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'Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. I. 1918' [158] (167/568)
The record is made up of 1 volume (282 folios). It was created in 1918. It was written in English, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Armenian, Kurdish and Syriac. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
158
IRRIGATION OF IRAK
the end of the Sassanian age, run approximately on its present
course. At the beginning of the seventh century a.d . abnormal
floods breached the Tigris dykes, the water spilt south and south
west towards the lower Euphrates, and eventually the main stream
of the Tigris took to the course of the present Shatt el-Hai. In the
time of the Caliphs there was a good deal of irrigation from the
Tigris between El-Madayyah (on or near the site of the present
Kut el-Amara) and the city of Wasit, about forty miles to the
south. Below Wasit the Tigris emptied into the Great Swamp. In
the course of the sixteenth century the Tigris returned to its present
bed between Kut el-Amara and Kurna.
(e) In southern Irak, from below Kufeh to the neighbourhood of
Basra, there extended in the Middle Ages a great area of permanent
swamp. The marshes at the north-western end of this area (the
present Bahr-i-Nejef and Bahr-i-Shinafiyeh) had long been in exis
tence, and farther down there had probably always been swamps
which Sumerian, Babylonian, or Greek engineers had not been able
to reclaim. But before the Arab conquest, and since the Sumerians
had begun to build up their civilization here, much of the country
had been brought under cultivation by dyking, drainage, and irriga
tion. The Great Swamp as it existed in the period of the Caliphate
had been formed about the time of the Moslem invasion by the
violent diversion of the Tigris which has been described above.
The Great Swamp contained patches of rich cultivable soil and
maintained valuable fisheries. There was much boat traffic on its
channels.
(/) In the neighbourhood of Basra the waters of the Great Swamp
drained into the
Persian Gulf
The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.
partly by the Shatt el-"Arab, partly
by a channel called the Fayd (estuary) of Basra. The Fayd passed
west of the city and emptied into the Khor "Abdallah. The land
about Basra was irrigated by a number of canals, which took off
from the Shatt el-'Arab and tailed into the Fayd.
Irrigation in Modern Times
After the Mongol invasion in the middle of the thirteenth century
the irrigation-system collapsed. Dykes and dams could not be main
tained at adequate strength, and the waters of the rivers passed
more and more out of human control, spilling where they should
not have spilt, and leaving dry the channels on which cultivation
depended. The great canals silted up and could not be properly
cleared, or were broken by floods or by diversions of the rivers into
About this item
- Content
This volume is A Handbook of Mesopotamia, Volume I, General (Naval Staff, Intelligence Department: November 1918). This is an updated and expanded edition of A Handbook of Mesopotamia, Volume I, General (Admiralty War Staff, Intelligence Department: August 1916) (IOR/L/MIL17/15/41/1). This is an introductory volume containing matter of a general nature giving an account of conditions in Mesopotamia, for the most part as they were before the First World War.
The volume includes a note on official use, a title page and 'Note'. There is a page of 'Contents' that includes the following chapters and sections:
- Chapter 1: Boundaries and Physical Features;
- Chapter 2: Climate;
- Chapter 3: Minerals;
- Chapter 4: Fauna and Flora;
- Chapter 5: Hygiene;
- Chapter 6: History;
- Chapter 7: Inhabitants;
- Chapter 8: Religions;
- Chapter 9: Administration;
- Chapter 10: Irrigation of Irak [Iraq];
- Chapter 11: Agriculture and Land Tenure;
- Chapter 12: Commerce and Industry;
- Chapter 13: Currency, Weights, and Measures;
- Chapter 14: Communications and Transport;
- Vocabularies;
- Index.
- Extent and format
- 1 volume (282 folios)
- Arrangement
The volume is arranged in numbered chapters. There is a contents page and an alphabetically arranged index.
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: The foliation sequence commences at the first folio and terminates at the last folio; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. of the folio.
Pagination: The volume also contains an original printed pagination sequence.
- Written in
- English, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Armenian, Kurdish and Syriac in Latin and Arabic script View the complete information for this record
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Copyright: How to use this content
- Reference
- IOR/L/MIL/17/15/41/2
- Title
- 'Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. I. 1918'
- Pages
- front, back, spine, edge, head, tail, front-i, i-r:i-v, 1:556, ii-r:ii-v, back-i
- Author
- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
- Usage terms
- Open Government Licence