Sadd-el-Kafara is considered the oldest large-scale dam in the world with a length of 113 m, a height of 14 m and a base width of 98 m.
The ruins of the Sadd-el-Kafara dam. Photo: Matthieu Gotz
About 40 kilometers southeast of Cairo, near the town of Helwan, lie the ruins of Sadd-el-Kafara, a massive dam built some 3,700 years ago. Although destroyed by floods before it could be completed, it is still considered the world’s oldest large-scale dam.
The main purpose of the structure was to protect against sudden storms and severe flooding. It may also have provided water for workers and animals involved in quarrying stone for the construction of nearby pyramids and temples.
Sadd-el-Kafara lies at the narrowest point of the Wadi Garawi gorge, where the valley narrows to about 100 m wide. The ruins of Sadd-el-Kafara were discovered by German archaeologist Georg Schweinfurth in 1885. Only the initial parts of the dam on either side of the gorge remain standing. The central part was washed away by floods, leaving a gap 50–60 m wide. The exposed cross-section allows archaeologists to study the construction of the dam.
The original dam was 113 m long, 14 m high, 98 m wide at the base and 56 m wide at the crest. The core of the dam is 32 m wide and can hold 60,000 tons of rock and soil. When completed, the dam will hold 465,000 - 625,000 m3 of water.
Experts believe that Sadd-el-Kafara was not built for irrigation but to control flash floods, which are common in narrow valleys, due to the dam’s location in Wadi Garawi. There is no evidence that the farmland around the dam needed water for agriculture . In addition, the lack of a spillway suggests that the reservoir did not serve irrigation purposes.
The downstream side of Sadd-el-Kafara shows signs of erosion, leading experts to believe that a flood destroyed the ancient structure. In addition, the absence of a spillway and any trace of a ditch or diversion tunnel around the construction site makes the dam even more vulnerable to destruction.
The collapse of Sadd-el-Kafara probably caused catastrophic flooding downstream. The impact of the disaster was apparently so great that the ancient Egyptians were reluctant to build similar dams for nearly eight centuries.
Thu Thao (According to Amusing Planet )
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