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Cities in the Water: Waterscape and Evolution of Urban Civilisation in Southern Mesopotamia as Seen from Tell Zurghul, Iraq

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Southern Iraq's Marshes

Part of the book series: Coastal Research Library ((COASTALRL,volume 36))

Abstract

Ancient canals, marshes and proximity of the sea heavily characterised the landscape and environment of the ancient State of Lagash in southern Iraq, from the mid-fifth to the second millennium BC: indeed the diachronic changes that can be analysed thanks to geological and archaeological observation and investigation show how this waterscape definitely influenced the shapes of settlement and the organisation of ancient societies from a cultural, economic and biological point of view.

Recent excavations at Tell Zurghul in southern Iraq are giving the possibility to test, in the field, the presence of water: ancient cuneiform sources, from the mid-third millennium BC, show the intense programme of the rulers of the State of Lagash in managing water through the construction of canals and the regulation of marshes characterised by marine water due to the proximity of the sea. In this respect, human actions (such as the digging of canals) and natural conditions (such as the reduction in the fifth millennium and the progressive growth in the fourth millennium BC of water level) are recognisable in the field, and they of course explain the morphology of the site in the past and the changes it suffered even in the present: water in fact is doubtless a fundamental resource for suitable conditions of formation and growth of a urban centre, but it also limits the possibility of extending occupation on the entire surface (as, e.g. the exploitation of lands for agricultural purposes).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Pournelle 2013; Wilkinson 2013; Wilkinson and Hritz 2013. The present resarch stems from the 3-years research “Fluid Crescent. Water and Life in the Societies of the Ancient Near East”, funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (PRIN 2017, no. 2017NMK5FE).

  2. 2.

    Garzanti et al. 2016: 112–113; Pournelle 2013: 14–16; Ur 2013: 132; Wilkinson 2003: 82; Wilkinson and Hritz 2013: 20–21.

  3. 3.

    Liverani 1990; Widell 2013: 58–59; Widell et al. 2013: 66–73.

  4. 4.

    Hritz et al. 2012a; Al-Hamdani 2014a.

  5. 5.

    See in particular in Jotheri et al. 2016 and Jotheri et al. 2018.

  6. 6.

    Hritz and Wilkinson 2006; Hritz 2010, 2014.

  7. 7.

    Bagg 2017.

  8. 8.

    Steinkeller 2001; for a detailed analysis of the “canal which goes to Nigin” that, with its total length of about 50 km, was the largest canal in the ancient state of Lagash, see Carroué 1986 and Rost 2011.

  9. 9.

    Pournelle 2007, 2013: 19–20.

  10. 10.

    Wilkinson and Hritz 2013: 18.

  11. 11.

    Sanlaville 1989; Pournelle 2013: 19.

  12. 12.

    Sanlaville 1989; Geyer and Sanlaville 1996.

  13. 13.

    Hritz et al. 2012a: tab. 1; Pournelle 2003, 2007, 2013: 22.

  14. 14.

    As has been recognised in the levels Ubaid 0 and 1 at Tell Oueili (Vallet 1996; Pournelle 2007: 46–48).

  15. 15.

    Pournelle 2013: 20; Wilkinson and Hritz 2013: 19.

  16. 16.

    The study of the morphology and topography of Mesopotamian sites in the southern plain heavily depends on the analysis of natural conditions, environment and landscape in a diachronic perspective, showing changes across time. In this respect, it seems useful to point out the altitude of Tell Zurghul with the highest point at 12 m asl (on the main Mound A) and the lowest point of −1 m below sea level: this last datum shows the very special morphological nature of Mesopotamian sites in the southern alluvium characterised and shaped by the natural actions of water, wind and accumulation together with anthropic activities. In particular, the morphology of Tell Zurghul reflects the processes of sedimentation and the Gulf ingression with the continuous changes of sea level (increasing in the Holocene period, with a retreat to approximately modern sea level at the beginning of the second millennium BC). See Potts 1997: 33–4; Hritz et al. 2012b; Ur 2013: 132.

