farmers are content to scatter the seed, bring in flocks of sheep that tread it into the ground and then return four or five months later to reap the harvest.ö\par
Barley, grain and winter wheat f
ormed the basis of the Egyptian diet and economy.\par
Harvest time was the most demanding season.\par
The wheat was reaped with small sickles of wood with flint blades. The ears were placed in nets and then transported on the backs of donkeys to the th
reshing floor or piled up in heaps before being trampled by donkeys and cattle.\par
The grain threshed in this way was then thrown into the air with wooden shovels and forks so that the wind could separate the grain from the chaff.\par
After sifting an
d cleaning, the grain was measured out, placed in sacks and stored in granaries.
