EL-NABIH CISTERN: the historical and architectural study, and the initial excavation

Study of the documentary sources
 
Laurent Borel & Chrystelle March, architects
with Samuel Desoutter, archaeologist
February 2007

The evidence of the “Kamil Files”

  

LThe oldest documents attesting the existence of El-Nabih cistern come from the “Kamil Files” (fig. 7). As part of the study of the monument undertaken by the authors, a re-examination of the documentation revealed a second inventory file dating from the same period. This held information regarding some ten cisterns, including El-Nabih, with plans and drawings by E. Bauer and is organised with different numbering..

Fig. 7 : Drawings by A. Kamil showing El-Nabih cistern (n°3). Archives © CEAlex

These two files in fact belong to the same inventory, begun with a first numbering system, drafted by E. Bauer on large plates up to 1896, and then abandoned for another numbering system that saw small format drawings drafted by A.Kamil up to 1899. Previous studies had affirmed that the restoring of the cistern’s roofing dated to the 1950s, and this was essentially based upon a study of the Kamil file, in which the section seems to show its initial system of roofing.
A re-examination of these documents by the present authors revealed that the section drafted by A. Kamil in fact showed the hybrid roofing, an improbable mix of two systems, while the section drawn up by E. Bauer clearly showed that it had been restored (fig. 8). This examination also demonstrated that only the latter had actually drawn the structure. Kamil had merely redrafted.
Fig. 8 : Drawings by E, Bauer showing El-Nabih cistern (n° 57bis). Archives © CEAlex
Moreover, from observations on site, the architectural layout of the heightened structure and the materials used would appear to date to a much earlier period. We can thus affirm that the rebuilding of the roof actually happened prior to 1896.

Literary sources

None of the many travellers who have visited Alexandria since the 12th century mention El-Nabih cistern. It is only in the Bulletins of the Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l’Art Arabe that the first data concerning the cistern are found. Here one learns that the cisterns of Alexandria were declared state property at the end of the 19th century “in order to remove them from public control” after the establishment of a modern water supply system. In 1898, the Ministry of Public Works solicited the advice of the Committee regarding requests by private individuals to buy back cisterns situated on their property. Herz Bey, chief architect of the Committee proposed “to list the most interesting” and believed that “the choice should be made only from among those situated on government land” (fig. 9).

El-Nabih cistern was listed in 1900 and would serve as a reference in rulings over the fate of similar cisterns, often condemned to destruction. In is only in 1923 that Evaristo Breccia remarks that “the number of ancient cisterns still preserved is very small”. From then on, cisterns of the same typology as El-Nabih were preserved if possible. In the Bulletins published between 1882 and 1961, every intervention undertaken on the cistern is noted in the smallest detail. There is no mention of any works as great as that of restructuring the roof. From the beginning of the 20th century, the cistern is also mentioned in both academic and general public publications

Fig. 9 : Drawings by Herz Bey and a photo of El-Nabih cistern in 1898. Bulletins du Comité de Conservation de l'Art Arabe, Exercice 1898, Le Caire, 1900, Pl. VI-VII.
In 1914 and 1922, Breccia provided a detailed description of the cistern in his guide Alexandrea ad Aegyptum as among the remarkable monuments to be visited in Alexandria. The cistern is then situated and briefly described in the archaeological map drawn up in 1934 by Achille Adriani, then director of the Graeco-Roman Museum. Some time later, in 1993, B. Tkaczow plots it once again and gives a short description in his archaeological map. It must wait until 1996 before the CEAlex begins a truly scientific study of the monument.

Cartographic sources

A study of maps of Alexandria prior to the mid-19th century provides no sign of El-Nabih cistern or the “magasin des artilleries”. It is only thereafter that this military storehouse is clearly shown. Thus, it figures on the map created by Gallice Bey in 1845. It is then plotted on the map of Alexandria drawn by Mahmoud El-Falaki in 1865, along with the symbol for a well, perhaps giving us the first representation of the cistern or one of its elements of water delivery (fig. 10). On the Nouveau plan général de la ville d’Alexandrie drafted in 1902 by E. Nicohosoff, there is an unnamed square symbol that seems to represent the access kiosk of the monument that was constructed by the Committee in 1900 (fig. 11). One has to wait until the 20th century is well under way before the cistern is clearly mentioned and plotted on maps of the city. In 1905, on M. Bloomfield’s very schematic Alexandria (ancient and modern), one can read “Ancient Cistern”. It is only in 1914, on Alexandrie, plan de la ville ancienne et moderne created by M Bartocci that for the first time the name “citerne El-Nabih” appears. Finally, on the cadastral map of this section of the town drawn up in 1939, the structure and all its exterior additions are represented and named as “El-Nabih reservoir”.
Fig. 10 : The city wall, the “magasin des artilleries” and the well on M. El-Falaki’s Carte d'Alexandrie, 1865. Fig. 11 : Plotting of the city wall and the kiosk on Nicohosoff’s Nouveau plan général de la ville d’Alexandrie, 1902.
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