Past days, past dams

Friday was a blessed day indeed: on the one hand the “opening” of the holy month of Ramadan and on the other the day that the Greek Orthodox Christianity venerates Prophet Elijah. The cult places of prophitis Ilias in Greece are situated on the top of the mountains and it seems that this tradition is linked with the solar origins of the cult that the Christian prophet came to substitute. The past finds ways to exist in the present and the monuments of the past are the most eloquent testimonies of these.

The way the ideas of this introduction developed into today’s entry was inspired by the announcement on the web that “University of Cincinnati Research reveals largest ancient dam built by Maya in Central America“.

The Maya dams were constructed in order to create water reservoirs that could sustain the population of the kingdom even in periods of drought.

Ancient and medieval dams can also be found along the Middle Nile in Sudan, where the narrow passing of the river between the rock outcrops facilitates the creation of such reservoirs, as it can be seen in this photo from the Fourth Cataract region, now lying under the waters of the reservoir behind the gigantic Merowe Dam…

…or they were built against the sandy river banks to stop erosion from the annual floods and preserve the fertile ground for the agricultural activities of the local population, as can be seen in this photo from the southern tip of Sai Island, threatened to disappear below the artificial lake that would be created if a dam is constructed on the Dal Cataract…

In all cases of dam buildings, it is the top of the mountains of the flooded areas that remain to remind of the old landscape, and among those there are surely many tops that have (had) cultic significance, perhaps even to a local form of the Sun God, a Nubian Prophet Elijah…