Floods and Flood Protection in Mesopotamia
nasrat adamo2020
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Abstract
Mesopotamia is a land where floods have occurred very frequently. Many destructive floods had been registered by historians, who noted also the food control schemes used in those times. Over histor ...
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The present study deals with the reconstruction of the ancient courses of the Tigris and the Euphrates in the Mesopotamian floodplain, which covers most of the central and southern parts of Iraq. The focus is on tracing palaeochannel courses, determining when these palaeochannels were active, and understanding the patterns of avulsion and its impact on human settlements of ancient civilisations. The research was carried out using a combination of geological, geomorphological, remote sensing, historical and archaeological approaches. Fieldwork included “groundtruthing” of the remote sensing work. A total of thirty seven boreholes were dug, sedimentary and geomorphologic documentation has been carried out, and twenty five shell samples were collected, and analysed by radiocarbon dating. This study has reconstructed palaeochannels and archaeological sites within the area of southern Mesopotamia; intensive networks of palaeochannels and archaeological sites within the study area have been identified. More than eight thousand archaeological sites have been plotted during this study, and most of them show a location and alignment consistent with an identified palaeochannel. Eleven major river avulsions and their nodes have been identified, five for the Euphrates and six for the Tigris. It has been found that these avulsions contributed to the shaping, formation and aggradation of both the ancient and present–day landscapes of the floodplain. Two kinds of avulsion have taken place in the floodplain, re-occupational and progradational. In the first of these types of avulsion, the major flow diverted into a previously existing channel. In contrast, the progradational avulsion began by inundating a large section of the floodplain between elevated ridges, producing prograding deposits that filled topographic lows of the floodplain. These avulsions have affected the distribution, flourishing and degradation of human settlements of the southern Mesopotamian civilisations. The present study has demonstrated how human impact played a leading role in distribution of sediments across the floodplain and shaping both the Holocene and the recent landscapes of the Mesopotamian floodplain. By using periods of human occupation of archaeological sites to date associated palaeochannels, we can get acceptable accuracy on their timing and duration, and can give clear indications about the activity of a given channel.
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Recognition criteria for canals and rivers in the Mesopotamian floodplain.pdf
UCL Press., 2019
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An Introduction to Flood-aware Modeling for the Third Millennium BC, part 1
A thorough reconstruction of world history after the Flood must begin with looking at the full range of possible outcomes. Possible biblical dates for the Flood fall within the 3rd and late 4th millennium BC and vary over 1,106 years. Choices in biblical interpretation differ mainly between the Septuagint vs. the Masoretic Text and the long vs. the short sojourn. Uncertainties in secular dating are also quite large. All early dates depend upon Egypt and Mesopotamia, and historians disagree by centuries over dating the beginning of the 1st millennium BC and the entire 2nd millennium BC for either region. Radiocarbon dates can confirm neither high nor low historical dates, only adding to the confusion. What little writing that does exist for the 3rd millennium BC is misleading and useless for absolute dating; radiocarbon dating appears to be exponentially distorted by the catastrophic Flood. Relying therefore upon biblical date ranges, we construct eight scenarios for the Flood and Babel and attempt to synchronize secular history with these end points. The choice of Eridu as Babel provides the most favorable option for aligning with archeological periods.
Itzchak E Kornfeld The Development of Water Law in Mesopotamia 2009 Dellapena and Gupta eds
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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.
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