Irrigation and Drainage Systems14: 301–324, 2000.© 2000Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Irrigation in Northern Mesopotamia: Water for theAssyrian capitals (12th–7th centuries BC)

ARIEL M. BAGGUniversität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Accepted 11 September 2000

Abstract. Hydraulic engineering projects in ancient Assyria (nowadays, northern Iraq) havebeen witnessed for many centuries, from the end of the second to the middle of the first millen-nium BC. The use of both philological and archaeological evidence enables us to reconstructthe different stages of the hydraulic enterprises in Assyria, as well as the specific terminologyused in this field of technological knowledge. The Assyrian kings changed the location oftheir capital several times, either by founding new cities or by converting older settlementsinto royal residences. Establishment of these new capitals included the construction of canalsystems, which brought water drawn from rivers or the surrounding mountains to irrigate theirfields and gardens. This paper focuses on these projects and reviews their main features. Italso points out the methodological difficulties encountered when using the available sources.

Key words: ancient canals, ancient Mesopotamia, Assyria, history of technology

Abbreviations: A – Tablets and reliefs in the Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago; Baub. –Baubericht (building report in the prisms of Sennacherib); Bavian – Bavian inscription ofSennacherib quoted according to Rawlinson (1870): pl. 14 (see Bagg 2000: Text N◦ 45);BM – Tablets and reliefs in the British Museum, London; CT 26 – Cuneiform Texts fromBabylonian Tablets in the British Museum, Part XXVI, London, 1909; First camp. – Claybarrel inscription with the report of Sennacherib’s first campaign quoted according to Smith(1921); IM – Tablets in the Baghdad Museum, Iraq; RIMA 1 – A.K. Grayson, Assyrian Rulersof the Third and Second Millennium BC (to 1115), The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia.Assyrian Periods I. Toronto, 1987; Stier – Bull colossus inscription of Sargon II; T – Inscrip-tions of Sennacherib quoted according to Frahm (1997); TAVO – Tübinger Atlas des VorderenOrients; Zyl – Cylinder inscription of Sargon II

Introduction

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.1

Generally, the reputation of the Assyrians depicts them as being brutal andpitiless warriors and has evolved from the biased treatment of events in the

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Bible, which describes a victory by the Assyrian army. This tradition is re-flected in Byron’s poem, the first lines of which are quoted above, whichwas written in 1815, almost three decades before the start of the excavationsin the Assyrian capitalsKal˘hu, Dur-Šarru-ukın and Nineveh. The discoveryof inscriptions and stone reliefs describing and showing the Assyrian warmachinery in action seemed to confirm this bad image of the Assyrians, whichfor a long time had also been maintained by Assyriologists.

However, many experts have reconsidered this simplified picture of theAssyrians being the “bad boys” of Mesopotamian history, a picture thatdoomed the Assyrians to being the opposite of the wise and civilized Baby-lonians, and these experts have studied the expansion of the Assyrian Empirecomprehensively. Recently, other non-military aspects of Assyrian culturehave also been systematically investigated, and these show that the Assyri-ans were not only kings or warriors, but also, among other things, hydraulicengineers.

In the 14th century BC, Assyria was a small kingdom on the Upper Tigrisin northern Iraq. At this time it began to grow into the empire that dominatedthe entire Middle East from Iran to Egypt during the first millennium BC.The period between the 14th and the 10th centuries BC is known as MiddleAssyrian, while Neo-Assyrian is the name given to the time between themiddle of the 10th to the beginning of the 7th century BC. The successivecapital cities were located in the heart-shaped central area of the AssyrianEmpire, with the Tigris river as its symmetrical axis. Its borders were theZagros Mountains to the north and northeast, the Lesser Zab river to thesoutheast, theGabal Makh. ul to the southwest, and the upper course of theWadı T

¯art

¯ar to the northwest (Figs. 1 and 3.)

In Ancient Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates(modern Iraq), the importance of irrigation has been always recognised. Dueto the low rainfall and high temperatures in the flood plains of southernMesopotamia, irrigation is necessary for agriculture to take place there andexperts have focused their attention on this area. In lowland Mesopotamia, theprincipal method of watering crops was surface irrigation. The achievementsof the Sumerians and Babylonians in the field of agriculture and irrigationduring the historical periods from old Sumerian to Achemenid times havebeen well studied (Postgate & Powell 1988).

Although hydraulic engineering projects were a feature of ancient Assyriafrom the 14th to the 7th centuries BC, they have rarely been the subject ofsystematic research. With a few exceptions (Jacobsen & Lloyd 1935; Oates1968; Reade 1978; Simonet 1977), the Assyrian canals, tunnels, intake worksand aqueducts have only been dealt with in passing in studies on Sumerian orBabylonian irrigation. The lack of interest in this technical aspect of Assyrian

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Figure 1. The Assyrian Empire (based on Grayson 1995: 960).

culture originates from three main assumptions: 1. the extremely simplifiedcontraposition of “irrigation in Babylonia and dry farming in Assyria”; 2. theunderestimation of Assyrian accomplishments in this area, considered to bethe result of external influences; and 3. the explanation of Neo-Assyrian hy-draulic projects being merely luxury items for the irrigation of royal gardens.Comprehensive investigation of Assyrian hydraulic engineering shows thatthese assumptions were wrong and that the role played by Assyrian engineersshould not have been neglected in studies (Bagg 2000).

Materials and methods

The features we believe today to characterise Assyrian agricultural hydraulicengineering originate not only from the specific geographical and climaticcharacteristics of the northern country (gently rolling plains surrounded byrough hill chains), but also from the historical material that is available

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Figure 2. Annual variation in rainfall, Iraq, 1936–1939 (after Buringh 1960: 17, fig. 44).

to us. There are three sources of evidence: written, iconographical andarchaeological.

