Malāʾ - Malāʾ

The sink el-Mala ' (also el-Mala ', el-Mala'a, Arabic:الملاء‎, al-Malāʾ, also Hod el-Tuyūr, Arabic:حوض الطيور) Is a long uninhabited lowland, 15 kilometers long from north to south in the south of the el-Faiyūms in Egypt. One suspects the legendary, artificially created ones in this area Moëris lake.

background

The el-Faiyūm is a fertile valley on the eastern edge of the Western desert and has always been an important agricultural area. The Faiyūm draws its water from Bahr Yusuf (Joseph's Canal), a branch of the Nile. The irrigation problem was mostly not that there was too little, but mostly too much Gave water. That is why the artificial low el-Malā 'was created in the southeast, which was supposed to take up the excess water during the Nile flood. It took on the function of a compensation reservoir for about half a year, during the drier period the water could flow away again. Even today the area is hardly inhabited.

So that the water could not penetrate into the Faiyūm, it could with a large one dam be cordoned off in the southeast of Iṭsā (Arabic:إطسا) Began and about el-Gaʿāfra (Arabic:الجعافرة) And Shidmūh (Arabic:شدموه) To Sheikh Abū en-Nūr (Arabic:الشيخ أبو النور) Was enough. The Faiyūm is relatively low, at its edges approx. 18 m above sea level, the water level of the Qārūn Lake about 3 m lower. The highest level of the Bahr Yusuf is a few meters higher.

There were several in ancient Egypt Disasters given: at the end of the Old Kingdom there is a global dry season, the Qārūn Lake also dries up. At the end of the Middle Kingdom, the state collapsed and the dam at the entrance to Faiyūm collapsed. The entire Faiyūm is flooded, only the statues of Amenemhet III. from the sanctuary in Biyahmu protrude from the waters.

Another reservoir of the Faiyūm was created in Greco-Roman times.

The equalization reservoir of el-Malā 'served in this function until the time of Muhammad Ali (19th century). The Nile regulation with dams made the Moëris lake meaningless in the following period.

getting there

mobility

Tourist Attractions

From the antique, about eight kilometers long dam There are remains at the entrance of the Faiyūm. These are mainly at Shidmūh.

trips

literature

• Garbrecht, Günther: A historic dam for water storage (el-Mala'a, Hod el-Tuyur) in the Fayyum Depression (Egypt), Leichtweiss Institute for Hydraulic Engineering.
• Garbrecht, Günther; Jaritz, Horst: Investigation of ancient systems for water storage in Fayum / Egypt. Braunschweig: Light white inst. for hydraulic engineering, 1990, Communications / Leichtweiss Institute for Hydraulic Engineering at the Technical University of Braunschweig; 107.
• Garbrecht, G.; Jaritz, H.: New results on ancient Egyptian hydraulic structures in the Fayum. In:Ancient World: Journal of Archeology and Cultural History, ISSN0003-570X, Vol.23,4 (1992), Pp. 238-254.