Sadd Al-Kafara

Egypt / Giseh / El Badrashin /
 ancient, dam, archaeological site

Sadd Al-Kafara, the first stone dam in human history.

At some time between 2686 and 2498 BCE, the Ancient Egyptians labored for 10 to 15 years to build the world's first stone dam across this wadi. Shortly after it was built, it was destroyed in a flood, largely because the requisite knowledge on how to build a dam had not been worked out. The dam was made of two parallel stone walls, 24 meters wide at their bases and 11 meters wide at their tops, with a 36 meter space in between filled with rubble. The dam stretched 106 meters across the Wadi Al-Garawi.

The German archaeologist G. Schweinfurth, who studied Sadd Al-Kafara in 1885, calculated that the dam used 100,000 cubic meters of rock. Norman Smith wrote in his book 'History of Dams' that, had it worked, the reservoir would have had a capacity of about 600,000 cubic meters of water.

Strangely, there is no obvious reason why the Egyptians needed the water this dam would have held back. They had no agriculture going on in the vicinity, nor any towns. The only operation they were conducting nearby was an alabaster quarry. After Sadd Al-Kafara was destroyed, the Egyptians never attempted to dam a river again.
Unfortunately, since the end of 2oth century, the remains were more and more destroyed by uncontrolled limestone quarries up the valley and it will vanish soon completely. The photo shows its state in late 1990ies.
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   29°47'44"N   31°25'54"E
This article was last modified 9 years ago