Nilometer

While visiting the ruins on Elephantine Island, we were on a quest to find an interesting instrument called a Nilometer – a staircase under a temple that was used to gage the Nile’s water level and its clarity right up to the 19th century. We weren’t sure what we were looking for but we did find it!

The Nilometer on this island, under the old temple, had 52 evenly-spaced steps that led straight down to the Nile, and there were white indicator markings on the walls at different levels for each step. Before the Aswan Dam was built, in the 1960s, the river water must have come up pretty high as the staircase was long. Actually we found two Nilometers in the ruins but the other staircase was blocked off.

Only priests and rulers, whether pharaohs or later, Roman or Arab leaders, were allowed to monitor the nilometers, and their ability to predict the behavior of the Nile was used to impress the common people. And also to determine how much money would be collected in taxes. This is why so many nilometers were built in temples, where only priests would be able to access the mysterious instrument.

Earlier, we did see another Nilometer in the Temple of Kom Ombo, but had no clue what it was. An Egyptian man try to tell us what it was by throwing a rock into a dark staircase and we heard a splash. But we thought that he was saying, millimetre, so it didn’t make sense. We thought that it was just a flooded stairway. Anyways, the water in that one came from the Nile by way of a canal that deposited it into a cistern. And again, the indicating markers were carved into the wall, accessible by staircases for the priests and rulers who predicted the fate of the Egyptian crop.Leer más