Agriculture, Power, and the Role of Water in the Ancient World

---Pindar of Thebes, 476 BC

Archaeological evidence for ancient efforts to control water. Reasons: agriculture drinking sanitation flood control warfare

Hydraulic engineering Three lessons from the past: Major projects have been undertaken to control supply. Humans have dramatically altered landscape and natural environment in efforts to manage water. Control of water supplies and flow have always been associated with political power.

Earliest Evidence Ancient Jericho as located at a spring. The earliest known dam and well was excavated at the border of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, dates roughly to 7500 BC. No above ground signs for underground flow 8 meters below. How did the neolitic engineers know it was there?) Multiple wells at Athlit-Yam (Israel) dated to 6000 BC

Well springs at Jericho.

Large neolithic communal well at Sha’ar Hagolan (Jordan Valley) 6300 B.C. Mesopotamian sites of water works at Ubaid and Uruk and Choga Mami, B.C. These population centers were developed around water sources linked to irrigation canals. Levees built to control flooding of the Euphrates River.

Ancient Sumerian cuneiform tablets from the city of Ur give precise descriptions of water works, irrigation canal projects, and administration of water supplies. Irrigation provides water, but also serves to increase rates of salinization of soils. Some suggestion that demise of Sumerians was the elevated levels of salts in the soil, reducing agricultural yields.

Bronze Age Minoan civilization on Crete established dams, aqueducts, and wells as early as 2700 B.C. Minoan population centers reached populations of up to 100,000 persons. Because rainfall is limited, reservoirs and cisterns were developed to reserve supplies.

Minoans used terracotta pipes to bring water into the cities and to provide sanitation, including flush toilets in the palaces. Many cities had communal wells and baths.

At Phaistos (Crete) the entire palace courtyard was built as a water catchment system, channeling water to cisterns. At Mycenae (mainland Greece) rivers were redirected to provide water supplies for defensive purposes, B.C. At Tiryns (Greece) a dam was built to divert a river around a flood plain to protect the city.

Entrance to underground spring at Mycenae. Protected by the walled citadel.

Classical Greeks (5 th century B.C.) Water projects included tunneling through mountains to connect the town to a water supply. The engineering would be difficult today (520 B.C.) Eupalinos was the engineer. It is still not known how the project was accomplished. The mountain tunnel covers 1036 meters. The tunnel was begun from both ends and met near the center with only a 60 cm difference in height.

In war Several ancient accounts of generals damming and diverting rivers during war to shut off water supplies to cities under siege, and of dams being breached to flood cities and crop fields. The Nabataenas thrived in a desert region by bringing water to the city in secret rock-cut channels extending for miles. Once discovered,the Romans cut the channel to defeat them.

Petra

Political Power Roman engineering delivered water to cities. Once the Coliseum was flooded to recreate sea battles: Victories over the Carthaginians and the Egyptians.

Engineering comparison

The Americas Mayan engineers brought water to agricultural fields with canals and channels. Water was sacred to the Maya.

To the Mayas, underground rivers and caves that led to them were sacred sites.

The Chimu of coastal Peru, and later the Inca of the high Andes, engineered long aqueducts and developed terraced agriculture to maximize space and recycle water. Inca redirected rivers to create more land. Water was associated with Veracocha, the founding god who had risen from lake Titicaca, and to the Inca lord. All palaces had flowing water and fountains.

Terraced fields could be watered from above.

China Ancient Chinese hydraulic engineering has not been studied by many scholars. We do know that some form of water management was practiced from at least 7000B.C. Oldest reservoir dates from 606 B.C. It was 63 miles in circumference.

In 2012, while building an irrigation, a discovery was made canal of an ancient Chinese city buried by flood silts. The city dated to the Han Dynasty (140 B.C.) and provided evidence of an ancient levee disaster. Levees had been built to control river flooding and to make agricultural land has broken. Archaeology revealed this had occurred several other times, each time burying a city.

New projects in China follow old routes.

Take home message There is nothing new in efforts to manage water by manipulating the environment. Ancient projects were costly in manpower and resources, and were ultimately unsustainable. Modern projects have the same goals: provide drinking water, water for agriculture, to exhibit mastery over nature, and to display political power.