2000 BCE and earlier: (The Watermelon’s Nilo-Saharan Origins Predating Its Egyptian Material Record — The Currently Known Botanical Evidence Showing the Wate…

2000 BCE and earlier: (The Watermelon’s Nilo-Saharan Origins Predating Its Egyptian Material Record — The Currently Known Botanical Evidence Showing the Watermelon to Have Been Well Established in Egypt Before the Mid-Second Millennium BCE, but the Ancient Egyptian Word for the Crop Having Been Borrowed Centuries Earlier from Nilo-Saharan-Speaking Peoples to the South of Egypt, Placing the Initial Knowledge of the Crop in Egypt Much Earlier Than the Available Material Remains Indicate): The currently known botanical evidence shows the watermelon to have been well established in Egypt before the mid-second millennium BCE. The ancient Egyptian word for the crop was borrowed, however, centuries earlier from Nilo-Saharan-speaking peoples to the south of Egypt, placing the initial knowledge of the crop in Egypt much earlier than the available material remains. The linguistic evidence here outpaces the archaeological evidence — a recurring theme in Ehret’s methodology. The material remains of watermelon in Egypt date to the mid-second millennium BCE, but the loanword evidence pushes the crop’s presence in Egypt back centuries further, because linguistic borrowing indicates contact and cultural exchange that necessarily preceded the earliest surviving physical specimens. The direction of borrowing — from Nilo-Saharan into Egyptian — once again confirms the northward flow of cultural and agricultural influence from the lands south of Egypt into the Nile Valley. The watermelon, like cattle herding, sacral kingship, and the Divinity religion, traveled northward.