Gardens of ancient Egypt and were sometimes enclosed by walls. Temple gardens were used to raise certain vegetables for ceremonies, Palace gardens first appeared in Egypt just before the Middle Empire (2035–1668). These gardens were very large in scale, and laid out in geometric patterns. The ponds of palace gardens were enormous and numerous. In the second millennium B.C., the garden pond of King Sneferu was large enough for boats rowed by twenty oarsmen. The rulers of ancient Egypt, such as Queen Hatshepsut (1503–1482 BC), and Ramses III (1198–1166 BC) used pots to bring back to Egypt new kinds of trees and flowers discovered
Religions of the ancient Near East from the Apsu—the fresh water abyss encircling and flowing underneath the earth—in which all the dead were gathered and where they led a miserable existence of inactivity, amid gloom and dust. Occasionally a favoured individual was permitted to escape from this general fate and placed in a pleasant island. It would appear also that the rulers were always singled out for divine grace, and in the earlier periods of the history, owing to the prevailing view that the rulers stood nearer to the Gods than other mortals, the kings were deified after death, and in some instances divine honours were