technology: a world history -...

TheNewOxfordWorldHistory

Technology:A World History

Daniel R. Headrick

OXFORDUNIVERSITY PRESS

2009

2

Hydraulic Civilizations(4000-1500 BeE)

T he Book of Genesis in the Bible describes the third day of theCreation in these words:

God said, "Let the water below the sky be gathered into one area,that the dry land may appear." And it was so. God called the dry landEarth, and the gathering of waters He called Seas. And God saw thatthis was good. And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation: seedbearing plants, fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit withthe seed in it." And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation:seed-bearing plants of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruitwith the seed in it. And God saw that this was good.

We now know how this happened. Six thousand years ago, a peoplecalled Sumerians began separating land from water and planting cropsin the newly reclaimed wetlands rather than relying on rainwater as Neolithic farmers had done. In doing so, they created the first civilization.

The word civilization, as historians and anthropologists use it, refers to large-scale societies whose members contribute taxes, labor, ortribute to the state and pay homage to their leaders. Such societies wereradically different from Neolithic villages or foraging bands, whosemembers knew each other and were related by blood or marriage. Notonly did civilizations include far more people, but they also built monuments and cities, invented writing, mathematics, and calendars, and created elaborate religions, literatures, philosophies, and other forms ofculture. Some civilizations eventually collapsed or were conquered byoutsiders, but others survived for millennia. In later centuries, peopleoften looked back nostalgically to a "Golden Age" or a "Garden ofEden" before they became civilized. But once they had crossed the line,they could never return.

Unlike Neolithic villages where everyone helped provide food, inlarger societies, some people performed tasks other than farming or

herding. A few were full-time religious, political, or military leaders.Some were warriors, artisans, and merchants. And others were servantsto the elites or upper classes. To feed them, the farmers, herdsmen, andfishermen had to produce more food than they themselves consumed.The key to the transformation from Neolithic villages to civilizations,therefore, was the methods used to produce a surplus of food to feedthose who did not farm. New and more productive farming practiceswent hand in hand with a radically new organization of society.

The earliest civilizations did not arise in fertile rain-watered lands inthe temperate zone. Instead, they began in dry or desert regions wherewater came from a river, a lake, or a swamp. Farmers who grew cropson the very banks of the river or the shores of the lake or swamp werealways at the mercy of devastating floods or droughts. When they succeeded in controlling the water, however, the results were spectacular.Whereas Neolithic farmers in the Middle East might hope to reap fouror five grains of barley for every grain they planted on rain-wateredland, in a river valley, a grain of barley receiving the right amount ofwater during the growing season could yield up to forty grains.

The farmers who settled closest to the rivers could depend on periodic floods to water their fields. Those who came later, however, settledfurther from the riverbanks. To bring water to their fields, they had todig canals, dikes, and other earthworks. Building and maintaining theseworks required the labor of hundreds, even thousands, of men directedby a cadre of supervisors. Although farmers had to contribute theirlabor, they were not slaves driven by men with whips. People obeyedbecause they realized the need to work together, because of the peerpressure of their neighbors, and because they were afraid that refusing would bring down the wrath of the gods. Moreover, they knewthat they had nowhere else to go. In rain-watered environments, peoplecould wander off seeking new land, but in desert regions, survival wasimpossible outside the river valleys.

The place where the first civilization arose was Iraq, a land theGreeks called Mesopotamia, the "land between the rivers" Tigris andEuphrates. The valley has good alluvial soil but is difficult to farm. Itis very hot and dry in the summer and cold and dry in the winter. Although little rain reaches the valley, in the spring water rushes downfrom the mountains to the east and north when the snows melt. Therivers carry a great deal of silt that gradually raises them above the surrounding plains until they overflow their banks in devastating floods.All the peoples of the region told legends of the flood, most famouslythe Hebrew story of Noah's Ark told in the Bible (Genesis 5-9).

18 TEe HNO LOGY: A \VOR L D H I STORY

To the Neolithic farmers who lived in the surrounding hills,flood plain presented both an opportunity and a challenge. By the sixthmillennium BCE, the bolder ones were moving down into the plainsand building villages. By the fifth millennium, they were digging shortfeeder canals to irrigate their fields and drain excess water. To keep thefloods from washing away their crops, they built dikes. To hold someof the water back when the floods subsided in the summer when thecrops needed water the most, farmers built small reservoirs. Keeping thewater flowing was a constant task because silt clogged the canals andthe salt and gypsum it contained would poison the fields if they werenot properly drained. As the population grew, farmers drained marshesand built canals and reservoirs ever farther from the rivers, requiringever larger work crews. Success depended on good leadership and thecooperative work of thousands.

By carefully watering the rich alluvial soil, farmers grew an abundance of barley, wheat, and date palms, along with lentils, beans, peas,onions, and reeds, out of which they built houses and boats. They raisedsheep, goats, donkeys, cattle, and pigs and caught fish in the canals.There was more than enough for the farmers and herders to eat. After3500 BCE, villages in the wetlands of southern Iraq grew into towns,and towns grew into cities. The techniques used by the Sumerians gradually spread up the rivers and to the outer edges of the valley. After2000 BCE, farmers began watering their fields with a shaduf, or "wellsweep," a long pole with a bucket at one end and a counterweight at theother. Instead of using a hoe or a digging stick as their ancestors had,they cultivated their fields with an ox-drawn plow and planted seedswith a seed drill, a device that dropped seeds at regular intervals. Thisshift from horticulture to true agriculture produced much greater yields.Under the direction of their rulers, gangs of laborers dug canals up to75 feet wide and many miles in length. The most famous of their kings,the lawgiver Hammurabi who reigned from 1792 to 1750 BCE, namedone of his canals "Hammurabi-spells-abundance."

Egypt was an easy land to farm compared with Mesopotamia. TheNile flooded its valley in late summer and early fall, after the harvest.Unlike the Tigris and Euphrates, the timing of the Nile flood was predictable, and the silt its waters carried was fertile and salt-free. TheEgyptians built low dikes that divided the land into basins, letting waterstand for about a month to deposit its silt and soak the soil before itwas allowed to flow downstream to the delta of the Nile. Crops wereplanted in October or November and harvested in April or May, beforethe next flood.

HYDRAULIC CIVILIZATIONS (4000 1500 BCE) 19

Neolithic peoples had inhabited the Nile Valley for centuries, farming on the riverbanks and hunting and fishing the wild game in whichthe land abounded. In the fourth millennium BCE, Egypt was dividedinto little kingdoms, each of which had a "water house" that plannedthe building of dikes and the soaking of the fields. In the early thirdmillennium, after lower and upper Egypt were united under the Pharaoh Menes, engineers installed what we call nilometers, devices thatmeasured the height of the river. The regularity of the floods led themto devise a 365lA-day calendar. When they saw Sirius, the brightest star,rising in the dawn sky in line with the rising sun, they knew the floodwas imminent. They also developed surveying instruments and a practical geometry to help them place boundary stones to mark the edges offields and irrigation basins. They used shadufs and other devices such aspulleys and treadmills to lift water above the level of canals. The resulting food surpluses not only supported the creation of the elaborate culture and awe-inspiring monuments for which ancient Egypt has alwaysbeen famous, but they also produced the most secure and sustainablecivilization the world has ever known-one that lasted, with only briefinterruptions, for 3,000 years.

Thirteen hundred miles east of Mesopotamia, the Indus River flowsthrough Sind, now a province of Pakistan. The environment of the IndusValley was similar to that of Mesopotamia, with a rich soil, a hot, dryclimate, and a violent river that periodically flooded the plain. Unfortunately, we know far less about the civilization that arose there thanabout Sumer or Egypt because the few writings that have survived havenot yet been deciphered. We know that the organization of flood controlin the valley began between 3200 and 2600 BCE. Villagers dug irrigation and drainage canals and built embankments to control the floodsand protect their settlements. They grew wheat and barley and tradedthese crops with nearby nomadic tribes for metals, semiprecious stones,timber, sheep, and goats. They also traded with the peoples of Sumerand the Arabian Peninsula, as evidenced by pieces of Indus pottery andmetal objects found in both places. Some time after 1700 BCE, for reasons we do not fully understand, the population shrank, water controlwas abandoned, and the cities of the Indus Valley were destroyed byfloods.

