Early dam building took place in Mesopotamia and the Middle East. Dams were used to control the water level, for Mesopotamia's weather affected the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and could be quite unpredictable.The earliest known dam is the Jawa Dam in Jordan, 100 kilometers northeast of the capital Amman. This gravity dam featured an originally 9 m high and 1 m wide stone wall, supported by a 50 m wide earth rampart. The structure is dated to 3000 BC.The ancient Egyptians built the first known dam to exist. The dam was called the Sadd el-Kafara, which in Arabic means “Dam of the Pagans”. The dam was 37 ft tall, 348 ft wide at the crest and 265 ft at the bottom. The dam was made of rubble masonry walls on the outsides and filled with 100,000 tons of gravel and stone.