The most important source of information on this subject are the manythousands of cuneiform texts written in Assyrian, a dialect of Akkadian.However, the Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions were not written in the Neo-Assyrian language, but in a literary dialect known among experts as StandardBabylonian. In the case of Assyrian civil engineering hydraulics, the informa-tion is not restricted to one source, but can be found in a variety of documents:royal inscriptions, official correspondence, legal transactions, administrativerecords. During the Middle Assyrian period, laws also contained valuabledata on hydraulic engineering projects, especially with regard to irrigationworks.

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One essential point concerning the written sources must be stressed: wedo not have any technical documents relating to irrigation or to any otheraspect of Assyrian civil engineering hydraulics. No instructions, descriptionsof procedures, calculations, or sketches prepared by specialists have survived,since they were probably written on perishable materials such as wax-coveredwriting boards or parchment. When analyzing information about the irriga-tion enterprises of the Assyrian kings, it is important to remember that, witha few exceptions, it was not the principal aim of the texts to provide technicalinformation about irrigation works, and that the scribes who wrote the textswere non-specialists in this matter.

Nevertheless, the various types of sources allow these engineering pro-jects to be approached from many perspectives; some aspects are illuminatedwhile others remain obscure. A reconstruction of Assyrian technical termin-ology is only possible through assiduous philological research of the originalcuneiform texts. This methodological requirement explains why Assyrian ir-rigation works have rarely been considered by historians with an interest intechnology. The technological achievements of Ancient Near Eastern culturesare usually treated superficially or even ignored in works on the history oftechnology. At present, while a complete corpus of Greek and Latin sourcesis accessible in reliable bilingual editions, it is still impossible for non-specialists to handle the large number of cuneiform sources. An additionalproblem is the validity of old editions and translations, the uncritical adoptionof which has led to erroneous results.

The second type of evidence is provided by the reliefs in Neo-Assyrianpalaces. The carvings in low relief on the slabs that cover the walls of theroyal palaces mainly illustrate the king’s military campaigns, however royalgardens and other building enterprises are also depicted. Only some of themany kilometres of palace reliefs have been excavated and documented, andmost of these are now on show in museums; others have been lost and are onlyavailable as drawings from the 19th century. These iconographical sourcesare essential with regard to the irrigation of royal gardens and water-liftingdevices.

The third source is archaeological, and complements the data from thewritten evidence. In some cases it is the main source of information. Someexamples are the aqueduct atGerwan, the intake works at Khinis, the subter-ranean canal from Wadı Bastura, all of which are enterprises by Sennacherib,and the so-called Nagub Tunnel on the Greater Zab, built or at least restoredby Esarhaddon. Fortunately these works are accompanied by inscriptionsinsitu, which are essential to the understanding of the technical terms. In ad-dition, it is possible to recognise traces of some main Assyrian canals in thefield, as will be described later. All this archaeological evidence has been

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documented by archaeologists, sometimes very painstakingly, as in the caseof Sennacherib’s aqueduct and canal head (Jacobsen & Lloyd 1935). Never-theless, there are still many questions which could be answered, at least inpart, by new surveys. However, the particularly unstable situation in northernIraq during the last decade has prevented me from undertaking such work.

By means of the combined information gathered from original cuneiformsources, iconographical evidence and archaeological remains, it is possible toreconstruct the history of Assyrian hydraulic engineering and to clarify thecorresponding technical terms (Bagg 2000). Below, I will focus on the mainfeatures of the Assyrian irrigation projects, which are an integral part of thefoundation of the Assyrian capital cities.

A brief explanation of the transcription and pronunciation of Assyrianwords may be useful to the reader. Akkadian words, personal names, andtoponyms are given initalics. However,italics are not used in the case offamiliar forms derived from Latin, Greek, or Biblical Hebrew (e.g., Sen-nacherib forSîn-a˘h˘he-erıba). In Akkadian, there are four short vowelsa, e,i, u and four corresponding long vowels, marked with either a short line overthem (macron)a, e, ı, u or with a circumflexâ, ê, î, û, depending on the originof the length. For pronunciation of the vowels, the following guide may beuseful: short vowels, pronouncea as the “u” in “cup”,e as the “e” in “pet”,i as the “i” in “pit” and u as the “u” in “put”; long vowels, pronouncea/â asthe “a” in “father”, e/ê as the “e” in “men”, ı /î as the “i” in “marine” andu/û as the “u” in “rule”. With regard to consonants, pronounce g as the “g” in“god”, ˘h has a guttural sound such as the “ch” in Scottish “loch”, s., t. and qare emphatic forms of s, t and k and can be pronounced as s, t and k, š as the“sh” in “shop”. Additionally, in modern Arabic names:g can be pronouncedas the “j” in “jean”, t

¯as the “th” in “thing”, the unvoiced fricative h. sounds

like a strong, hoarse “h” and the voiced fricative “‘” (‘ayin) is pronouncedby constricting the pharynx. References to the sources are indicated in squarebrackets “[ ]”.

Results

1. Kar-Tukultı-Ninurta

The foundation of new capitals and the transformation of existing cities intocapitals is well-documented in Assyrian history and has been the object ofseveral studies (Matthiae 1994; Kühne 1994; Stronach 1994; Novák 1997).The old trading city and cult centre ofAššur(modern Qal‘at Širqat) on thewest bank of the Tigris was the Assyrian capital during the Middle Assyrianperiod.Aššurwas the name of the god of the city, the city and the land from

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which the name Assyria is derived. It was the most important cult centre dur-ing the entire history of Assyria, and the Assyrian kings actively constructed,enlarged, and restored its buildings and fortifications. Nevertheless, with anarea of just 70 haAššurwas the smallest of all the Assyrian capitals.