The distinctive cultures of Egypt and the Indus Valley were inspired by the example of nearby Mesopotamia. In China, Mexico,and Peru, three different agricultural systems developed quite independently of outside influences. The earliest center of civilization inEast Asia appeared on the plains of northeastern China, along the

20 TECHNOLOGY: A WORLD HISTORY

Yellow River. The land there was exceptionally fertile, composed ofloess, windblown and waterborne silt that was soft enough to cultivatewith digging sticks. On average, rainfall was adequate for agriculture,unlike the river valleys of Mesopotamia, the Nile, and the Indus, andfarmers could plant dry-land crops such as millet and wheat. Someyears, however, drought parched the land. Worse were the years whentoo much rain fell on the mountains of central Asia. Then the YellowRiver became so laden with silt (hence its name) that it built up its bedabove the flood plain and then broke through its natural embankmentsin raging floods that swept everything in their path. That is why theChinese people call it "China's sorrow."

By the fourth millennium, Neolithic farmers were clearing the forests and building dikes, channels, and reservoirs to control the waters ofthe Yellow River. But to protect the inhabitants and support a growingpopulation, better flood control was needed. King Yu, founder of thelegendary Xia dynasty, is credited with the first large-scale flood-controlproject in China, around the year 2200 BCE. During the Shang dynasty(ca. 1600 to ca. 1046 BCE), the first one for which we have evidence inthe form of pot shards, walls, and other remains, the Yellow River plainwas dotted with thousands of villages whose inhabitants grew milletand wheat, raised pigs and silkworms, and made pottery. Above themruled an aristocracy of warriors who supervised the engineering projects, built cities, and fought with their neighbors.

If China was almost cut off from other early civilizations, the Americas were completely isolated. Thus, the Native Americans proceeded attheir own pace, undisturbed by outside influences until Columbus arrived in 1492. On their own, albeit much later, they created impressivecivilizations similar in many ways to those of the Old World, based onwater control in similar environments.

As in the Old World, ecological conditions varied from one partof the Americas to another, and so did the methods people devised tomake best use of the land and the water. Six thousand years ago, theinhabitants of Mexico began growing maize, beans, squash, and chilipeppers and raising dogs and turkeys. There were no large animals thatcould be domesticated, however, so all work had to be done by humans.By 2000 BCE, villages dotted the landscape of central Mexico, supporting trade between the different ecological zones.

The most spectacular water control system in the Americas, perhapsin the world, was that found in the Valley of Mexico. There, streamsfrom the surrounding mountains fed a series of shallow lakes. On theedges of these lakes, especially Texcoco and Xochimilco, farmers created

HYDRAULIC CIVILIZATIONS (4000 1500 BeE) 21

chinampas, rectangular islands 300 feet long by 15 to 30 feet wide, separated by canals. They did this by dredging up mud from the bottom ofthe canals and dumping it onto rectangular plots. To keep the soil fromwashing away, they put up reed barriers and planted willows. Periodically, they added layers of fresh mud and floating vegetation from thecanals, thereby keeping the soil fertile. Seeds were sprouted in nurseriesand then carefully planted in the chinampas. The abundant fresh water,fertile soil, warm dimate, and constant labor allowed the chinamperosto grow up to seven crops a year. Each acre of chinampas producedenough food for five or six people, a yield unmatched anywhere else onearth. The earliest chinampas date from the first century BCE, if not earlier. As the population of the valley grew, more and more wetlands wereturned into chinampas. In the first eight centuries CE, they supportedTeotihuacan, the largest city in the Americas. Even after the fall of Teotihuacan and the rise of the Toltec and Aztec Empires, farmers continuedto reclaim land from the lakes.

In the fourteenth century CE, a small tribe called Aztecs took refugeon an island in Lake Texcoco. There, they built the city of Tenochtitlanand proceeded to construct the most elaborate hydraulic engineeringproject in the Americas. To prevent the salt-laden waters of eastern LakeTexcoco from harming the chinampas to the west of the city during theannual spring floods, they built a ten-mile-long dike across the lake,with gates to control the level of the water. To supply the chinampas andthe city with fresh water, they tapped springs in the nearby hills and constructed aqueducts and causeways to the island. Hernan Cortes, who ledthe Spanish expedition that conquered Mexico in 1519-1521, wrote:

Along one of the causeways to this great city run two aqueducts madeof mortar. Each one is two paces wide and some six feet deep, and alongone of them a stream of very good fresh water, as wide as a man's body,flows into the heart of the city and from this they all drink. The other,which is empty, is used when they wish to clean the first channel. Whenthe aqueducts cross the bridges, the water passes along some channelswhich are as wide as an ox; and so they serve the whole city.!

By 1500 CE, on the eve of the Spanish invasion, chinampas coveredalmost 30,000 acres, providing food for a city of more than 100,000inhabitants, one of the largest and wealthiest in the world at the time.

In the same period as the rise of civilization in Mexico, anotherarose along the west coast of South America, where three distinct ecological zones lie in close proximity. The first was the highlands and foothills of the Andes, a region that was cold but received enough rain to

22 TECHNOLOGY: A 'VoRLn HISTORY

The city of Tenochtitldn, capital of the Aztec Empire, was built on an island inLake Texcoco. Surrounded by water, Tenochtitldn was so impregnable that thefirst Spanish attempt to take it ended in failure. In their second attempt, theSpaniards were able to take the city by building boats. Bildarchiv PreussischerKulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY

HYDRAULIC CIVILIZATIONS (4000-1500 BCE) 23

grow crops. There, people domesticated llamas, which provided meatand a coarse wool and could be used as pack animals, and alpacas, asmaller species that gave a finer wool. They also cultivated the potatoand a grain called quinoa. The second zone was the waters off the coastof Peru. Among the richest fishing grounds in the world, they provideda livelihood to fishermen as far back as 1500 BCE. The third zone wasthe narrow coastal plain. Although one of the driest regions on earth,it is intersected by rivers that come down from the Andes. Along thebanks of the rivers, farmers grew warm-climate crops, such as maize,beans, squash, and cotton. From very early on, the inhabitants of thethree zones traded with one another.

Around 1900 BCE, people living along the coastal rivers began digging canals, some of them more than 50 miles long, to bring water andnutrient-rich silt to ever-larger areas of land. Farmers also learned to

fertilize their fields with guano, the droppings of sea birds that had accumulated for centuries along the coast. In the highlands, farmers builtelaborate terraces to grow crops on steep hillsides. The Moche stateconquered most of the coastal valleys around 200 BCE and flourishedfor 800 years, supported by an active trade among the farmers in therich irrigated lowlands, the herders and farmers of the highlands, andthe fishermen along the coast. After 600 CE, the Moche were replaced bytwo rival civilizations: the Tiwanaku in the southern highlands aroundLake Titicaca and the Chimu along the northern coast. By the time theChimu were overthrown in the 1460s, irrigation canals brought waterto millions of acres in more than 60 coastal valleys.

The hydraulic engineering projects of these early civilizations bothrequired and supported large populations. But these civilizations arealso known for their building projects and for a rich diversity of craftsthat could be produced only by specialists living in settled environments.As Stonehenge and other megaliths attest, the urge to build existed before civilizations arose. But in Neolithic times, such construction tookmany years because the need to obtain food left the inhabitants withlittle spare time. In the early civilizations, in contrast, the productivityof agriculture provided a food surplus that could be used to feed construction workers. Furthermore, the habits of cooperation and obedience that came from working together on massive hydraulic engineeringprojects could be directed by the elites to political and religious construction projects as well.

