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Sennacherib's northern Assyrian canals: New insights from satellite imagery and aerial photography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Jason Ur
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Extract

In discussions of the agricultural economies of ancient Mesopotamia, scholars commonly make a sharp distinction between intensive irrigation in the south and extensive rain-fed farming in the north (Weiss 1986; Bagg 2000: 283). In popular as well as academic publications Babylonia is strongly associated with canals, and when one thinks of large state-sponsored initiatives the massive integrated network of canals built by the Sasanian rulers of southern Mesopotamia (Adams 1978) normally springs to mind first. However, since the mid-nineteenth century archaeology and epigraphy have documented the great irrigation schemes of the Neo-Assyrian kings. The inscriptions of Sennacherib in particular refer proudly to his great network of canals, and often describe them in the context of luxurious gardens and parks. The inscriptions make mention of the waters' use for vegetable garden plots and, less frequently, for grain fields above and below Nineveh.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 67 , Issue 1: Nineveh. Papers of the XLIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Part Two , Spring 2005 , pp. 317 - 345
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2005

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