The first of a series of foundations and refoundations of Assyrian capitalswas undertaken by the kingTukultı-Ninurta I (1244–1208 v. Chr.), whobuilt a cult centre and royal residence on the east bank of the Tigris, only3 km upstream ofAššur, and called itKar-Tukultı-Ninurta (“Harbour ofTukultı-Ninurta”). Today, it is called Tulul al-‘Aqar. Several royal inscriptionsrecall the construction of the new city. In the text on a stone tablet discoveredat Aššurthat originally came fromKar-Tukultı-Ninurta (now in the BritishMuseum), the king describes the project:

Text N◦ 1

“At that time the godAššur-Enlil, my lord, expressed the desire for a greatcity opposite my city and commanded me to build his sanctuary. Besidethe “dwelling place” of the gods I built a large city, my royal residence,(and) called itKar-Tukultı-Ninurta. I completed within a temple forAššur,Adad, Šamaš, Ninurta, Nuska, Nergal, SebettuandIštar, the great gods,my lords. I opened thePattu-mešari (“Canal of Justice”) wide and (letit flow) to its sacred places. From the yield of the water of that canal Iarranged for regular offerings to the great gods, my lords, forever.” [RIMA1, A.0.78.22: 39–48]

The account of the building ends with the construction of the palace andthe city wall. In another inscription in connection with building activities atKar-Tukultı-Ninurta, the corresponding passage varies significantly:

Text N◦ 2

“At that time the godAššur-Enlil, my lord, expressed the desire for a greatcity opposite my city, the “dwelling place” of the gods, and commandedme to build his sanctuary. At the command ofAššur, the god who lovesme, I built opposite my cityAššur, along the Tigris, in the steppe, (in)uncultivated fields, where there had never been a house or dwelling place,where rubble and earth had never accumulated and where bricks had neverbeen laid, a city forAššur, on the opposite bank (of the river). I called itKar-Tukultı-Ninurta. I cut straight like a string through rocky terrain, Ipassed through the gorges of high mountains with stone chisels, I cut awidemit.irtu-canal, which preserves life in the land, which carries abund-ance, and transformed the plains of my city into irrigated fields. From theyield of the water of that canal I arranged for regular offerings to the greatgods, my lords, forever.” [RIMA 1, A.0.78.23: 88–109]

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The inscription also mentions the construction of a ziqqurrat and the maintemple forAššur. Neither the reason for, nor the exact date of, the foundationof Kar-Tukultı-Ninurta are clear.Tukultı-Ninurta probably began construc-tion after his victory over the Kassite kingKaštilijaš IV. His outstandingsuccess in consolidating the Assyrian conquests made the undertaking of suchan ambitious project possible: he not only built a cult centre with temples anda new royal dwelling with a palace, but also a large city with a permanentpopulation. The strength of his position caused struggles as to his successor,andKar-Tukultı-Ninurta became the grave of its builder:Tukultı-Ninurta wasassassinated in his new palace by one of his sons [Weidner 1959: N◦ 37,9–11].

In Text N◦ 1, the king says that he dug a wide canal called the “Canalof Justice” to secure offerings for the temples from the “produce” of thatcanal. Some experts interpret the word˘his.bu “produce” to mean fish, in otherwords, the taxation on fishing (Weidner 1959: 25; Deller et al. 1994: 463), butit could also be interpreted as the yield from the irrigated fields. The technicalterm used for “canal” ispattu, which usually means a main canal in the Neo-Assyrian texts (Bagg 2000: 273), and only main canals were named. Only inthe inscriptions ofTukultı-Ninurta I is the action of digging a canal referredto by the verbnepelkûin Š-stem “to open wide, to widen” instead of by theusual verb˘herû“to dig”.

Text N◦ 2 gives some additional information. Operations in the moun-tains are described andmit.irtu, a second type of canal, is mentioned. Thus,Tukultı-Ninurta searched for additional sources of water in the mountainsand directed spring water to the city by means of amit.irtu-canal in order toconvert uncultivated terrain into irrigated fields, calledtamkıru. Another textengraved on a white limestone tablet discovered in 1973 (IM 76787) presentsinteresting variants of this passage, and in this case, the irrigated fields arecalledšıqu (Deller et al. 1994: 466, line 64).

The technical termstamkıru and šıqu, only seen in Middle Assyriansources, are nominal forms from the verbsmakaru and šaqû respectively,which both mean “to irrigate”. I have argued elsewhere that, in the Neo-Assyrian texts,makaru seems to be used for “to irrigate by flooding” andšaqûfor “to irrigate by means of gravity flow” (Bagg 2000: 258ff.). Nothingin the Middle Assyrian sources contradicts this distinction, but the referencesare too scarce to confirm it. Neither is it clear whether the terms were usedconsistently with those meanings. Another important variant of IM 76787 isthe mention of twomit.irtu-canals (line 63f.) and two walls (Deller et al. 1994:466, lines 55–64), showing that this text was composed later than the others,when some additional construction became necessary.

