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Egypt's Karnak threatened by rising ground water

By Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press, 7/13/2001 01:10

LUXOR, Egypt (AP) Nothing seems out of the ordinary as tourists walk lazily around the labyrinthian, desert-dry complex of ancient Egyptian columns, statues and festival halls.

But underneath the rubble and dry sand at Karnak lurks a threat to the site, which ranks with the pyramids as among the most impressive of Egypt's antiquity treasures.

Ground water, say experts, has risen alarmingly close to the foundations of Karnak. It could eventually result in the crumbling or sinking of the temple complex built over 2,500 years, ending around the start of Roman rule in Egypt in 30 B.C.

The ground water no one can be absolutely certain of its source now lies less than two yards below the stone structures. In contrast, when the Nile inundated Karnak during the river's annual flood some 50 years ago, the water level stood eight yards below the foundations after the river's water receded.

''This is Karnak, it's no joke,'' said Sabry Khater, director of antiquities at Luxor.

Karnak's majestic columns on the east bank of the Nile at Luxor are known around the world. The complex provided stunning scenery for the 1978 British movie ''Death on The Nile'' and is visited by an estimated 2 million people every year.

Khater said local media reports suggesting it was only a matter of time before Karnak begins to crumble are grossly exaggerated. But he and other experts noted the danger was serious enough to prompt Prime Minister Atef Obeid to visit Luxor in June and for the issue to be brought up before parliament.

Gaballah Ali Gaballah, director of Egypt's Supreme Antiquities Council, flew to Paris last month to secure the cooperation of UNESCO, the U.N. agency mandated to protect world heritage, in projects designed to reduce the water level beneath Karnak.

''It is a serious problem. The question is how long do we have to correct it and how do we correct it?'' said Egyptologist Kent Weeks of the American University in Cairo. ''The ancient Egyptians built massive structures, some with foundations and some without and mostly close to the banks of the Nile.''

Decades of irrigation for thousands of acres of farmland around Karnak are among the suspected causes of the ground water problem. Years of leakage from drinking water and sewer pipes serving growing urban communities around the complex also are suspected.

''We are not going to wait until the columns begin to fall down,'' Khater said.

A $500,000 study by Stockholm-based Swedco on the likely sources of the water and the best way to reduce it is to be completed by October, according to Khater.

In the meantime, projects that may help are under way. They include a $40 million sewage treatment plant for Luxor and more efficient irrigation for the farmland surrounding Karnak. Most of the cost will be met by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Dubbed by archaeologists as the world's largest open air museum some 300 miles south of Cairo, Luxor has a population of 100,000. Only 12 percent of the town is known to have proper sewage systems.

Karnak is surrounded on three sides by clusters of mudbrick houses, some of which stand right against its outer walls.

Some archaeologists believe Karnak can only be saved by reducing ground water across Egypt.

''There must be a master plan for the entire country,'' said Daniel Polz of Cairo's German Archaeological Institute and a 20-year veteran of field work in Egypt.

''My impression is that it's going to be a major endeavor to do something about the ground water at Karnak. It is a regional, rather than a local, problem,'' he said.

Many antiquity sites along the Nile valley, he added, were being undermined by ground water and sewage from urban development.

Polz and Weeks, the American Egyptologist, said many of the 23 ancient temples across the river from Karnak on the west bank of the Nile are suffering from ground water problems too.

They also contend the construction of Egypt's Aswan dam upstream from Luxor, which allowed farmers to grow crops all year round by stopping the river's flooding, meant ground water throughout the Nile valley in Egypt has become stable at a high level.

Prior to the dam, completed in 1971, the river's valley was inundated at the peak of the annual August-October flood, but the water later receded and, in the process, washed the soil of salt the worst enemy of the limestone used by ancient Egyptians to build their monuments.

''Before the dam, the water level rose for about three months but was low for the rest of the year. When it receded, it cleansed the soil and took away the salt. The level of ground water is high all year round now,'' said Weeks.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001