Since prehistoric times, agriculture in Egypt depended on the waters of the River Nile and its regular annual flood Egyptian lands, by providing water and silt. Thus, the land was irrigated on a regular basis a year called "beds" irrigation, which is a sharing system of agricultural land to beds by mud barriers. The water flows into the beds through the channels. Each channel carries the water to about eight beds, one after the other. In this way, the land near the river banks have a greater share of water that lands farther.