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If Kar-Tukultı-Ninurta was located within the dry-farming region as com-monly supposed – taking the 200 mm isohyet as the “golden border” – andif the city was built on the Tigris, why didTukultı-Ninurta need to undertakeirrigation works and why did he bring water from the mountains? The borderbetween the rainfall zone and the arid regions that need irrigation is neithera line nor rigid, but rather a band about 400 km wide between the 100 mmand 400 mm isohyets (Wirth 1962: 7, fig. 1). In addition, the position of theisohyets varies from year to year and the fluctuations can be so considerable(for 1936–1939, Fig. 2; for 1956–1957, Wirth 1962: fig. 9) that the southernpart of Assyria, whereKar-Tukultı-Ninurta and Aššurwere located, couldhave remained outside the supposed limits of the dry-farming area. This isalso the case when presenting the isohyets as a mean value for a low numberof years (for 1938–1950, Buringh 1960: 43, fig. 16).

The most accurate results are obtained when the graphical representationof isohyets is based on results obtained over a long period of time and whenusing statistical methods. In this case, the region between the Greater andLesser Zab remains between the 200 mm and 300 mm isohyets with a rel-ative variability of 25–50% (Alex 1984). However, the isohyets representingaverage annual rainfall do not represent the realistic limits of cultivation ac-curately. The farmer does not depend on an average rainfall, but on a reliableannual minimum (Oates 1968: 3). When considering the reliability of rainfall,the same region mentioned above remains between the 100 mm and 200 mmisohyets andKar-Tukultı-Ninurta andAššureven remain under the 100 mmisohyet. The other Assyrian capitals are located above the 200 mm line.

Other factors to be considered are the distribution and types of rainfall inNorthern Mesopotamia. Rainfall occurs during the months of December toMarch, usually as showers, with considerable variation in both distributionand total amount. All these variables have a dramatic effect on the success orfailure of crops. If we consider, as generally accepted among experts, that cli-matic conditions have not changed significantly in the region in the last 6000years (Buringh 1969: 47), we can conclude that, in Assyria, and especially inits southern part, dry farming was not possible without a high risk. Irrigationwas necessary in order to make sure of the crops and to increase the yield, andthis is why the Assyrian kings undertook irrigation projects near their capitalcities, where the population was dense.

Like the Neo-Assyrian capitalsKal˘hu and Nineveh,Kar-Tukultı-Ninurtawas located on the right bank of the Tigris. Why then didTukultı-Ninurta I,and later Ashurnasirpal II and Sennacherib, look for sources of water so farfrom the cities they had chosen as capitals? The reason for this is that it ismuch more difficult to extract irrigation water from the Tigris in its uppercourse than from the Euphrates or the Tigris itself in the southern alluvial

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plains, where the impetus of both rivers is diminished by the low gradients.In addition, because the floods from the Tigris are caused by heavy rainstormslasting little more than two days, they are violent and unpredictable (Buringh1969: 52).

However, the main problem is the huge difference between the water levelsand the plain levels. In Lower Mesopotamia, the Euphrates offers better con-ditions for diverting canals from it, because it is raised above the plain leveland has lower levee banks, but in Northern Mesopotamia, the Tigris can flowup to 7 m below the level of the plain (Eickhoff 1985: 18). It was not untilthe 1960s that settlement in the area surrounding ancientKar-Tukultı-Ninurtacould be increased by the intensive use of motor pumps (Dittmann 1995: 87).This huge difference in levels was a serious obstacle to feeding a canal systemwith water from the Tigris, and could not be overcome with the water-raisingtechnology available in Assyria during the second and first millennia BC.

A German team directed by Bachmann excavatedKar-Tukultı-Ninurtaprior to the First World War. Their results showed that the city extended for62 ha, was very regular in shape, and had a palace and temples. At that time,it was assumed by the experts that the city only had official buildings, thatit had been left incomplete, that it had been lived in for only a short time,and that it was abandoned after the death of its founder (Eickhoff 1985). Theresults of the campaigns undertaken in 1986 and 1989 showed a dramaticallydifferent picture of the city. It was proved thatKar-Tukultı-Ninurta coveredan area of at least 240 ha, with not just a Middle-, but also a Neo-Assyriansettlement (Dittmann 1990; Dittmann 1992).

Although its northern and eastern limits are still unknown, the new citywas at least three times the size ofAššur, at that time the main city of Assyria.It is clear that it was envisioned for a large population and that irrigationwas one of the main factors that had to be considered from the start of theproject. Traces of a canal were discovered during the first excavations (Eick-hoff 1985: plan 1). It entered the city from east-northeast and branched offafter 350 m at the point where it crossed the inner wall. One branch flowedparallel to the inner wall and exited the city through its southern wall. Afterabout 700 m, it emptied into the Tigris (Dittmann 1990: 162). There were noremains of the other branch. This was probably thePattu-mešari mentionedin the inscriptions.

Bachmann’s original plans and sketches were mislaid for many years, andit was not until 1995 that they were found and published (Dittmann 1995).A sketch from the hinterland ofKar-Tukultı-Ninurta shows that the canaldescribed above was fed by a main canal diverted from the Tigris some 40 kmnorth of the city (Dittmann 1995: 89, fig. 2). The agreement between text andarchaeological remains is not absolute. On the one hand, if the king diverted a

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canal from the Tigris, a mention of it would be expected in the inscriptions, asin the case of other Assyrian canals. On the other hand, the remains could befrom a later period, because dating ancient canals is very difficult. However,later canals may have been dug over the remains of an older canal, so that wecannot discard the notion that thePattu-mešariwas diverted from the Tigrisat a convenient point. A map of the Ma˘hmur plain shows the remains of acanal that was diverted from the Lesser Zab just where the mountain rangesbegin, about 50 km before its junction with the Tigris (Dittmann 1995: 88,fig. 1). There is no information about the dating of these canals, but theiridentification with themit.irtu-canals cannot be ignored (Fig. 3.).

