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In June 1902, a year ahead of schedule, these wonderful engineers and workers completed the majestic. It was a 2 km long masonry dam at Aswan. Queen Victoria, who died in 1901, did not live to see the dedication, but the dam was one more grand achievement of the colonial era to which she lent her name. The Aswan Dam was a marvel in an age of civil engineering marvels. It changed for all time the regime of irrigation in Egypt, which had already been irrigated for at least 5000 years. |
Aswan Dam, 1933
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Today, we think of the 1902 dam as a stepping stone along an historical path that was to lead inevitably to the High Dam in the 1960’s, to surging population, economic development, and modernity. It was a path of dam development on the main course of the Nile. The Nile is really two rivers, which differ sharply, giving the stream north of Khartoum an unusual character among the great rivers of the world. This peculiar character molded Egyptian civilization, and in so doing, deeply influenced the cultural history of the world. |
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