The earliest building projects undertaken by the Sumerians weretemples and cities. They used little wood and no stone but made bricks outof clay and straw and let them dry in the sun. With these sun-dried bricks,

24 TEe H NO LOGY: A \Vo R LD H I STORY

they built ziggurats, pyramidal towers containing temples, storerooms,and workshops. Baked bricks, too costly for ordinary construction, wereused only for decoration. Each temple complex needed professionalpriests and artisans, merchants, and servants. Cities grew to tens of thousands of inhabitants; the first was Ubaid, built before 4000 BeE.

Land close to a source of water was so valuable that it led to disputes between neighboring cities. As wars broke out, there arose a classof professional warriors supported, like the priests and their retinues,by the surplus from the farms. Wars forced Mesopotamian cities to surround themselves with high walls and gates with heavy doors that couldbe closed at night or in the event of an attack.

The Egyptians were more fortunate than the peoples of Mesopotamia, for the Nile Valley is bordered by cliffs of good limestone. Stonetemples and palaces have survived for thousands of years, whereasordinary houses, built of sun-dried bricks, quickly melted back intothe ground if they were not carefully maintained. The most spectacularconstructions in the world, the pyramids of Giza, are almost as good asnew after 5,000 years: Khufu, the largest, is 481 feet high and covers

The Sphinx and the great pyramids of Giza are awesome evidence of the ancientEgyptians' mastery of masonry construction. The Sphinx of Giza, carved out ofthe limestone bedrock, is the largest single-stone statue in the world. Library ofCongress LOT 13550, no. 34 [P&P]

H Y D R A U LI eel V I LI Z A T ION S (4000 - I 500 BeE) 25

13.5 acres; Khafre is almost as huge; and Menkaure is one-third the sizeof its two great neighbors.

For what purpose were these enormous monuments built? Theusual answer is that they were tombs for Pharaohs. Yet one of the earliest Pharaohs in Egyptian history, Sneferu, who reigned from 2613 to2589 BCE, built three pyramids in succession, two more than he neededas a tomb. The first, at Meidum, began as a step pyramid; an outermantle, added later to turn it into a true pyramid with 52-degree sides,collapsed into rubble. Next came the Bent Pyramid, so called because itwas begun as a true pyramid with 52-degree sides, but once it reachedone-third of its intended height, it was quickly finished off at a shallow43lh-degree angle. The third was the Red Pyramid, a true but squatpyramid with 43lh-degree sides.

To put huge limestone blocks into place required a labor force oftens of thousands of farmers recruited during the three-month floodseason and fed with the grain taken from them as taxes during the previous harvest. As work progressed, however, fewer workers could fit onthe top of the growing pyramid. Instead of being dismissed, the otherswere put to work starting a new pyramid. That is why the Bent Pyramidis bent: it was finished off in a hurry when the architects learned of thecollapse of Meidum. Frightened by the disaster, they built the next one,the Red, at a shallow angle. In the process, they mastered the techniqueof using large stone blocks safely. Only then did they dare to build truepyramids with steep sides, the famous ones at Giza built under Sneferu'ssuccessors Khufu and Khafre. In effect, the purpose of pyramid buildingwas to accustom the people of Egypt to cooperate on great constructionprojects at the behest of their god-king, the Pharaoh. In so doing, Sneferu turned a land of Neolithic farmers into a single nation, Egypt.

The people who irrigated the Indus Valley also built cities. Two ofthem, Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, reveal an elaborate but very tightlycontrolled civilization. Unlike the Mesopotamian cities that grew fromvillages in a helter-skelter fashion, the two Indus cities were laid out in arectangular grid, proof that they were planned. They did not have wallsbut embankments, for they feared not people but floods.

In the Americas, long before cities appeared, civilization was associated with the building of large ceremonial centers where few people lived year round but to which many came on special holidays. Inthe first millennium BCE, the Olmecs of Mexico carved gigantic stonestatues weighing up to 20 tons and transported up to 100 miles fromwhere they were quarried. By the first century BCE, the temples andpyramids of Monte Alban, in the Valley of Oaxaca, attracted enough

7,(, TFr:HNoroc:v, A WORrn H Tf;;TORV

merchants, artisans, and other nonfarmers to qualify as a town. Likewise, the Mayans of southern Mexico and Guatemala created temple complexes such as Tikal surrounded by viHages with several thousand inhabitants.

The first true city in the Americas was Teotihuadn in the Valley of Mexico. Founded around 200 CE, it flourished from 300 to 700 but then declined. The people of the region built two great pyramids, the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon, along with hundreds of smaller pyramids, temples, and religious or political buildings. Around them, they laid out a city in a rectangular grid, with neighborhoods devoted to artisans in obsidian, pottery, doth, leather, and bird feathers and inhabited by merchants from other parts of Mexico. In its heyday, Teotihuacan had close to 100,000 inhabitants.

In other parts of the Americas, as in Mexico, ceremonial centers preceded cities. El Paraiso in Peru, built about 1800 BeE, included six huge buildings and required 100,000 tons of stone. Not until 2,000 years later was the first true city, Chan Chan, built in South America. In the southwestern part of the United States, the Ancestral Pueblo (or Anasazi) people built several ceremonial centers such as Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, or the more famous Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde, Arizona, with its 220 rooms and 23 kivas, or circular religious centers. These centers had only a small permanent population but served as meeting places on special occasions for thousands of people from outlying villages.

Not all the technologies of the early civilizations were as grandiose or required as much cooperative effort as water control systems or cities and monumental buildings. Some were on a smaller scale, yet were just as important to the lives of the people. Two of these, weaving and pottery, were useful to everyone, even the poorest. Others, like metallurgy and wheeled vehicles, were mainly of interest to the upper classes.

Unlike hunters and gatherers who clothed themselves in animal skins, agricultural people needed textiles. In every civilization, weaving cloth was done by both men and women, but spinning yarn was always the work of women. In the Hebrew Bible, the virtuous woman "seeketh wool and flax and worketh willingly with her hands. She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff" (Proverbs 31:13, 19,24). The distaff was a long stick that held the roving, or loose fibers, while the spindle was a short stick that rotated as it dropped, giving the 'arn a twist as it wound it. Using these simple devices, women could pin yarn while walking or carrying out other tasks. To this day, the vords distaff and spinster reflect this ancient women's occupation.

HYDRAULIC CIVILIZATIONS (L10(ln-T"'~~ ~-,_\

STUDIESIN ANCIENT TECHNOLOGY

BY

R. J. fORBES

VOLUME II

WITH 38 FIGURES AND 7 TABLES

SECOND REVISED EDITION

LEIDEN

E. J. BRILL1965

IRRIGATION AND ANCIENT SOCIETY

Irrigation as applied to the sub-tropical river valleys must haveenhanced the contrasts between the barren desert and the rich valleys.Generally speaking the valley soil contained salty and alkaline constituents which the irrigation water washed out and thus the floodsmeant a double boon. However, even the simplest form of adaptednatural irrigation meant work. The digging of canals and ditches, thebuilding of dykes and reservoirs meant handling large quantities ofearth. This labour, unless on a very small scale, was impossible in asmall community. Irrigation, even on a modest scale, meant cooper-

IRRIGATION AND ANCIENT SOCIETY

TABLE II

Comparison of the conditions of irrigation in ancient Egypt and Alesopotamia

5

Mesopotamia

Season of the floods August to early October April to early June~.. ~

Climate Semi-tropical Continental

1100 F 120° Fa

summer temperature~

A 53° F 40° Fa

winter temperature-_..... --

Season after the floods Winter Hot summer

Relation of harvest In time for winter- Too late for winter-and floods and summer-crops crops

too early for summer-crops

Rise and fall of the Slow and clear rise Sudden rise and fallwaters and fall

._-~----_.

