Kamares Aqueduct
Aqueduct located in Larnaca, Cyprus
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34.912131°N 33.598729°E Kamares Aqueduct, also known as the Bekir Pasha Aqueduct, is an aqueduct near Larnaca, Cyprus. Located just outside the city near the old road to Limassol, it was built between 1747 and 1750 and supplied Larnaca with fresh water for nearly two centuries. Tassos Mikropoulos has described it as the most prominent water supply built in Cyprus.[1]
History
The aqueduct was financed and built by Ebubekir Pasha (also known as Koca Bekir Pasha or Abu Bakr Pasha), the Ottoman beylerbey of Cyprus from 1747 to 1748.[2] Observing that the poor of Larnaca were forced to carry water on their backs from sources two hours' walk from the city, he undertook the project at his own expense.[2]
Construction began in 1747 and was completed in 1750, at a total cost of 50,000 qirsh (kuruş) paid from his personal fortune.[3][2] On completion he placed the entire water supply system, together with fountains, wells, and a flour mill he had built in Larnaca and the surrounding Tuzla district, under the administration of the Ebubekir Paşa Vakfı, the waqf he established for their upkeep; its income was drawn from a farm at Arpera, mulberry gardens, and a vineyard.[2]
Foreign travellers often counted the aqueduct as the most important monument constructed during the Ottoman period in Cyprus. In 1754, Alexander Drummond wrote:
For the honour of Bekir Paşa I must communicate an instance of the old gentlemen's public spirit. While he was Paşa of this land, in the year 1747, he formed the noble design of bringing water from the river at Arpera, and occasional springs on the road about six miles from hence, to supply the people of Larnaca, Salines and the shipping. A work worthy of great and good man, which might have cost him above fifty thousand piasters of six thousand pounds.[4]
Architecture and hydraulics
The aqueduct consists of three spans of cut stone arches, of which 75 survive today. The first span, nearest the Arpera River, originally had 50 arches; the second had 12; and the third, which carries the channel across the valley at the village of Çiftlik Paşa near Larnaca, has 31 arches (possibly 33).[3] Between the overland spans the water passed through a long tunnel served by approximately 250 air wells.[5]
Visiting Cyprus in 1878, the British traveller Sir Samuel Baker observed that the line wells (sıra kuyuları) along the system were sunk at successively decreasing elevations, allowing water to flow from source to Larnaca entirely by gravity.[2]
Later history
The aqueduct was restored in 1854 and again in 1876, and remained in active use until 1939.[3][5][6][7] A five-year conservation project on the Çiftlik Paşa span began in 1987.[3] The surviving arches stand outside Larnaca and are known locally as "The Kamares" ("The Arches"). They are illuminated at night.
