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Nilometer, Ancient Nile water level gauge, Rawdah, Cairo (07)

Nilometer, Ancient Nile water level gauge, Rawdah, Cairo (07)

Nilometer, Ancient Nile water level gauge, Rawdah, Cairo (07)

Hunting up from the properly.

“At the southernmost idea of Cairo’s Al-Rawda (Roda) Island where by, in accordance to custom, the biblical baby Moses (the Qur’an’s Musa) was located between the bulrushes, there exists one particular of the oldest constructions in Cairo – the Nilometer.

As an instrument of hydrological study, it is not unique the various rulers of Egypt have for all-around 5 millennia been measuring the River Nile’s inundation in buy to forecast agricultural generate and to set levies upon its persons appropriately. However, the Al-Rawda Nilometer is irreplaceable, equally as an instance of engineering heritage and as an unparalleled file of Cairean river degrees in the Nile considering that it was (re)constructed in 860 – 861 Ad.

The Al-Rawda Nilometer contains a large stilling effectively, lined with stone blocks. It is close to 10m deep, tapering from about 3m in diameter at the invert to some 5m2 at the prime, the partitions of which are inscribed with Kufic Qur’anic inscriptions referring to h2o, prosperity and vegetation. An octagonal white marble column stands vertically at the centre of the nicely, graduated into 19 cubits1 it is topped with an inscribed wooden2 beam that spans the properly at its rim.

While now dry, when on a time the properly would have been wet, flooded by the Nile waters by means of gothic-style ‘tiers-point’ arches open up to the river at a few degrees. The extent of the inundation would be accurately measured towards the central column. At low h2o, the level in the effectively would have measured all over 7 cubits. All through the inundation, a measurement of just about anything involving 14 and 16 cubits would have been greeted with a lot gratefulness to the god of the underworld, Osiris. An inundation under 12 and 13 cubits would have portended hunger and struggling though an inundation exceeding 19 cubits would have meant catastrophic flooding.

Nevertheless, the taming of the Nile (most considerably by the upstream Aswan Dam) and sealing of the tunnels indicates that the Nilometer is now redundant as an instrument of modern hydrological study, although it continues to be major both equally as a file of past inundations and as an oft-missed attraction for visitors.” from the BBC

Posted by The Outdated Pharaoh on 2009-08-20 15:43:19

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