Profile rivervalley Concave, sloping Very flat,towards sea. sloping towards sea.

No stagnant water Pools and swampsmmmmm....~

Surrounding country Lime- and sand-stone Weathered marlshills containing

salt and gypsum

Type and Quantity of Sufficient, salt-free 5 x as much saltysediment sediment. Little sediment, canals

silting-up of canals silting-up quickly

System of irrigation Basin irrigation Perennial irrigationmmmm ..._.-- ..........._-_._-~ . ---

Effects of irrigation As result of irrigation Tendency of salts andand type of soil alkaline compounds to

tendency to extract the accumulate in soil.salts present in the soil. Danger of silting-up

Very slow silting-up of the many canalsof canals

ation and organisation of labour. Hence, it became possible only whena closely-knit social organisation and government worked for thisgovernment and because of it. The handling of large quantities ofearth was possible because statute-labour (corvee) was a form in which

6 IRRIGATION AND DRAINAGE

taxes were paid. It demanded both control and differentiation of labourlest the work be finished in time.

Each special job had to be executed and timed in relation with similarones in adjoining districts, with the rise of the rivers and the demandsof the crops grown. This could only be done by a state or social organism which had the power and the officers to organize and control thesejobs. Water was the object of many legal disputes and hence it contributed heavily to the evolution of common law.

Fig. 1.Agricultural terraces of the Incas near Pisac, Urubamba Valley

Irrigation also stimulated science. As the fields had to be replottedafter the inundation, the boundary stones set up again and checked,and as the taxes often depended on the rise of the waters and the areaflooded, surveying the land was an important job. Geometry andsurveying were both stimulated by irrigation. Also it was most important to determine both the time and the height of the inundation.Though primitive agriculture had already used astronomical phenomena to determine the seasons, irrigation stimulated astronomy, theevolution of the calender and the study of the rise and fall of the rivers.

Again irrigation stimulated engineering. In the first place it sponsored the evolution of water-raising machinery, and the application ofcog-wheels in machinery in general. It also meant accumulation orhandling large masses of earth, a skill much needed in ancient architecture which often erected high terraces and mounds to be faced withnatural stone.

Irrigation and the plough greatly increased the harvests per acreageand thus provided food for a rapidly growing population. The earliesturban centres arose in the river valleys of the Near East. This concen-

IRRIGATION AND ANCIENT SOCIETY 7

tration of population intensified trade with the mountain countrieswhich bartered for corn their products such as building materials, ores,metals and timber. Thus irrigation and the evolution of urban centresare closely connected.

The decline of the ancient irrigation systems (5) is primarily oneof failing central power. The silting-up of canals, lingering up-keep,salt accumulation in the farm lands, depopulation through heavytaxation, destruction of the canals by invaders were only secondarycauses.

THE BEGINNINGS OF IRRIGATION

Though it was at one time contended that irrigation was an inventionof ancient Egypt (6) this opinion has no archaeological support andrested on misinterpretation of reports on the more favourable natural

- RelainingWanl

h ....... Channelilanks

Fig.2.An irrigated Hopi garden at Sykiatki.

(After Daryl Forde, Habitat, ECOnomy and Society, p. 232)

conditions in that country as compared with those in ancient Mesopotamia (7). Irrigation, as practised in the ancient civilisations, was theproduct of an evolution of many generations. The changeover fromhoe-agriculture to plough and irrigation farming took place at differentplaces on earth at various periods, its form conditioned by widelydifferent physico-geographical conditions (8).


Ethnology (9) tells us of many primitive efforts at irrigation. TheKazaks of Siberia make weirs in the rivers during the dry summer toconduct their water on their fields. After a certain period the weirs aredemolished again. The Payute of North America, too, build primitiveweirs of timber and brushwood such as one also finds in southernSpain. The Hopi and Yuma Indians use the little water they get fromwells and brooks to water their skillfully-built terraces. The spread ofcertain crops may be the reason of the introduction of irrigation. Thusterraces and irrigation were adopted by many when taro spread fromsouth-west Asia west and east into Polynesia (10).

In South America the Incas and their built weirs andirrigated terraces. The extent ofirrigation in Peru's coastal plain is quitecomparable to that in Afrasia (11). There it was a conditio sine qua nonof survival. The existing remains are undoubtedly pre-Spanish, whentheir extent was much larger than now. The more important of theseirrigation systems must have been constructed and administrated by abody of irrigation officials directed by a centralised pre-Inca government. Irrigation as a system came from the highlands to the coastalarea and initiated a fairly rapid rise of a more advanced society attestedby many archaeological finds and probably connected with the earlyMochica and Chimu civilisations (100 B.C.-600 A.D.).

The present-day Indians of the south-west use natural springs andwaterholes, and conserve rain and storm water from the mountainsand the high mesas in natural reservoirs by dams and other artificialmodifications (12). However, in south central Arizona we find animpressive system of prehistoric irrigation (13), "a million-dollar project" constructed with nothing more than rude stone hoes and woodendigging sticks. In the Salt river valley there are some 125 miles of mainirrigation canals, in the Gila river valley about half that amount. Manyof these canals measure 30' from crown to crown, and 10' deep. Thereare several independent systems in the Salt river valley. The intake ofthe main canals is far enough upstreams to provide sufficient fall forthe irrigation area. The lateral branches, some ofwhich are now obliterated, measure many hundreds of miles. This system was bnilt by theprehistoric Hohokam Indians who arrived about the first century A.D.and left the region about 1400 A.D. because ofsurplus water, alkalinityof the water-logged soil and dwindling productivity.

Even now we find similar attempts in the desert surrounding Egypt.Both the Hadendoa of the eastern desert and Arab nomads in Sinal usethe scarce rains to water the thin strata of silt in the wadis in which they

THE BEGINNINGS OF IRRIGATION 9

sow corn. This water is often held and conducted by dykes and earthenwalls constructed for the purpose. It is not impossible that similarprimitive methods were used by the prehistoric Egyptians driven intothe valley by the gradual dessication ofthe steppe highlands, now desert.

The need for regulation of the natural inundation arose when thechange of climatic conditions during the Neolithicum drove the primitive farmers down into the river valleys which were not overgrown bya dense jungle. Archaeology teaches us that population, which growsbut slowly during this period, starts to extend quickly towards theproto-historic period at the end ofthe New Stone Age, in Egypt duringthe Nagada II period, in Mesopotamia during the Uruk period. Thisgrowing population is very probably both the cause and effect of thedrainage, cultivation and irrigation ofthe river valleys. It coincides withthe rise of urban centres and larger social groupings needed for theorganisation and cooperation needed for such efforts. Irrigation mayhave started as these valleys began to be populated, the large-scalesystems which we associate with this word must date from the middleof the fourth millenium B.C. The first states in Egypt and Mesopotamiarepresent the amalgamation of the work already done by smaller tribesor clans and they crown the efforts of the Copper Age by joining thesmaller irrigation units into large well-organised systems. Only in theCopper Age or proto-historic period do size of population, climate,development of agriculture and social organisation provide the factorsneeded for the building of stable efficient irrigation systems. We haveno proof that irrigation was an invention of a private individual. Moreprobably it was the final link in a chaim ofmany gropings and attemptsto master the natural rise and fall of the rivers in the valleys.