  17. 17.

    Wilkinson 2003, 76–80, 87. The extensive presence of water covering the surface of Tell Zurghul has been also documented by some of the first visitors to the site: the American scholar Raymond Dougherty (1926) could in fact reach the site only by boat; again, at the end of the 1980s, Jeremy Black (1989–1990) says that to reach Zurghul from al-Hiba/Lagash, it was necessary to travel around the marshes.

  18. 18.

    On the “canal which goes to Nigin,” see the analysis by Rost 2011.

  19. 19.

    Soundings in Operation A1 (to the south-east of Mound A) in fact revealed the presence of a thick deposit of sand corresponding to a place originally occupied by water, maybe one of the streams that crossed the city. It is interesting to point out that the northern limit of the strata of sand presented consistent layers of accumulation with materials (pottery) carried by water from the main mound.

  20. 20.

    Wilkinson 2003: 81–83.

  21. 21.

    Hritz and Pournelle in press.

  22. 22.

    I owe the definition of “hydraulic warfare” to Ingo Schrakamp who used these terms in a communication presented at the workshop “Ancient Lagash– a workshop on current research and future trajectories” held at Vienna in 2016 within the 10th ICAANE. See also Selz 1998: 312.

  23. 23.

    Widell 2013.

  24. 24.

    Steinkeller 1999: 290.

  25. 25.

    Nadali and Polcaro 2016.

  26. 26.

    Area C is also extensively characterised by the presence of drain pipes that could in fact be attributed to domestic structures no longer visible and preserved or, in fact, to workshop and activities related to the use and management of water (drainage). See McMahon 2015; see also George 2015.

  27. 27.

    See Heimpel 1998, with references to aquatic environment and canals of the ancient city of Nigin.

  28. 28.

    Still today in winter time, pools of water can be seen on the western and north-western margins of the site, but not directly touching and covering the site.

  29. 29.

    Wilkinson and Hritz 2013: 23–4, 27–8.

  30. 30.

    Jawad 2018.

  31. 31.

    Powell 1985; Sanlaville 1989: 8; Widell 2013: 58; Wilkinson 2013: 37, 40, 43.

  32. 32.

    Heimpel 1998: 153.

  33. 33.

    Rost 2011.

  34. 34.

    On the Sumerian mar-sa, its function and management, in the time of the Third Dynasty of Ur, see Alivernini 2013a, b.

  35. 35.

    Vermaak 2008.

  36. 36.

    Huber Vulliet 2009–2011.

  37. 37.

    See the reconstruction in Rost 2011.

  38. 38.

    Steinkeller 2013.

  39. 39.

    On the administrative organisation and technical terms of the management of water in ancient Sumer, lastly see Schrakamp 2017.

  40. 40.

    Wittfogel 1955, 1957. See also the critical reconsiderations by Liverani (2013: 162–8, 280).

  41. 41.

    Algaze 2001; Wilkinson et al. 2015.

  42. 42.

    Nadali and Polcaro 2016.

  43. 43.

    Koldewey 1887: 416, 429.

  44. 44.

    Pournelle 2013: 20.

  45. 45.

    Al-Hamdani 2014b; Hritz et al. 2012a; Nadali and Polcaro 2016: 82.

  46. 46.

    Sherds dating to the phase Ubaid 2 have been collected on the surface of Mound B: this datum therefore points to the previous occupation of the area.

  47. 47.

    Nadali and Polcaro 2016.

  48. 48.

    Koldewey 1887; Huh 2008: 245–6, 252, 752.

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  1. Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy

    Davide Nadali

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  1. School of Environmental and Animal Sciences, Unitec Institute of Technology, Mt Albert, Auckland, New Zealand

    Laith A. Jawad

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Nadali, D. (2021). Cities in the Water: Waterscape and Evolution of Urban Civilisation in Southern Mesopotamia as Seen from Tell Zurghul, Iraq. In: Jawad, L.A. (eds) Southern Iraq's Marshes. Coastal Research Library, vol 36. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66238-7_2

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