Until the 19th century, Alexandria was a place of canals and cisterns. The underground city was almost as vast as that above and without its year-round supply of drinking water, Alexandria would never have known the remarkable history that is its own. Founded in the 4th century BC and soon the new capital of Egypt, the essential and regular provision of fresh water to the town was provided by a canal that was dug from the Nile to the gates of the city. Within the urban heart, a complex underground network guaranteed the daily needs for both domestic and industrial consumption. This film, based on the research of Isabelle Hairy, an architect-archaeologist with the Centre d’Etudes Alexandrines, shows how the ancients confronted and overcame the problem of a city founded far from a water supply and how their ideas allowed Alexandria to become one of the great metropolises of the Mediterranean world.

• directed by Raymond COLLET
• Production : CNRS (USR 3134) - Centre d’Etudes Alexandrines
13’ - © 2007 - CNRS / CEAlex
Distribution : Harpocrates Publishing - 9, Sesostris Str., Attarine, Alexandria, Egypt
• This film is based on the research of Isabelle Hairy into the water system of
Alexandria
• maps : Isabelle HAIRY - Cécile SHAALAN
• photography : André PELLE - Isabelle HAIRY
• drawing of ancient Alexandria : Jean-Claude GOLVIN
• narration : Renee GIAN
• French edition of the poem : E. Combe - J. Denys, “Deux inscriptions turques”
Editions IFAO
• camera and editing : Raymond COLLET
• qanat photography : Jean-François GOUT
• excavation photography : André PELLE
• steadycam operator : Alain LECLER
• music : Innocence (Ed. “The Music Bakery”)
Improvisation, Hazem CHAHIN, oud
Elvira Madigan - W. A. MOZART - Serge MUDRY, piano
• thanks to Lucien BASCH, Kathrin MACHINEK, Jasmin BADR, Oueded SENNOUNE,
Michel WUTTMANN, Pascale Linant de BELLEFONDS, Institut Français
d’Archéologie Orientale

 

CEAlex 13’ MA07EN