TERRACE IRRIGATION IN ANTIQUITY

To the dwellers of the desert ancient Palestine may have seemeda "land of promise", if compared with Egypt, Mesopotamia or evennorthern Syria it was but a "barren land" which needed its "springsof water". There certainly was some irrigation in ancient Palestine e.g.in the Negev, where such primitive irrigation remains were recentlystudied, and viticulture was found to have been practised (14), thoughon a small and local scale only for conditions did not favour it. In thishilly country the hot-dry summer (80--90° F.) is followed by a rainyseason in which 28" of rain fall from the end of October until Easter.The few springs and wells allow some local terrace irrigation. Agri-


IRRIGATION IN ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA

In Mesopotamia we find conditions much like those in China. Thecountry has a continental climate, winter in Assyria was cold andstormy. It was less secluded but less independent than ancient Egypt.All the important raw materials had to be obtained from the mountainregions, even timber was scarce from the earliest times onwards. Thecountry "between the two Rivers" was a wide alluvial treeless plainwith many stagnant pools and swamps. Gradually the rivers with theirmuddy inundations have raised the plain and pushed their mouthsforwards 2.5 km eastwards onto the Persian Gulf every century. Heretoo the dykes were often broken and the river beds found a new course.Cities like Sippar, Nippur, Ur and Uruk were originally built on thebanks of Euphrates. Here too the river bed and the canals are above thelevel of the farmlands.

The classical authors have all praised the fertility of these plains."Its com is so abundant that it yields for the most part two hundredfold, and even three hundred fold when the harvest is best" (46) andTHEOPHRASTUS (47) mentions a fifty- to a hundredfold harvest. STRABO(48) states that "the country produces larger crops of barley than anyother country (bearing three hundredfold, they say)". However, regulation of the rivers and care for irrigation and drainage here againtake the form of a struggle against the water like in ancient China.

The ancient inhabitants of this country were always strongly impressed by number and measure. They started to fight the hydrologicalchaos symbolized in their myths and epics as the "Flood", drainingswamps and digging canals. Ea, the god ofthe ocean on which the earthfloated (the "waters of the Deep (Apsu)"), Ningursu, god of the inundation, Tiamat and others were malicious powers which had to bepropitiated with gifts and prayers, rather than praised like the Nile(Hapi) by the Egyptians.

The earliest al-'Obaid inhabitants of Southern Mesopotamia (Sumerand Akkad) have founded their huts on mats made of reeds and theydrained their swamps with canals. The Tigris rises earlier than theEuphrates, it carries about 2.5 times as much water but its bed cutsdeeper into the plains. Therefore the Euphrates though carrying only40 % the amount of water, is the main source for irrigation of the landbetween the two rivers, as its bed is above the plains. The Tigris wasused in Antiquity to water the country on its left bank, as is still thecase east of Bagdad. The fact that the rivers rise in the wrong season for-

IRRIGATION IN ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA 19

ced the earliest inhabitants to adopt perennial irrigation. The possibilitiesofirrigation in Mesopotamia have been overrated since Antiquity. "0thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant in treasures", saidJeremiah (49) and modern authors (50) have drawn equally optimisticpictures. Accurate calculations, however, have shown that in winter2,800,000 ha, in summer 1,200,000 ha might he irrigated at most (51).

Thus the ancient Sumerians constructed an intricate system of dykes,parallel and lateral canals, canals tapping water from the rivers, weirsand reservoirs to stow the accumulated waters and to release them inthe correct season. Hence every year the dams leading from the maincanals to the smaller ones had to be opened and dosed again. This iscorrectly described by STRABO (52): "For the Euphrates rises to floodtide at the beginning of summer beginningfirst to risein the spring whenthe snows in Armenia melt; so that of necessity it forms lakes anddeluges the ploughed lands, unless the excess of the stream, or thesurface water, is distributed by means of trenches and canals. Now thisis the origin of the canals; but there is need of much labour to keepthem up, for the soil is so deep and soft and yielding that it is easily sweptout by the streams, and the plains are laid bare, and the canals are easilyfilled and their mouths choked by silt; and thus it results again that theoverflow of the waters, emptying into the plains near the sea, formslakes and marshes and reed beds, which last supply reeds (for all kindof crafts)....

Now it is impossible, perhaps, to prevent overflows of this kind,but it is the part of good rulers to afford all possible aid. The aid required is this: to prevent most of the overflowing by means of dams,and to prevent the filling up effected by the silt, on the contrary, bykeeping the canals cleared and the mouths opened up. Now the clearingof the canals is easy, but the building of dams requires the work ofmany hands; for, since the earth readily gives in and is soft, it does notsupport the silt that is brought upon it, but yields to the silt, and drawsit on, along with itself, and makes the mouth hard to dam. And indeedthere is also need of quick work in order to close the canals quickly andto prevent all the water from emptying out of them. For when they dryup in the summer they dry up the river too; and when the river islowered it cannot supply the sluices(?) with water at the time neededmost in summer, when the country is fiery hot and scorched; and itmakes no difference whether the crops are submerged by the abundanceof water, or are destroyed by thirst for water. At the same time, also,the voyages inland, with their many advantages, were always being


thwarted by the two above-mentioned causes, and it was impossible tocorrect the trouble unless the mouths ofthe canals were quickly openedup and quickly closed, and unless the canals were regulated so that thewater in them neither was excessive nor failed."

The fine silt was indeed not very suitable for large dykes which weresometimes strengthened by layers of reed mats, a method also adoptedin the building of temple mounds. The destructibility of these dykesmakes it very probable that none of these canals had a life of more than1000 years (53). Air photography shows that there are many traces ofold canals, 6-25 m wide, leading from the Euphrates downstreams orto the Tigris. We also have the names of scores of canals (54) but thetopography of ancient Mesopotamia is by no means solved (55). Thesame holds good for the ancient reservoirs, many of which silted upquickly, when the water became "dead" as the Arabs have it. Nor dowe know much about the actual site ofmany weirs. Some have supposedthat the rapids of the Euphrates near Hit and Anah were used to tapriver water and that the gradual corrosion of these rapids was the causeof the degeneration of irrigation (56). The construction of such weirswas certainly feasible at an early date in view ofthe experience in makingdykes which sometimes assumed the size of mounds from which theword for mountain (sadu) may well have been derived (57). In manycases the actual site and size is reported in ancient texts.

We get the impression that the city-states which made up ancientSumer were actually irrigation units or provinces (58) and that manyof their wars were due to irrigation problems. The maintenance ofagriculture but also the social fabric was based on the control of water,for there was and still is a sharp frontier between the desert and thesown. Grain tallies and their complementary marks of ownership formthe basis of cuneiform script. The commercial theocracy of the citystate was based on agriculture and therefore on irrigation. Henceirrigation is echoed in religious poetry like the Tammuz hymns, andthe construction of canals and dykes was the primary duty of the kings.Complaints that "those in authority seem to believe that their canalsand public buildings are the only things that will interest posterity" (59)are unfounded and unjust. When the irrigation system was finallythoroughly destroyed on purpose by Hulagu and his Mongol hordesafter the capture of Baghdad (1258 A.D.) this meant the final decline ofMesopotamia, though the weak central power had already led toinsufficient upkeep of the canals and reduction of the area under cultivation. The archaic script of Mesopotamia already reflects irrigation

IRRIGAnON IN ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA 21

[5]. The early kings of the First Dynasty of Ur were very active. UrNanse created many canals and reservoirs (59). Eannetum is said to havemade a large reservoir called Lumma-dim-dug. Entemena of Lagashmay have dug the large canal now called the Shatt el-Hai; Urukaginaand he claim many canals.

During the Third Dynasty of Dr period (2100-1950 B.C.) and thesubsequent Old-Babylonian period there was again a great revival ofcanal construction. Ur-Nammu, the founder of the dynasty left us aninscription enumerating the canals which he dug to promote the fertility of his land (60). There is no doubt that irrigation technique waswell-understood by them (61). The texts mention that the lateral canalswere closed by a "mouth", probably a weir or a spill-way. The "tail"of these canals was probably a reservoir, which is quite distinct fromthe special tanks of drinking water called "NAG-TAR". The work onthese canals was of course compulsory labour. The area cultivated insouthern Mesopotamia was probably some 30,000 km2•

Though the kings of the Isin-Larsa period also claim efforts in thisfield (Sin-idinnam) and even left us contracts for canals (Rim-Sin), wehave a third period of revival during the reign of King Uammurabi ofBabylon (about 1700 B.C.) whose last nine years were practicallywholly devoted to canal building. He started the Arakhtu canal leadingfrom Babylon and later joined with the Royal Canal (Nahar mall;m),connected Euphrates and Tigris in the narrows and laid a canal downthe Sippar. In his famous code of laws some deal with the enforcing ofthe upkeep of canals, the protection of tennants against inundations(§ 45) and guarantees for sufficient supplies of water (§ 48). This showshow strong an influence irrigation had on the formation and codification of law. His successor Samsu-Iluna was also active and built acanal for Uruk.

