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AswanThe city was called Syene or Seveneh in the Bible and is described as the southern limit of Egypt. It was a trade center, serving as the gateway to Sudan and Ethiopia, and was the place where the annual Nile flood was first sighted in Egypt. From the syenite quarries nearby came stone for the temples and statuary of the Pharaohs. On Elephantine island, in the Nile opposite Aswan, and Philae island (submerged by the Aswan High Dam complex), south of the city, are found ancient Egyptian and Roman ruins. Aga Khan III (1877–1957), leader of the Muslim Ismailis, is buried in Aswan.
The Aswan DamsThe Aswan Dam, 3 mi (4.8 km) south of the city, was built by the British and completed in 1902. It and the barrages at Asyut in central Egypt were the chief means of storing irrigation water for the Nile valley before the completion of the Aswan High Dam. After being enlarged in 1934, the dam added c.1 million acres (404,700 hectares) of cropland along the Nile. In 1960 a hydroelectric station with an annual capacity of 2 million kilowatt-hours was opened at the dam.
The Aswan High Dam, about 4 mi (6.4 km) upstream of the Aswan Dam, was constructed from 1960 to 1970 and was dedicated in 1971. The Soviet Union took over much of the dam's financing after the United States and Great Britain quit the project in 1956. Built of earth and rock fill with a core of clay and concrete, the High Dam is 375 ft (114 m) high and 11,811 ft (3,600 m) long. Lake Nasser (c.2,000 sq mi/5,180 sq km), the dam's reservoir and one of the world's largest artificial lakes, has a storage capacity of c.204 billion cu yd (157 billion cu m); it loses some water through evaporation. The creation of Lake Nasser required the relocation of 90,000 people, most of whom lived in Sudan, and of many archaeological treasures. Under UNESCO auspices, the Nubian temples at Abu-Simbel were moved (1963–68) to a cliff 200 ft (61 m) above the old site and reconstructed. In return for its financial assistance in this project, the United States was given the Roman temple of Dendur, now displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. In addition to providing hydroelectric power, the Aswan High Dam has greatly benefited irrigation projects and the fishing industry in Egypt. However, its flooding has caused some land erosion and agricultural problems.
The Columbia Encyclopedia. Copyright © 2001-09 Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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Jabal Awliya or Jebel Aulia, village, N central Sudan. Nearby is a large dam (completed 1937) that is used to control the flow of the Nile to aid the Aswan Dam in storing water for summer cult...
- Abu-Simbel
Abu-Simbel or Ipsambul, village, S Egypt, on the Nile River. Its two temples were hewn (c.1250 B.C.) out of rock cliffs during the reign of Ramses II. To avoid the rising waters caused by the ...
- Elephantine
Elephantine, island, SE Egypt, in the Nile below the First Cataract, near Aswan. In ancient times it was a military post guarding the southern frontier of Egypt. The Elephantine papyruses, whi...
- Philae
Philae, former island, SE Egypt, NE Africa, in the Nile River N of the Aswan High Dam. Of its temples, all dating from late Egyptian and classical times (600 B.C.–A.D. 600), the most famous wa...
- Nubia
Nubia, ancient state of NE Africa. At the height of its political power Nubia extended, from north to south, from the First Cataract of the Nile (near Aswan, Egypt) to Khartoum, in Sudan. It e...
- Nasser, Lake
Nasser, Lake, c.1,550 sq mi (4,010 sq km), on the Nile River, SE Egypt and N Sudan. Created in the 1960s, it extends c.350 mi (560 km) behind Aswan High Dam, submerging the more southern secon...
- Baker, Sir Benjamin
Baker, Sir Benjamin, 1840–1907, English civil engineer. He helped build London's underground railway, Tower Bridge, and the Blackwall Tunnel, and with Sir John Fowler he designed and built the...
- Blue Nile
Blue Nile, Arab. Al Bahr al Azraq, river, c.1,000 mi (1,600 km) long, the chief headstream of the Nile, rising in Lake Tana, NW Ethiopia, at an altitude of c.6,000 ft (1,800 m). It flows gener...
- Wadi Halfa
Wadi Halfa, town, N Sudan, on Lake Nasser. It is the terminus of a railroad from Khartoum and is the point at which cotton, wheat, livestock, and other goods are transferred to steamers going ...
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Nile, longest river in the world, c.4,160 mi (6,695 km) long from its remotest headstream, the Luvironza River in Burundi, central Africa, to its delta on the Mediterranean Sea, NE Egypt. The ...
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