Nilometer of Athanasius Kircher

This black-and-white woodcut depicts a circular, multi-storied building with its outer wall partially cut away to reveal a central, vertical column marked with numerical gradations ranging from 12 to 20. The structure features rounded archways on the interior levels and an empty, rectangular decorative frame mounted at the top of the central column. Outside the building, the surrounding landscape is marked by stylized hills, a river, and small, distant pyramidal structures.

From Athanasius Kircher’s 'Oedipus Aegyptiacus' (1652), this image reflects 17th-century European attempts to document, decode, and categorize the remnants of Ancient Egyptian civilization and its hydraulic technology.