GEORGE, D. S. (attrib.).

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Photographs documenting the construction of the Aswan Low Dam. Uncommon collection of large photographs likely taken by the British photographer D. S. George, who spent several years in Egypt producing official photographic material, including the commemorative albums for the completion of the Aswan Low and High Dams.Planned as the largest masonry dam in the world, the Aswan Low Dam was built by John Aird & Co., under the direction of Sir B. Baker, as part of a broader hydrological system aimed at controlling the seasonal flooding of the Nile and systematizing the Egyptian agricultural production in view of greater economic growth. "The central part of [the] new system of hydrological management came with the construction of the first Aswan Dam, designed to store floodwaters to feed the cotton fields of northern Egypt.... Downriver, the waters it stored were channelled to agricultural land by barrages, but the Aswan Dam was the grandest part of this plan. It was the straight line that would discipline the waterscape of the Nile valley" (Grinsell, p.110).These photos appear to have been taken during the same photographic expedition as those produced for the Aswan Low Dam official booklet, issued in 1907, albeit with different scenes including two views of the lock, the masonry banks, and British and Egyptian builders at work. They show the same "progressive narrative marching from chaos towards order" as the first official commemorative album (Grinsell, p.131), as a visual cel

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