2. Kal˘hu

The first of three sites of consecutive capitals of the Neo-Assyrian kingswasKal˘hu (nowadays, Tall Nimrud), located on the left bank of the Tigrisabout 8 km upstream of its junction with the Greater Zab. AshurnasirpalII (884–859 BC) claims to have foundKal˘hu, an ancient town built byShalmaneser (probably Shalmaneser I, 1274–1244 BC), in ruins. He carriedout construction work there for 15 years, and made it the new royal residenceand administrative centre of the growing Assyrian Empire. The new citycovered an area of about 360 ha; it had a palace, nine temples, a city wall,and was provided with irrigation water:

Text N◦ 3

“I dug out a canal from the Upper Zab, cutting through a mountain at itspeak, and called itPatti-˘hegalli. I irrigated the meadows along the Tigris.I planted orchards with all kinds of fruit trees in its environs. I pressedwine and offered the first fruits toAššur, my lord, and to the temples ofmy land.” [RIMA 2, A.0.101.30, 36–41]

This passage, engraved on a stele found inKal˘hu by a British expedition,is followed by a list of 41 exotic trees and plants (lines 40–48) and by thepoetical description of an irrigated garden calledkirû s. i˘hatu, the “pleasuregarden” (lines 48–52). The new canal calledPatti-˘hegalli “Canal of Abund-ance” (orPatti-nu˘hši meaning the same, and in another textBabelat-˘hegalli“Bearer of Abundance”) is referred to asnaru, a term meaning “river” butalso used for main canals. The actual digging of this canal is expressed bymeans of the usual verb˘herû.

The reason Ashurnasirpal II gives for the construction of a canal is ir-rigation (makaru) of the lowlands (ušallu) of the Tigris in order to makethe cultivation of fruit trees possible. We do not know how large the areaof irrigated land was, but a maximum of 2500 ha has been estimated. It is

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realistic to assume that less than the whole area was planted with fruit trees,and that part of it (probably the greater part) was designated for barley (Oates1968: 44ff). The project was established to complement the produce of dry-farming and to secure the production of fruits and not (or not only) to modifythe landscape for the pleasure of the king (Reade 1978: 174). The descriptionof an idyllic garden, which I have discussed elsewhere (Bagg 2000: 102–104and 314–319), is only confirmed in one text [RIMA 2, A:0.101.30, 48–52]dating from the last five regnal years of Ashurnasirpal II. This royal gardenwas probably located not far from the acropolis ofKal˘huon the southwesternside of the city, but it must be considered insignificant in size compared to themany hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of irrigated hectares.

Ashurnasirpal’s canal was identified during a field trip by Layard in the19th century (Layard 1849: 80–81), and included by Commander Felix Jonesin his excellent map of ancient Assyria (Jones 1855; Bagg 2000: plate 19).The course of the canal can be traced as a rock-cut channel along the rightbanks of the Greater Zab for some 8 km, from the modern village of Quwairto a point some 5 km before the river joins the Tigris, where the canal flowsin a northwest-southwest direction, reachingKal˘hu at its southeastern edge(Figs. 3 and 4; Oates 1968: 46f; Bagg 2000: 95ff). During part of its existence,the canal was fed by a rock-cut tunnel, the so-called Nagub tunnel (Bagg2000: 99–102 and 234–237; Davey 1985), which passes through a conglom-erate bluff on the right banks of the Greater Zab (Fig. 4.). An inscriptionfound in situ attests to restoration works carried out 200 years later by kingEsarhaddon (680–669 BC).

The inscription is badly damaged [Borger 1956; 35, § 23, 6–13; Bagg2000: Text N◦ 49] and mentions repair work in connection with Ashurnas-irpal’s canal, which did not operate any more because sediment had accumu-lated. However, it does not establish which king built the tunnel. The questionregarding the feeding of the canal is even more problematic because at Nagubthere is a second tunnel that is completely silted up, perhaps representing aless efficient solution. In addition, there is a third stretch of canal north ofNagub which cut through the bluff and can be traced for some 3 km, and it isalso possible that another canal head existed at the confluence of the GreaterZab and the Khazir, about 4 km upstream (Oates 1968: 46). It has been arguedthat the canal head on the Khazir could be the work of Esarhaddon (Reade1978: 172), but if that were the case, it would make no sense that the kingshould engrave his inscription on the internal wall of an abandoned tunnel.On the other hand, we must remember that Ashurnasirpal dug out his canal“cutting through a mountain at its peak”, which corresponds to the archaeolo-gical finds upstream from Nagub. Whatever the case, the chronology of theintake works remains uncertain.

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Figure 3. Schematic representation of the Assyrian canals (based on Curtis & Reade 1995:8).

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The Patti-˘hegalli project is evidence of the hydraulic engineering skillof the Assyrians, who dug the first 10 km of the canal in hard rocky soil,cut the next 8 km out of the rock, chose a convenient place for the canalintake, and mastered the technique of levelling. The Nagub tunnel is in itselfa masterpiece, one of the rare examples of sluices in Assyria, and probably acase of technological transfer (Bagg, in press).

Dur-Šarru-ukın

Kal˘huremained the royal capital for about 140 years until Sargon II (721–705BC) decided to build a new capital on virgin soil, to be calledDur-Šarru-ukın(“The Fortress of Sargon”, now Khursabad), near the town ofMagganubasome 50 km in a north-northwest direction fromKal˘hu. The construction ofthe city took from 717 to 706 BC and is well documented in royal inscriptionsand official correspondence (Parpola 1995). The city covered an area of about300 ha; it was planned following geometrical principles but was probablynever completed, since Sargon died unexpectedly on the battlefield in 705BC and his son Sennacherib moved the capital to Nineveh.

