système hydraulique citernes page 1

The study of Alexandria's water system

4th century BC to 19th century AD

The cisterns of Alexandria

Isabelle Hairy

The engineers of Bonaparte's expedition noted in the Description de l'Egypte five underground aqueducts and more than 400 cisterns. Four of the former ran south-north and were fed by the canal, which followed more or less the same line as the present-day Mahmoudieh Canal. The fifth lay perpendicular to the others and ran along the Canopic Way, which corresponds with today's Fouad Street, one major arteries of modern Alexandria.

Map of Alexandria (1798)
Description de l'Egypte pl.84

Archives CEA - © CEA

If we can roughly follow the aqueducts until they penetrate the town, the same cannot be said for the urban distribution and storage network. What remains of this? In 1849, a general review of the system recorded 450 cisterns, several kilometres of channelling and 225 saqias - water wheels for lifting water from basins or wells - of which 215 were functioning. Thus, until that time, the inhabitants of Alexandria continued to use the cisterns as water reservoirs. Twenty years later, the astronomer Mahmoud el Falaki, commissioned by Khedive Ismail to draw up a map of the ancient city, counted 700 cisterns within Alexandria's soil without indicating whether they were all still in use. "In Alexandria today, one can count seven hundred cisterns amongst which there are many of two levels held up by red granite columns and arches. Cisterns of three or four storeys are also not unknown in this town but, they, of course, are to be find in the elevated areas of the town."

Al-Dzajarl Treatise on mechanical procedures (1206), pumping system for filling a basin

Archives CEA - © CEA

These remarkable structures point out the importance of the network but the are unfortunately difficult to plot on the modern map of Alexandria. In 1990 only one sole cistern could be visited by the public, El Sahrig el Nabih (see introduction photograph), situated beneath Shallalat Gardens next to the 9th century Toulounid fortifications.

The study of the cisterns took a great leap forward thanks to a series of files lent to the CEA by the Graeco-Roman Museum. These files, created between 1896 and 1899 by an Alexandrian engineer, A, Kamil, document 136 cisterns, classed by district. Each document generally includes a basic situational plan, a schematic drawing indicating the major dimensions of the cistern, one or more sections and occasionally a few architectural details. Within these files one can see a desire on the behalf of the Alexandrian municipal authorities to abandon definitively the use of these cisterns in favour of a more modern water network. The reasons are easily understood: the dangers of water borne diseases. But despite such drawbacks, the cisterns never the less are what allowed the very existence and development of Alexandria.

Extracts from the Villes et bâtiments files of the Alexandrian engineer A. Kamil

Today our knowledge of the ancient water supply network is still only partial. The data gathered together in the Kamil files has helped expand that knowledge through an inventory of the cisterns still in use at the end of the 19th century.