Obviously most of the canals commemorated in the year-formulaeof the kings were for irrigation purposes, their names often containingsuch elements as "which brings abundance". All these canals had to bedug by hand thus demanding large numbers ofworkmen. This labourforce is as a rule denoted by the general word for workmen (erim, [abe),sometimes they were hired, in other cases they were recruited fromstatute labour. The adjacent landowners were responsible for the upkeep of the smaller canals, some regulations on this point can be foundin the Codex Hammurabi. Stipulations with regard to irrigation weresometimes made in deeds relating to landed property.

Various terms are used for canals according to their size, the larger


ones being called naru (Sum. i7) e.g. the smaller ones palgu oratappu, the latter term being used by Hammurabi's Codex. Variousauthors have recently studied this terminology (61a).

Irrigation was just as important to the western regions such as thekingdom Mari. In the archives found in that city there were manytablets addressed to the king ofMari by Kibri-Dagan, the governor ofthe district of Terqa to the north of the town of Mari. These letterscontain a number of technical terms and they an impression of thedifficulties and the complexity of the problems which confrontedancient technicians. Not only they had to secure the irrigation of thefields, but they had also to prevent the irrigation water from floodingtowns and villages. The ljabur river, which crossed the district, wasapparently provided with dykes (erretu), which broke or overflowed intimes of exceptionally high water. If balitum means really a basin, itmay be accepted that water was kept in times ofhigh water in reservoirsin order to have water for irrigation in dry periods. Breeches in thedykes of such a reservoir, as occurred at the reservoir of Zurubban,apparently near a town of that name, had to be repaired as soon aspossible. Another important work was the clearing of the canals ofreeds. Many people were employed on all these tasks, as is shown bythe texts, especially when the work was in times of inundation.

In Old-Babylonian times irrigation was just as important to the townof Susa. The canal (pa5) from which a field drew water was as a rulementioned in leases. One of the texts gives a list ofcanals together withthe areas of the groups of fields irrigated by them, but plenty of furthertexts give names of canals too. An official named sukkallu seems tohave supervized the canals, which had to be kept in gooed conditionby the neighbouring landowners as in later historical periods. In certaincases, e.g. by presenting a special gift or tribute the donor could beextempted from being responsible for the upkeep of a canal.

There is a fourth revival canal building in the Assyrian Empire.Nebuchadnezzar I (1146mm 1123 B.C.) could already curse his enemies"that Raman the god of sources and rivers fill thy canal with sand andleave thee a prey to famine". The Assyrian kings, however, built hugecanals which brought the water from the mountains down to the plainseast of the Tigris to supplement the ancient irrigation system usingriver water, though Assyria had a fair share of winter rains.

Assur-nasir-pal II (883-853 B.C.) and above all Sargon II (722-705B.C.) worked to make Niniveh and the new royal city of Chorsabadbeautiful garden cities with parks, well-watered fields and gardens

which received their water fro . new canals and weirs. Sargon had learntthe secret of tapping water from subterranean strata during his campaigns against Ulttu and the old mining country of Urartu (Armenia).He constructed the Nar-~li-Dandan near Bagdad, the "canal of theland of Umlia!;" on the eastern bank of the Tigris towards the borders

Fig. 4.King Zer of Egypt (2600 B.C.) opening the irrigation canals ar the beginning of the

inundation season. (Photo Ashmolean Museum).


of Elam (Persia) and reconstructed the canal of Borsippa to make it fitfor shipping. His son Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) undertook a vastscheme to irrigate the country around Niniveh east of the Tigris. Itinvolved canalisation of part of the Khosr river, the building of weirs,canalisation of the brooks east of the Khosr river, regulation of theupper Atrush river, and the building of a 55 km aqueduct tapping thenew Atrush above a new weir near Bavian and carrying its water toNiniveh (700--690 B.C.) (62). He also built a qanat to supply Arbelawith water (63). Assurhaddon (680--669 B.C.) brought the water ofthe Zab to Kalah through the Negub-tunnel (qanat). The Neo-BabyIonian kings (625-538 B.C.) such as Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzarand Nabonidus reconstructed and amplified the irrigation canals wouthof Babylon. The texts mention many specialists in this field [6].

Alexander the Great and his successors understood the importanceof these works and took good care for their upkeep. As STRABO has it(64): "Aristobulus says that Alexander himself when he was sailingup the river and piloting the boat, inspected the canals and with hismultitude of followers cleared them; and when he noticed that onecanal, the one which stretched most directly towards the marshes andlay in front of Arabia, had a mouth most difficult to deal with and couldnot easily be stopped up because of the yielding and soft nature of thesoil, he opened up another mouth, a new one, at a distance of thirtystadia from it, having selected a place with a rocky bottom, and that hediverted the stream to that place; and that in doing this he was takingforethought at the same time that Arabia should not be made utterlydifficult to enter by the lakes or even by the marshes, since, on accountof the abundance ofwater, that country was already taking the form ofan island."

The canal STRABO describes is called Pallacopas by Arrian (65) whosays that "for three months over ten thousand Assyrians were engagedon this task". The topography of the region was entirely different, eventwo centuries after Alexander the Euphrates and Tigris still had separate mouths (66). The formation of the Shatt-el-Arab started the formation of swamps in this region. With Hellenism more rational irrigation spread into Persia, Bactria, Sogdiana and Margiana, and in thefourth century B.C. it flourished in Mesopotamia and adjoining regions.In the later Seleucid and early Parthian period the upkeep of the irrigation system faltered, the end of the second and beginning of thefirst century B.C. was the darkest period. Still Phraates IV (37-32B.C.) could again praise his governors for having restored the irrigation

IRRIGATION IN ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA 25

system. Trajan and Hadrian are known to have constructed severalcanals. Sometimes private individuals constrcted them, e.g. in theneighbourhood of Dura Europos. It was handed over fairly intact bythe Sassanids to the Arab caliphs, but suffered its final decline by theruthless destruction of Hulagu's armies.

However, destruction of the famous fertility of the Land of the TwoRivers came not only by the hand of man. Nature itself by means of thecomposition of the fertile mud ruined many parts of Mesopotamia.During the centuries the large amounts of salts (notably gypsum)carried down the mountains with the silt made agriculture impossiblein certain flooded districts in the south and have prompted the peasantsto move north. Natural flooding as in Egypt would have avoided this,but natural circumstances pushed ancient Mesopotamia towards basinirrigation with insufficient drainage facilities, which led to this accumalation of salts in badly drained areas and destruction of its fertility. Thedanger of the absorption of salts by the fields was recognised early inMesopotamian history. A report written during the first year of thereign of Urukagina and found in the temple of the goddess Bau, thespouse of Ningirsu mentions that part of the fields belonging to thetemple had become infertile. Studies by Prof. Thorkild Jacobsen in theDiyala region have shown the progressive destruction of the fertilityof the irrigated fields by the absorption of salts from the inundationwaters. Modern engineers (66a) are now discussing the possibility ofcuring this poisoning of the soil in Lower Mesopotamia. ThereforeHulagu simply signed Nature's decree of infertility.