The royal inscriptions that include passages concerning this hugeproject show the personal participation of the king during the planning andconstruction stages [Fuchs 1994: Zyl 47–49], and his particular preoccupationwith agricultural enterprises. Sargon presents himself as someone interestedin the reclamation of uninhabited steppes, in the cultivation of wasteland,the plantation of orchards, the utilisation of spring water resources, and theirrigation of the land [Fuchs 1994: Zyl 34–37]. One of the reasons given forbuilding Dur-Šarru-ukın was even “to provide the vast land Assyria withfood to satiety” [Fuchs 1994: Zyl 39]. Sargon says that the gods commandedhim “to build a city and to dig (˘herû) a canal (naru)” [Fuchs 1994: Zyl 55],and he also emphasizes that his forerunners had neither planted orchards nordug a canal there [Fuchs 1994: Zyl 45–46 and Stier 43–46]. However, thereis no concrete evidence that such a canal was ever finished or even started.Although springs do exist in the MountMus.ri (nowGabal Bašiqa), as Sargonsays, there are no archaeological remains from artificial canals in the region.Sennacherib was there looking for spring water to divert into his canal systemand he did not mention any canal of his father’s. Moreover, it is suspiciousthat no text contains any direct mention of the construction of a canal, whichundoubtedly would have had a name. The king’s only clearly documentedagricultural plan was that for a royal park, expressed in the following terms:

Text N◦ 4

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“A great park like the Mount Amanus wherein all kinds of aromatic treesfrom the land˘Hatti (now Syria) and all the fruit trees of the mountainswere planted, I set out alongside it (i. e. the new city).” [Fuchs 1994: Stier41–42]

The importation of botanical specimens and their acclimatization in Assyriahas a long tradition since the time of Tiglath-pileser I (1114–1076 BC)[RIMA 1, A.0.87.1, vii, 17–23; Bagg 2000: Text N◦ 13] and was also inten-ded by Ashurnasirpal II, as mentioned above. However, during the Sargonicperiod, a new concept of park known askirima˘h˘hu materialised; this wascharacterized not only by the exotic plants and trees planted therein, but alsoby modification of the landscape by means of lakes and artificial hills, with aspecial kind of pavilion at their top. All the Sargonides describe their gardensin the same way, comparing them with Mount Amanus, where the Assyr-ian kings traditionally felled cedars and other exotic trees. However, whileSargon mentions thekirima˘h˘hu in connection with his city, his successorsrelate it to their respective new palaces in Nineveh (Sennacherib [CT 26,vii, 53–57], Esarhaddon [Borger 1956: 62, lines 30–31], and Ashurbanipal[Borger 1996, 74, A, X, lines 104–105]). A recently published text showsthat Sennacherib laid out a secondkirima˘h˘hu outside the city wall [Frahm1997: 78, T10/T11, Baub. 216–224; Bagg 2000: Text N◦ 37].

Fortunately, such parks were depicted in bas-relief on the slabs thatcovered the walls of the royal palaces. Akirima˘h˘hu is represented on a slabdiscovered inDur-Šarru-ukın and now in the museum of the Oriental Insti-tute in Chicago (Fig. 5) [Bagg 2000: plates 32–36], and another slab foundin Ashurbanipal’s palace in Nineveh, and actually exhibited in the BritishMuseum, probably shows one of Sennacherib’s parks (BM 124939) [Bagg2000: plate 56; Reade 1998: 85 fig. 5]. There is no written evidence of canalirrigation in those parks, but the garden on a hill depicted on BM 124939 isirrigated by an aqueduct, not Sennacherib’s aqueduct atGerwan, but probablythe one near Nineveh mentioned in the octagonal prisms from 697/696 BC(Bagg 2000: 196–198).

In the park represented in the wall panels fromDur-Šarru-ukın, a lake andprobably also an artificial watercourse can be seen (Bagg 2000: 156–159). Itis not known whether the park was irrigated, but the water for the lake couldeasily have been diverted from the river Khosr by means of a short canal. TheKhosr now flows some 3 km from the ruins ofDur-Šarru-ukın, but probablyflowed closer to the city in ancient times.

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4. Nineveh

To distance himself from the terrible fate that befell his father, whose bodycould not be recovered for burial, Sennacherib (704–681 BC) decided toconvert the ancient city of Nineveh into his new capital. He built a gigantic12 km-long city wall with moats and other fortification structures, which en-closed about 750 ha and, in order to supply Nineveh with irrigation water, heundertook the most ambitious hydraulic engineering project in the history ofAssyria: 150 km of canals and channelled water courses, tunnels, aqueducts,dams and reservoirs were built over 15 years, from 702 to 688 BC (Fig. 3).The city, originally built at the point where the Khosr joined the Tigris, wasinhabited during the entire history of Assyria, and had an even longer historyof settlers after the seventh millennium (Stronach 1994). The impressive ruinsare now located some 1.5 km from the Tigris, opposite the modern city ofMosul.

