The earliest recorded dam in history was built some 4000 years ago -- and was washed out before it was ever used. Jill Kamil goes in search of Sadd Al-Kafara The first dam in history is clearly a major engineering achievement. But it is also something of a disaster story. Dating back to the age of the "Pyramid builders", and estimated to have been between 10 and 15 years in the making, Sadd Al-Kafara was destroyed by heavy rainfall soon after its completion. The experience was so traumatic for the Ancient Egyptians, that they never tried to build a dam again. This was the site that John Broad, a retired consulting engineer with a passionate interest in ancient structures, was anxious to see on his first visit to Egypt. "This historic dam predates the most famous tombs and temples," he explained when we met, adding: "This is the first known instance of a stone dam to be constructed across a river anywhere in the world. I'm surprised that so little is known about it." According to the records, the dam should be situated somewhere between Wadi Al-Hof and Wadi Al-Garawi, some 25 kilometres south of Cairo, to the east of Helwan. It seemed like an easy quest, and certainly an interesting one. Of course, a permit is required for anyone travelling outside the Nile valley, so we began with a trip to the Antiquities Office in Helwan on the advice of Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. When we explained Broad's professional background and his interest in the dam, permission was quickly granted, on condition that he and his party would be accompanied by an antiquities inspector, and that no photographs would be taken. A sturdy Peugeot 504 with a reliable driver was selected by the two antiquities inspectors assigned to accompany us, and well stocked with water, snacks and refreshments. Armed with a map, and elevation and section drawings of the dam, we set off in high spirits. As we drove through the maze of roads south-east of Helwan, we passed an enormous steel complex built by the Russians when the High Dam was under construction in the 1960s. Before long, we found ourselves on a single-track dirt road running beside a forest of tall chimneys which served the nearby lime quarry. The land was hard chalky limestone littered with spoil heaps from the steel and brick works, and covered with a layer of fine white lime dust. The landscape was surreal and eerie, and when the wind sprang up it raised a cloud of dust which quickly formed into a seemingly impenetrable white barrier before us. Our driver was obliged to stop until we could see our way clearly ahead. As we advanced through this mineral fog, lorries would suddenly appear out of nowhere, then disappear again just as mysteriously. Meanwhile Broad gave us a running commentary. "I'm not here as a tourist," he insisted. "I have come to see an ancient engineering experiment that failed. This dam is the first of its kind anywhere in the world." When Sadd Al-Kafara was discovered in 1885 by the German archaeologist G Schweinfurth, he calculated that it had been necessary to excavate and transport approximately 100,000 cubic metres of rock and rubble for its construction. Schweinfurth also established that the central section of the dam was missing. "That turned out to be a mixed blessing," Broad went on, "because although the structure was no longer complete, the fact the middle was missing exposed cross sections of the remaining parts of the dam. So it was possible to study its construction." By now we had arrived on a desiccated plateau, and an argument had developed among the antiquities officials and the driver as to which of the many tracks that forked out in front of us led to the dam. There was no visible trace of the ancient river bed across which it had been constructed which might have helped us orient ourselves. After a while, we met a tafteesh, or guard, a tall dignified man in a white robe, with his wife at his side, surrounded by a pack of yapping puppies. We asked for directions to the dam, but the guard had no idea where the object of our hunt might be! We had just set off again, travelling slowly, uncertain whether we were really lost now or not, when we were flagged down by a car. Helwan antiquities staff members had followed us to make sure we were on the right track -- or perhaps, to be more accurate, to ensure that we had not veered off the beaten track and taken the well-known smuggler's route that leads from this area to the Red Sea. About half an hour later we found ourselves driving along the north side of Wadi Al-Garawi. The road was smooth and broad, apparently built by the brick company to transport clay from further up the wadi, which itself was about a kilometre wide at this point. The inspectors peered out of the car window, looking for landmarks as we drove slowly along. Suddenly, one of them instructed the driver to pull up at the edge of the road. We all got out, and walked about 10 metres to the edge of the wadi. As we approached, the younger of the two inspectors threw his hands up in triumph and beckoned us to follow. We had reached the dam. Broad had read about the dam in