Water management and territorial empires in the Ancient Near East

摘要

GIS and remote sensing are ideal for analysing water systems, especially the extensive relict networks that cover the Near East. However, existing archaeological studies focus on undertaking fieldwork in specific sub-regions. This project investigates and tests new ways of examining ancient imperial water management at an inter-regional scale. There may be a link between the development of water management technology and administration and the growth of powerful states. The data is used to address specific questions: which remote sensing methods improve understanding of ancient water management; whether a map of irrigation for the northern Ancient Near East can be generated; and whether empires actively managed water. Image interpretation and photogrammetry were undertaken using high resolution historical CORONA data to identify past water management features. This enables an analysis of the landscape before recent agricultural and urban intensification obliterated archaeological remains. More recent data including ASTER and SRTMDEMs and GeoEye-1 imagery has also been used. Fieldwork and existing field studies provided chronological information. The application of this data to the issue of ancient imperial water management is explored in this paper. The results show extensive and complex, irrigation networks throughout the northern Near East that appear to have reached a peak during the time of the Early Islamic empires.