Once the largest and best fortified city in Assyria, Nineveh and its irrig-ation system did not survive their founder by many years, since they weredestroyed in 612 BC by the Medes and Babylonians, some 70 years after Sen-nacherib’s death. Nevertheless, there are many written documents that can beused in combination with archaeological remains in order to reconstruct thisengineering project, which tapped the sources of water in the area betweenNineveh and the mountains, and was accomplished in four stages (Bagg2000: 169–224; Oates 1968: 49–52; Reade 1978). As mentioned above, Sen-nacherib also laid out many different kinds of royal gardens, on which expertshave focused their interest; but they have tended to overestimate the role ofsuch parks in the context of Sennacherib’s irrigation projects. As will becomeclear from the following, Nineveh’s irrigation system was built to increasethe area where grain was to be cultivated, and did not follow either landscape(Reade 1978: 174) or horticultural criteria (Margueron 1992: 71).

The first stage of Sennacherib’s irrigation programme was theKisiricanal, diverted from the river Khosr some 16 km upstream of Nineveh. Thiscanal is attested to for the first time in 702 BC, together with thekirima˘h˘hu“like the Mount Amanus” planted to the side of Sennacherib’s new palace.After mentioning this park, the king says that he distributed lots of about 2ha each among the citizens of Nineveh, on the northern side of the city, inorder to enable them to plant orchards. The inscription continues as follows:

Text N◦ 5

“To make themit.irtu-gardens luxuriant, I cut (nataru) with iron pickaxes(akkullu) through mountains and lowland, from the border of the townKisiri to the plain around Nineveh and directed (ešeru) a canal (˘harru).

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For a distance of 1 1/2 double-hours (approximately 16 km) I made toflow there the everlasting waters from the Khosr (and) let them murmurthrough those orchards in irrigation ditches (pattiš).” [First camp., 89–90].

TheKisiri canal here called˘harru is also mentioned in later inscriptions suchas thekirima˘h˘hu, but the respective use of the termspattuand˘hirıtu indicatesthat they were interchangeable in Neo-Assyrian times. It is clear from thepassage quoted that the main function of the canal was to irrigate the orchardsabove the city. Remains of a canal approaching the city from its north-easterncorner could be seen during the 19th century AD and were indicated by Joneson his maps (Bagg 2000: pl. 37).

The next stage of Nineveh’s irrigation system, the MountMus.ri canal sys-tem, is not mentioned until 694 BC. In the meantime, Sennacherib’s activitiestransformed the landscape around Nineveh. In about 699 BC, the king createdan artificial swamp calledagammuin order to regulate the waters of theKisiricanal, and planted some cane in it [T8, 5′]. This swamp was located north ofthe city and was also depicted on palace reliefs (Bagg 2000: 182–187). In theinscription on an octagonal clay prism from 697 BC, the king reports that helaid out two more parks on the northern side of Nineveh: a secondkirima˘h˘huand another calledambassu, each one covering an area of about a hectare[T10/T11, Baub. 216–224].

The area covered by each of these parks was about half the size of thesingle lots distributed by Sennacherib to the inhabitants of Nineveh, andshould not have required much more irrigation water. The water supply fromtheKisiri canal was also enough to irrigate the grain fields located above thecity: “In the best terrains of Nineveh I provided irrigation for 500 (emaru?)of arable land. Over ... and furrow I let grow abundantly grain and cereal atgreat height” [T10/T11, Baub. 237–241].

As mentioned above, the second stage of Nineveh’s canal system is men-tioned for the first time on the octagonal prism of 694 BC. Sennacherib didnot undertake a military, but rather a “technical” campaign to the MountMus.ri , now Gabal Bašiqa, some 20 km in a northeasterly direction fromNineveh, to look for new water resources. He enlarged the springs, built reser-voirs, and directed the water first through channelled mountain torrents, andthen through a canal or the channelled Wadı al-Qamtar into the Khosr [CT 26,viii, 31–45]. No traces of such structures have yet been found. This projecthad nothing to do with royal gardens, but with agricultural production: “Iwatered (šaqû) all the orchards in summer. I irrigated (makaru) every year inwinter 1000 (emaru?) grain fields above and below the city” [CT 26, viii, 43–45]. The main goal of the MountMus.ri canal system was therefore to irrigatethe grain fields below the city in winter (the northern fields were watered bythe Kisiri canal). Sennacherib probably also laid out orchards there, which

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could then be watered during the hot season. As we have already seen, theroyal parks were laid out before the second stage of the irrigation programme,and all the orchards were watered by means of the first two stages.

Sennacherb’s northern canal system was an intelligent combination ofnatural and man-made watercourses, by means of which the northern fieldslocated between the city ofTarbis.u (now Šarıf ˘Han) and Nineveh were irrig-ated. This canal system probably represented the third stage of his hydraulicprojects and was built between 694 and 691 BC, before the Khinis canalsystem. Three stretches of the northern canal system have been identified,and traces of another conjectured: The final stretch identified by Jones (Bagg2000: plate 37) transmitted the waters from the Wadı al-Mil ah. to Nineveh,approaching the city from the northwest. Another stretch discovered by Oatescarried the waters from the Wadı Bahandawaya to a tributary of the Wadıal-Mil ah. (Oates 1968: 51). Reade identified a third stretch which flowedfrom Faida to the Wadı Bahandawaya (Reade 1978: 159ff), and has postu-lated a fourth one connecting the Rubar Da˘huk with the same wadi (Reade1978:165f).

In an intricate passage of the Bavian inscription (Bagg 2000: Text N◦ 45),the most important document with regard to the Khinis canal system, Sen-nacherib resumes the hydraulic engineering works carried out before his mostambitious project [Bavian 8–11]. It seems probable that the northern canalsystem is referred to in this passage, as has also been concluded elsewhere(Bagg 1990: 207–211), and its existence before the Khinis canal system iscertainly confirmed when the king says: “I irrigated (makaru) every year fromthe city ofTarbis.u to the “City of the Assyrians” for the planting of corn andsesame/flax” [Bavian 22–23]. The mention ofTarbis.u, some 7 km northwestof Nineveh, concurs with the above-mentioned existence of a canal connect-ing this city with Nineveh. Thus, the fields betweenTarbis.u and Ninevehwere watered by the northern canal system in order to enable the cultivationof corn and sesame (or flax). The “City of the Assyrians”, probably Yarimjahsome 4 km south of Nineveh, refers to the fields watered by the Khinis canalsystem, which had the same function as the northern canal system, but wasrelated to the southern fields.