several sources, had seen photographs and drawings, had travelled far, and here he was at last at the very site. His enthusiasm was wonderful to see. He vaulted down the side of the wadi to get a closer look at the structure, and ten minutes later he was striding across the rocks and gravel between the two remaining sections of the dam, on his way to the other side in order to get a better view. The dam was built straight across Wadi Al-Garawi at a point where the valley narrows to about 100 metres wide. The floor was covered with gravel and boulders of various sizes. Here and there was a thin veneer of alluvium, cracked by the heat where it was not held together by soil-binding desert plants. The sloping outer faces, according to existing records, are about 13 metres wide at the top, and 24 metres at the base, the space between the two walls being filled with rubble. The dam stands on a bar of solid rock. It must have been an impressive structure before the whole of the central part, covering a width of about 36 metres, was washed away. In his History of Dams, Norman Smith estimated the reservoir to have had a capacity of nearly 600,000 cubic metres of water. No mortar was used, as it was not considered to be a sealing material in ancient times. Broad pointed out to us how the surviving part of the dam was faced, on the upstream side, with roughly-dressed limestone blocks set in stepped courses -- and today much weathered. "The Ancient Egyptians lacked experience in sealing the dam face and its base against the percolation of water through and under the dam," he explained. "This water gradually eroded larger cavities and pathways until the increasing rush of water caused the dam to collapse. It is not known if a spillway was provided; that would have allowed excess water to pass safely over the top of the dam. In all likelihood it was not, and the overspill from the full dam caused erosion on the downstream side which led to its collapse." The dam has now been authoritatively dated to the Third or Fourth Dynasties (between 2686 and 2498 BC). In "A Note on the Sadd Al-Kafara" in the Bulletin de l'Institut d'Egypte (Tome XXVIII, 1947), GW Murray questioned why the Ancient Egyptians would have wanted to store so great a body of water, apparently in a hurry, and in the middle of the desert, so far from any cultivation. She quoted Schweinfurth, who posited that the reservoir was constructed to provide drinking water for the workers at the alabaster quarries about four kilometres east of the dam. In the absence of any alternative theory, Murray was inclined to accept Schweinfurth's theory. "But, if we accept it," she cautioned, "there must have been an intention to develop these quarries, which have never been worked on a large scale, to an almost modern pitch of 'mass production'." Broad knew something about the quarries too. He explained to us that Egyptian alabaster, or calcite limestone in modern geological terms, is not alabaster in the strict sense of the term. "True alabaster consists of calcium sulphate," Broad elaborated, "of which there are no known sources in Egypt." Egyptian alabaster is simply a rechrystalised limestone, and can be found in many parts of the country -- around Luxor, Beni Suef, Tora, and elsewhere. The two best-known sources are Wadi Al-Garawi, and the much larger and more famous quarry at Hatnub ("House of Gold"), east of Tel Al-Amarna. The quarries in Wadi Al-Garawi may have been exploited to a limited extent from very early times, because alabaster vessels have been found at pre-dynastic sites, and there is textual evidence that both the quarries, here and at Hatnub, were in operation under the Fourth dynasty. Egyptian alabaster was used for the floors and facing of Khafre's mortuary temple at Giza, for example, and for the mortuary temple of Unas at Saqqara. No sooner had we unravelled these enigmas, than Broad wanted to see for himself. Accompanied by the inspectors, he set off up the wadi at a steady pace, in search of the workers' community near the alabaster quarries. However, as the late afternoon sun began to cast heavy shadows on the rocks, it soon became clear that this was too ambitious a quest for a single day. It would have to wait for another time. "I shall be back," said Broad. "Next time I shall re- examine the dam, a great engineering feat that failed because of design faults rather than external effects, and hopefully also get to the quarry and the workers' settlement." Egypt can lay claim to many firsts, and Broad found it strange that this first attempt in the world to build a dam of stone, most of which is still intact today, is not considered a mainstream site likely to whet the curiosity of any serious archeological visitor. "It needs to be made known and marked off for protection," said our intrepid guide, as we made our way back to Cairo through the limestone haze and the fading sunlight. "With the increasing flow of modern traffic from the Nile Valley to the Red Sea, unless something is done, it is only a matter of time before it disappears altogether. " Alabaster statue, headrest and offering tablet (Cairo Museum)
