Irrigation in 3rd Millennium Southern Mesopotamia: Cuneiform Evidence from the Early Dynastic IIIb City-State of Lagash (2475-2315 BC) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Geoarchaeology, 2024
The last two decades witnessed increasing scholarly interest in the history of water management in southern Mesopotamia. Thanks to many geoarchaeological research projects conducted throughout the central and southern Iraqi floodplains, a general understanding of the macrophases of anthropogenic manipulation of this vast hydraulic landscape has been achieved. However, current narratives mostly rely on studies at a regional scale and are based on excessively long chronological phases (often spanning a whole millennium). A finer‐tuned analysis at a submillennial scale is needed to better appreciate the dynamics that led to the development of artificial canals and irrigation systems and the creation of harbours in cities and other navigation‐related facilities. The Iraqi‐Italian QADIS project is addressing this issue through a systematic geoarchaeological investigation in the south‐eastern area of the Qadisiyah province. We aim to update the current narrative by analysing case studies involving specific periods of occupation. We performed 17 boreholes to propose a date on the functioning period of the hydraulic works in five selected archaeological sites of this region. This approach allowed us to understand changes in water management strategies in both the short and the medium term (i.e., on a scale of centuries). In this paper, we present the results for the fourth and third millennia B.C.E. This period witnessed a crucial passage from the basic exploitation of natural watercourses for irrigation and occasional navigation to the emergence of the first system of artificial canals and intraurban harbours.
Water Management in Mesopotamia from the Sixth till the First Millennium B.C.
WIREs Water, 2017
The organization of ancient water control and irrigation has been a matter of debate in particular with regard to the role of the state. More often than not a deeply centralized management is assumed, especially for large-scale water control and irrigation systems, despite the lack of empirical evidence. Such assumptions are frequently based on the perception that irrigation and water control requires a massive (though often unquantified) amount of capital investment, labor, and a level of coordination and cooperation which could only be provided and enforced by a central authority. Given that most early civilizations, in particular of the Old World developed in river valleys, allegedly supported such notions of a close correlation between water management and socio-political complexity. More recently, claims about heavy state involvement in ancient irrigation and water management has been called into question, often however without being able to provide evidence for alternative explanations. Reason being that for most relevant cases we lack the necessary empirical evidence to measure the level of state involvement in the management of water and irrigation. The major exception is Mesopotamia with its exceptionally rich archeological and textual record on ancient water control which allows for a more nuanced understanding of the actual role of ancient states in the organization of irrigation and water management. This article reviews this evidence from the sixth till the first millennium B.C. and shows that state involvement in the organization of irrigation and water control within the same environmental context varied considerably over the course of several millennia. I argue for a close correlation between the level of state involvement in irrigation and water management and the way arable land was exploited by state institutions. In addition, I argue that environmental changes at times warranted state interventions out of necessity but also to the ideological concept of rulership as the protector and provider of agricultural profusion.
Itzchak E Kornfeld The Development of Water Law in Mesopotamia 2009 Dellapena and Gupta eds
THE EVOLUTION OF THE LAW AND POLITICS OF WATER (Joseph Dellapenna & Joyeeta Gupta eds), 2009
Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates, is home to the first civilizations in the Middle East. Given their proximity to the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, Mesopotamian civilizations, including those led by Hammurabi, Dadusha, Nebuchadnezzar, developed a system of communal canals and irrigation works and a legal framework to govern these works. For all their legal developments Mesopo-tamians left a dearth of written water law. For example, of Hammurabi’s 282 laws only four deal with water. These laws are found on large stone tablets or slabs known as ste-les. Not only did these laws establish a regime for liability, they also aimed at restoring the injured party to his former position.