The Khinis canal system, built around 690 BC, was the last stage ofSennacherib’s irrigation programme. The waters of the river Gomal, calledAtruš in its upper course, were diverted into a tributary of the Khosr bymeans of a 35 km-long canal. Water was taken from the Gomal just abovethe village of Khinis, some 50 km northeast of Nineveh, where the remainsof the impressive intake works (bab nari) have been identified (Bachmann1969; Boehmer 1997). To carry the Khinis-Khosr canal, known asPatti-Sîn-a˘h˘he-erıba “Sennacherib’s Canal”, across a wadi near the modern village of

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Figure 4. The irrigation system of Kal˘hu (after Oates 1968: 43, fig. 3).

Gerwan, Sennacherib’s engineers constructed a stone aqueduct with a totallength of 280 m, a width of 16 m between the inner sides of the parapets (totalwidth with parapets 22 m), and a height of 7 m (total height with parapets,9 m); its central span was supported on corbelled arches. The aqueduct andthe structures at the canal head were surveyed and documented by Jacobsen& Lloyd 1935.

The so-called “Bavian Inscription” was engraved three times on thecliff face above the canal head at Khinis, accompanying the colossalrock reliefs and a sculptured block that now lies across the canal intake(Fig. 6; Bachmann 1969; Boehmer 1997; Jacobsen & Lloyd 1935: 44ff).The inscription tells us of Sennacherib’s last hydraulic project and givesan overview of the preceding stages. It contains some very complicatedpassages, but gives valuable information on the planning and construction ofthe canal and also some details of the inauguration ceremony (Bagg 2000:212–222). The other sources for this project are two inscriptions engraved

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on many of the stone blocks used for construction of the aqueduct (titurru)at Gerwan. The text of the shortest one reads as follows:

Text N◦ 6

“Sennacherib, king of the world, king of Assyria. For a long distancefrom the river ˘Hazur (i.e., the Gomal, one of the branches which formthe river Khazir) to the meadows of Nineveh I caused a canal (pattu) tobe dug (˘herû). Over deep-cut ravines I constructed an aqueduct of whitelimestone. Those waters I caused to flow over it.” [Gerwan C; Jacobsen& Lloyd 1935: 23; Bagg 2000: 213].

The Khinis canal system was also a combination of rivers and canals throughwhich Sennacherib tapped all the available sources of water from a distantregion: mountain torrents and spring water which were added to the waters ofthe river Gomal. Such an enterprise would have been completely out of pro-portion if its aim had simply been to water the royal gardens. On the contrary,it was an undertaking to irrigate the grain fields below the city. Sennacheribwas extremely satisfied with the completion of this project and recognisedthe achievements of “the men who had dug the canal” by giving them valu-able garments and gold jewellery [Bavian 33–34]. It is not improbable thatSennacherib’s hydraulic engineers were among these men.

Conclusions

Assyrian hydraulic engineering projects are mentioned in written, icono-graphical and archaeological sources, mainly from the 12th to 7th centuriesBC. The principal aim of these public works was to supply water to the Assyr-ian capitals located in a risk region where irrigation was necessary to securethe growth of crops and increase their yield. The royal parks may have playedan important role ideologically, but they were secondary in the context oflarge hydraulic engineering projects. The area of those parks and the amountof water necessary for their irrigation was very small compared to the areacovered by the irrigated fields and to the amount of water they needed.

The foundation of a new capital or the enlargement of an older city forthe purpose of converting it into a capital occurred several times during thehistory of Assyria. Each time, the water supply for the new city was planned atthe same time as the city itself, showing the great importance given to irriga-tion by the Assyrian kings. These projects became more and more ambitious,reaching their peak during the reign of Sennacherib, and were recorded inroyal inscriptions, mostly in an abbreviated manner. Of course, descriptionsof the royal parks and gardens demanded more place in the inscriptions and

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Figure 5. Assyrian parkland near Dur-Šarrukın (after Botta & Flandin 1849: 114).

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Figure 6. Sculptured block (8× 6× 4 m) at the canal head from Khinis (Photo: Bachmann1927: pl. 15, reprinted with permission).

reliefs because, in accordance with the representative character of the latter,they showed the power of the king. Nevertheless, this does not mean that thehydraulic engineering works took a subordinate place.

Behind those projects, the different stages of which can more or less bereconstructed in detail, were not only the inevitable bureaucrats and func-tionaries, but also qualified workers and professionals with the necessarytechnical skills to fulfil the dreams of their kings. As usual, only the namesof the kings, clients and project managers, have survived. But the Assyrianengineers have gained an honourable place in the history of technology, tothe development of which they undoubtedly contributed.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Eileen Stemmler-Möhring, MA, for correcting my Eng-lish and for some useful suggestions. I am also grateful to the DeutscheOrient-Gesellschaft for permission to publish photographic material (Fig-ure 6).

Notes

1. Lord Byron, The Destruction of Semnacherib, quoted according to: Lord Byron. TheComplete Poetical Works (ed. by J.J. McGann, Oxford, 1981), vol. 3, p. 309f.

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