IRRIGATION OF ANCIENT EGYPT

"The activity of the (Egyptian) people in connection with the rivergoes so far as to conquer nature through diligence... Diligence hasoftentimes, even when nature has failed, availed to bring about thewatering ofas much land even at the time ofthe smaller rises ofthe riveras at the greater rises, that is, through the means of canals and embankments" (67) says STRABO. Hence the Egyptians conquered theland with the help of the river. Hapi, the Nile (in reality the inundationwaters) was a most friendly god. Even the three seasons are closelyconnected with irrigation, they are called "Inundation", "Comingforth" and "Lack of water" [7J.

Diligence made this small strip of farmland along the Nile feed some7,000,000 people in Roman times and even export large quantities of


grain to Rome. Now cotton has largely displaced wheat. Irrigationwas also supreme in the ancient paradise (68) and the godOsiris is early identified with the fertile waters ofthe inundation. Hencethe dead would assure the judges in the Underworld that "he has neverdiverted a canal or raised a dam (to divert his neighbour's water) nortapped another's ditch". Amenophis, son of Hapu's curse "May hebe excluded from the waters of inundation" was a most potent one.

The Nile does not flood all Egypt. Though the rise at the first cataractis still 15 m, it is no more than 6-8 m at the Delta. Hence the Egyptiandistinguished the naturally inundated land from the artificially irrigatedfields [8]. About August 15th the water floods the land through thebreaks in the dykes and remains there 0.5-2.0 m high for some 6-8weeks. The title [9] given to the vizier probably refers to the fact thathe performed the ceremony of cutting the as is illustrated by themace head of the protohistoric King Zer (fig. 4). Then the river startedto fall and the water was drained off the fields, the dykes were closedagain. This inundation coming after the harvest when the scorchingsun had crackled the earth's surface would stimulate the refertilizationand the extraction of salts. Perennial irrigation would not have hadthese advantages (69).

From the earliest historical period we find a well-organised "department of irrigation" which was probably a separate ministry andnot subject to the ministry of public works of which all famous architects in history were heads. We often encounter "chief ofirrigation" among the titles of high officials (70) [10]. One of the mostimportant tasks of this department was the observation of the rise andfall of the Nile. For this purpose wells were dug, in which a measuringstaff or scale was placed, and this well was then made to communicatewith the Nile. These Nilometers (71) date back to protohistoric timesfor the very early annals on the so-called Palermo Stone give the hl,il;hestmark of the Nile for every year in ells, palms and inches (72). This already struck the classical authors, tor DIODOR reports (73): "In theiranxiety over the rise of the Nile, the kings had a Nilometer built atMemphis. Those who were entrusted with the inspection noted carefully the rise of the river and they scnt messengers to the different townsto inform them how many ells and inches the river had risen and whenthe fall began. Thus the people was relieved of all anxiety about it. Allthus knew, after a long period of observation, in advance how richthe harvest of the gifts of the earth would be." PLINY (74) adds thata good harvest was expected from a rise of 12-16 ells at Memphis.

IRRIGATION OF ANCIENT EGYPT 27

Neither too little nor too much, for this might spell a famine of whichwe have many records (75).

STRABO mentions a second Nilometer at Elephantine near the firstcataract (76) where the rise should be 12 ells over that at Memphis.The inundation coincided with the season so called and also with thehelical rise of Sirius. It marked one ofthe calendars in use in Egypt. Theland was completely flooded along the rivers and the villages remainedisolated on small mounds (77) which to the ancient Egyptians lookedlike the earth emerging from the waters of chaos at the day of creation.Hence in the ancient script the road is represented by a dyke with waterlilies on its slopes. Basin irrigation was certainly the oldest system introduced in Egypt and its "provinces" were certainly irrigation units [11]like the Dutch "waterschap" or "hoogheemraadschap".

Each of these provinces had its own central office, the "waterhouse"whose chief directed a set of "inspectors of the dykes", "chief of thecanal workmen", "inspector of the forced labour", "watchers of theNilometers", "inspectors of the inundation" and officials "who cutthe dykes" (or "opened the dams"). They in their turn a host of slaves,Thus Ramses III (1200 B.C.) mentions "I appointed many workmen aswatchers for the inundation administration" (78). There were speciallawcourts ("water tribunals") to deal with conflicts about irrigationwater. The units mentioned were about 12-80 km 2, that is about onetenth of the present ones.

After the inundation there was also much work for a second statedepartment, the land registry office. It was very old, for even the Palermo Stone mentions the "measuring and counting of the lands" onseveral occasions. This was important as taxes on farmland were leviedin relation to its surface and the depth of the inundation. Also theboundaries, which were sometimes obliterated by the mud, should bere-established. "I have counted and measured the fields for you" saidRamses III to his father (79). Hence surveying became the mother ofgeometry, a fact that the classical authors have already noticed (80) andwhich the mathematical papyrus Rhind proves.

Every two years the land registry office measured the fields in detail,an operation called "counting" (tnwt) (81). The smallest unit was thearoura (c. 2750 m 2), a square of100 Egyptianells. We have many picturesof the surveyors, their scribes and workmen (82).

The "forced labour" was a form of tax which the peasant paidafter the inundation, they were fed by the state during this period.This labour was used in the months April-June and consisted of the


digging and clearing of canals and ditches. The dykes (with slopesof 1 : 3, top width 4 m) were enforced with pickets and reed mats,the water tanks (some of which contained 5000-10,000 m3 of water)were cleaned. The sluices, sometimes mentioned (83), like those inBabylonia were not our locks but probably spill-ways built up ofplanks fitting inIO the dykes or in groved stakes rammed into the dykes,and thus acting as temporary gates. The irrigation apparatus consistedof buckets carried on a yoke and of shadoofs. All speculations aboutearly water-wheels seem rather doubtful (84).

The unification of Upper and Lower Egypt by Menes (3200 B.C.)had completed a long process which began in the protobistoric period.It served irrigation well for centralisation could now improve efficiency.Many texts give us general facts on irrigation and we hear that duringthe reign of king Zoser the inundation failed for seven years and faminewas the result. It seems that the first drainage and cultivation in theFayum took place during the Age of the Pyramid Builders (IIIrd andIVth dynasties).

Even in the troubled times ofthe IXth-XIth dynasties, when centralpower was weak the independent local princes maintained the effortsto improve irrigation. Thus prince Kheti II of Hierakonpolis (2125B.C.) tells us of an irrigation canal he built at Siut (85). "I brought agift (of water) for this city... I substituted a channel of ten cubits. Iexcavated for it upon the arable land. I equipped a gate for its (mouth?)...1 supplied wat~r in the highland district, I made a water supply forthis city of Middle Egypt in the highlands which had not seen water.1 made the elevated land a swamp. I caused the water of the Nile toflood over the ancient landmarks. Every neighbour was supplied withwater and every citizen had Nile water to his heart's desire."

Irrigation technique also enabled the ancient Egyptians to buildshipping canals, notably to avoid the dangers of the first cataract inthe South. King Mernere (2400 B.C.) made the first canal at Elephantine(86), which was afterwards widened and deepened by Sesostris III(1875 B.c.) (87). This important canal protected by fortresses commanded the trade with Nubia and the Negroes. Many later kings likeThotmes I and Thotmes III (ca 1500 B.C.) worked on it too (88). Thenthe Egyptian kings have at several periods attempted to construct acanal connecting the Nile and the Red Sea (89) which canal never servedfor a long time for the shallows and storms in the gulf of Suez were agreat obstacle to the primitive sea-going ships of Egypt.

New plans for irrigation were again attempted by the kings of the


Twelfth Dynasty, when central power was strong. Amenemhat Iwhen appointing Chnumhotep, a provincial governor, stresses specifically the care forirrigation. Amenemhat III is probably the prototypeof the "Sesostris stories" which the classical authors report (90). Hewas believed to have dammed the entrance of the Fayum depressionand to have turned it into a water reservoir to irrigate the districtaround Memphis (91). Recent research (92) has disproved these theories.

