Hafir (large excavated reservoir)
Hafir (gran aljibe excavado)
- Date
- c. 300 BCE · confidence low
- Place
- Musawwarat es-Sufra, Butana, Sudan
- Credited to
- Kingdom of Kush (Napatan or early Meroitic period)
- Field
- Tools
What it is
Huge excavated reservoirs surrounded by embankments that collected summer rainwater. They allowed settlements, temples and cattle to exist far from the Nile, in the Butana steppe.
The Great Hafir at Musawwarat measures about 250 m across; the precise chronology of each hafir is poorly known.
What it led to
- Meroitic occupation of the Butana
- water storage for herds and pilgrims
- the hafir technique still used in Sudan today