The Rhumel River (

Tamazight The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related but mostly mutually unintelligible languages spoken by Berber communities, who ar ...

: ⴰⵎⵒⵙⴰⴳⴰ, also Rhummel, Rummel, El-Kebîrl; Arabic: وادي الرمال), in antiquity, the river was called Ampsaga. is the largest river in the

Constantine Constantine most often refers to: * Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I * Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria Constantine may also refer to: People * Constantine (name), a masculine g ...

region of Algeria.

Geography

The source of the Rhumel river is in the Ferdjioua (Mila) mountains. From there it meanders through the

plateau, then narrows considerably north of

Aïn Smara Ain Smara is a municipality in Constantine Province, Algeria. Its original name is Aïn Smara. Geography It is bordered by Ali Mendjeli to the east, Oued Athmania (Mila Province) to the west, Ibn Ziad to the north and El Khroub to the south. ...

where it forms an almost complete oxbow before infiltrating, in a SW/NE orientation, the Djebel El Hadjar limestone tables and the Aïn El Bey plateau. Les gorges du Rhumel et le pont El Kantara

Les gorges du Rhumel et le pont El Kantara

From here, it flows into a narrow ravine near Boussouf, goes through several curves, and becomes very narrow again at a place called "the Roman arches". This leads to the entrance to the Kheneg gorges, whose huge eastern pillar, called "Tiddis mountain", is the site of

Tiddis Tiddis (also known as ''Castellum Tidditanorum'' or ''Tiddi'') was a Roman Empire, Roman city that depended on Cirta and a bishopric as "Tiddi", which remains a Latin Catholic titular see. It was located on the territory of the current commune of ...

, a significant

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

city that was explored by the archaeologist

André Berthier André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese form of the name Andrew and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French-speaking countries, as well in Portugal, ...

. Not far away is the village of Messaoud Boudjriou (previously Aïn-Kerma) and its old

antimony Antimony is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Sb () and atomic number 51. A lustrous grey metal or metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient t ...

mine.

The lower Rhumel (or Oued-el-Kebir) passes through deep gorges in the Numidian mountains and empties into the sea east of the

Gulf of Jijel A gulf is a large inlet from an ocean or their seas into a landmass, larger and typically (though not always) with a narrower opening than a bay. The term was used traditionally for large, highly indented navigable bodies of salt water that ar ...

Tributaries

The main tributary of the Rhumel is the Oued-Boumerzoug which rises in the region of

Aïn M'lila Aïn M'lila (, ''Ayn Malīlah''; which means "the white source", the root ''m-l-l'' being of Berber origin) is a town and Communes of Algeria, commune in Oum El Bouaghi Province, Algeria. According to the 2008 census it has a population of 65,371 ...

. Its waters are widely used for irrigation, and the important spa of

Ain Fesguia Ain (, ; ) is a French department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Eastern France. Named after the Ain river, it is bordered by the Saône and Rhône rivers. Ain is located on the country's eastern edge, on the Swiss border, where it nei ...

is located towards the head of the valley. This tributary supplies drinking water to the city of Constantine, which is highly prone to flooding being situated at the confluence of the Boumerzoug and the Rhumel. Another tributary is the

Oued Dekri Wadi ( ; ) is a river valley or a wet (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water only when heavy rain occurs. Wadis are located on gently sloping, nearly flat parts of deserts; commonly they begin on the distal portions of alluvial fans and ext ...

, near the town of

Chelghoum Laïd Chelghoum Laïd is a city in Chelghoum Laïd District, Mila Province, Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, ...

50 km southwest of Constantine.

Geography

Tributaries

References

Further reading