The Fayum has proved to be a natural depression formed by the Nilein post-Palaeolithic times. Later when the level of the Nile sank considerably the Fayum was disconnected from this water supply. Thelake then slowly dried up to the so-called "20 m level" already beforethe Neolithic Age. In historic times there never was a high-level lakein the Fayum. The oases were not even permanently inhabited (93).After the last rainy interlude which terminated about 4000 B.c. thoseinhabitants of the desert who did not invade the Nile valley withdrewto higher grounds in the south-west and south-east where they remained and maintained themselves till about 2500-2000 B.C. Therewas a doubtful recrudescence of rainfall in the Fayum in Old Kingdomtimes and in the classical period the Mediterranean rainfall moved alittle farther south for a time. The work of the Twelfth Dynasty seemsto have been the desilting ofthe Joseph's canal (Bahr Jusuf), the branchof the Nile, that originally fed the Fayum. In the oasis itself the inundated area was increased may be by building a dam and spill-way toretain the water brought down from the Nile.

The invaders, the Hyksos, seem to have neglected irrigation canalsthough there still were "the weary ones, the dead on the dykes" (94),but the empire builders of the New Kingdom (after 1580 B.C.) againtook a great interest in irrigation problems. Unfortunately, we disposeof too little data on the population, harvests and inundated area tocalculate the effect of evolving irrigation on the national income ofancient Egypt as some have attempted (95). With the advent of Hellenism and the dynasty of the Ptolemies we are much better informed ondetails of the irrigation schemes (96). The first Ptolemies immediatelystart energetic work on the canals and undertake extension of the arableland in the Fayum by irrigation. In this district we have 66 Greek namesof towns against only 48 older ones. Ptolemy I sponsors viticultureboth in the Fayum and Delta, which meant that higher grounds had tobe irrigated. Ptolemy II tries to cope with the evils of a "low Nile".The later Ptolemies (Philopator & Epiphanes) neglected irrigation, thepressure of taxes led to the scarcity of labour, gradual depopulation

FORBES - Studi<s II 3


and neglect of the dykes and canals. Under their successors there was ashortage of available land as the limits of irrigation were reached, theywent beyond the present ones (97). The emperor Augustus had toreorganize the administration of the irrigation. The cultivated area was884,600 ha in Egypt itself, over 123,300 ha in the Fayum and over1,402,600 ha in the Delta. The correct maximum extent is not easilyestablished now that Roman canals are buried by the desert, e.g. nearthe ancient settlement of Socnopaei Nesus (Fayum).

The Ptolemaic extension of the Pharaonic system was mainly obtained by the improvement of irrigation, the drainage of marsh landand careful irrigation of the sandy and stony borders ofthe desert. Mostof the latter lands have since been given up. There was extensive treeplanting on the embankments. These trees were first raised in nurseriesand then transplanted. The garden lands of the Fayum and the Deltawere so located that perennial irrigation was possible. In these landswater was available on request as we know from the oath of the "sluiceguards". The artificially irrigated land in many cases paid higher taxesand this would be possible if perennial irrigation really raised morethan one crop. However, the new system was not fully exploited thatway as wheat was grown and not cotton like to-day. The low landssouth of lake Moeris in the Fayum suffered from defective drainagehence they were reserved for the production of papyrus and fowling.We also know that Ptolemaic engineers constructed storage basins inthe Fayum.

Hellenistic papyri also furnish us with more personal details on theirrigation officials of the period. We have the correspondence of the"architecton" Cleon, superintendent of the Fayum irrigation about260 B.C., who also surveyed the drainage of 2700 ha of marsh land forthe minister of finance Apollonius, who had to finance 84 km of dykesto add this land to his estates (98). Then there was Theodorus, chief ofthe Fayum irrigation engineers in the reigns ofPhiladelphus and Eurgetes I (c. 250-220). They worked with a staff of engineers (hyparchitecton) some of which, like Petchonsis, were definitely Egyptiansby birth. They regulated the flow of the water in the canals and were incharge of the "water guards" (hydropylakes) who served 4-5 monthsduring the inundation. With the exception of a few gangs of criminals(thesmotai) they hardly ever used forced labour, but depended most oncorvee labour which was paid.

The dams (choma) were either enclosing dykes (perichomata), lateraldykes (diachomata) or weirs and spill-ways (emblema). The use of reed


mats, wattled fascines and pickets to strengthen dams was well-known,some of them, and certainly the weirs, were protected with layers ofstones. There were different categories of canals: the Nile and the maincanals (potamos), lateral canals (dioryx), secondary feeder canals(hydragogos, eisagogos), secondary drainage canals (exagogos) andminor ditches. The corvee lasted 7-10 days (in Roman times only 5).The mud in baskets was often transported on donkeys or mules. Thefinances available for this work were derived from the "naubion" ortax on garden lands supplemented with irregular sums from the treasury

The months of the inundation were especially devoted to the inspection of dams and dykes, private owners were held responsible fortheir upkeep. In some canals there were stone jetties every 2-3 m toprevent the dykes being washed away. The greater extension ofHellenistic irrigation was due to the general introduction of good iron toolsin irrigation and agriculture which was almost tantamount to a revolution. Also the larger use of water-raising machinery about the costs,leases and repairs of which the papyri inform us contributed largelyto this revolution. Shadoofs and water-wheels of all kinds were nowin general use, the Archimedean screw or "snail" was very popular inthe Delta. Accounts of the first century A.D. show that they worked92-129 days a year.

We have an accurate description and a map of the reclamation workexecuted by Cleon for Apollonius (99). Other bills for the excavationof canals and dykes were found, eight contracts deal with the transportof 292,733 m3 of earth, another one specifies a 47,830 m3 shift (100).The regular staff of the irrigation service was only for the general upkeep, New projects were given to private firms or contractors (ergolabai) after study of their tender. Private landowners often had theirown civil engineers (potamitai). The introduction of water-liftingmachinery by private owners was stimulated by a state premium ontheir output; this was proved by receipts found on the spot. Reedmarshes are cut and burnt at a premium for the landowners.

Roman interest in Egyptian irrigation increased as this countrybecame the granary ofRome and the "anona" (corn supply for the poor)floated down the Nile to be shipped to Rome at Alexandria. A "lowNile" now also meant famine at Rome. Hence the Romans paid closeattention to the rise of the Nile we possess Roman records on theNilometer at Elephantine dating from the end of the second centuryA.D. (101).

The emperor Augustus not only reorganized the service but he had


his soldiers clear out the canals and construct new ones. Vespasianushad big embankments constructed at Oxyrhynchus (Fayum) and so didTitus and Domitian. There was some neglect in the revolutionarydisorders ofthe third century A.D. but Probus put the soldiers atwork and there was a temporary revival at the end of that century. Thework was financed in Roman times from the "water tax" on cisternsand garden land, a further tax on acreage and crop (the harvest beingcalculated to be 4.5-:-10 fold). The cost of irrigation services wascalculated at about 13 bronze drachmae per aroura of 2750 m 2•

It should be remembered that private landowners often looked aftertheir own share ofthe upkeep and new constructions. The inspectors forthe maintenance of dykes and canals could assess the dyke tax (chomatikon). There were also overseers for the flooding and draining of basinsand overseers of the weirs and sluices, which were maintained by a taxfor costs and repairs. Sluice gates were often timber constructions (102).Sometimes the offices of "overseer of irrigation" and "inspector ofsowing" were combined. The superintendent of irrigation regulatedthe flow of water more particularly in the perennially irrigated landsand the Delta, in which drainage sometimes caused difficulties.This "strategus" was required under oath to supply the requisite supplyofwater. He was also in charge ofthe water guards. By the third centuryA.D. we read of guilds of "river workmen" who scour and dredge thecanals.

The final downfall of the Egyptian irrigation system came in lateRoman and Byzantine times. The decline of central power and aboveall the oppressive taxes led to depopulation of the villages, shortageof labour and no money to scour the canals. The accumulation of saltin many districts, especially in the Delta were the visible results of grossneglect.

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