CAIRO: The floods in Sudan have triggered an emergency at the High Dam in Egypt.
While we can face such emergencies successfully year after year thanks to the High Dam, we should not forget the time when floods used to be a real threat for Egyptians, a destructive force which affected plant life, especially in the southern governorates.
One of the relics of this time is the Nilometer, one of the first indicators of the flood’s intensity in Egypt. It is now a museum that many might have heard of but may not have visited.
The Nilometer continued to be used until 1968 when the gates connecting its well to the river were blocked. The High Dam emerged as Egypt’s only protection against floods, sidelining the Nilometer which ceased to function and was turned into a tourist attraction.
But, in reality, the Nilometer is more than that.
It remains intact, and when controversy abounds about the durability of the High Dam, one wonders if the Nilometer will one day assume its old function.
The millennium-old well continues to be shrouded by a spacious room marked by a cone-shaped tower on the corniche leading to Maadi.
Located within the premises of Um Kulthum Museum in Manyal El Ruda, this was one of two Nilometers – the other is located in Upper Egypt. It’s a deep water well divided by a 19 cubit stone column (one cubit is about 58 cm).
The second oldest Islamic relic in Egypt, the first being Amr Ibn El Ass Mosque, the Nilometer was built by Arab architect Ahmed Al Farghani in 861 during the reign of the Abassi caliph El Matawakel.
The destiny of so many people depended on this simple tall column. If the water level went above or below 16 cubits, farmers were exempt from paying taxes at a time when the economy was entirely based on agriculture.
Using a staircase that led to the column, experts used to go down every year during the summer to note down readings and hand them over to tax collectors.
Below 16 cubits meant that the water was dangerously low and the farmers must have had a hard time watering their fields. Above 16 cubits translated into losses incurred by farmers due to flooding.
But the simple meter is in itself an architectural wonder, going by what French experts wrote about it in the “Description of Egypt that was compiled by Napoleon Bonaparte’s scientific team. Its location, construction and accuracy were the mark of a medieval genius that had to work with a river of the magnitude of the Nile.
Copies of the pages that feature the Nilometer in the “Description of Egypt are framed and hang on the house’s walls.
For centuries, the Nilometer continued to function in the open, but as Mohamed Ali the Great assumed power, he decreed that it should be sheltered by a building. The ceiling collapsed though and had to be rebuilt during the reign of the late King Farouq.
Throughout the years the Nilometer was the centre of attention, the sign of a commercial hub. Rulers’ processions used to move from the Citadel, the seat of the government, to the Nilometer’s location carrying sacrifices and incense and pleading for benediction. It was there that the first signs of a blessing or scarcity became apparent.
Now, floods and Nilometers are only part of the national memory.
