'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎316r] (634/862)

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OIL 493
Three sar of ku-up-ri (bitumen) I poured over the inside wall,
Three sar of iddu (pitch) I poured into the inside.
The porters brought three sar of samnu (oil),
Besides a sar of samnu which the offering consumed,
And two sar of samnu which the boatmen hid.
Ku-up-ri was the material used as bitumen mortar in ancient
buildings at Ur, Babylon, and elsewhere. Iddu was used to caulk
boats {quffas) and waterproof pots. Samnu was a general word for
oil, either vegetable (sesame oil) or mineral. The word saman-iddi
was often used for the oil of pitch’, doubtless equivalent to the
Assyrian naptu, the ancient Persian nafta, the modern Arabic naft
(which frequently appears in Iraqi place-names generally connected
with oil seepages), and the English naphtha. In neighbouring Elam
and Persia the use of oil can also be traced back to very early times,
and temples connected with Fire Worship (p. 226) were often built
over places where petroleum gas escaped from the ground, thus pro
viding a constant and inexhaustible supply of miraculous fuel.
Throughout the centuries travellers have brought back accounts
of the natural seepages of oil and gas, but it was not until the present
century that any systematic attempt was made in either Persia or
Iraq to exploit such an obvious natural source of wealth. It was only
in 1902 that the Persian Government granted to W. K. D’Arcy, an
Englishman, a large concession in Persian territory—later to become
the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (A.I.O.C.)—and even then oil in
commercial quantity was only struck after many disappointments.
The search for oil in the Middle East had now begun, and in
June 1914 the Ottoman Government granted a concession in Iraq
to a small group of British and German financiers who formed the
Turkish Petroleum Company (T.P.C.), most of the shares being
British. The war hindered exploration, but small shafts were installed
at Qaiyara by German engineers. With the defeat of Germany and
Turkey there was considerable bickering among the Allies as to who
should inherit the concession, a problem complicated by uncertainty
as to the political fate of the Mosul vilayet until 1926. Eventually
a settlement was reached, the shares were parcelled equally between
British, Dutch, American, and French groups, 1 and the company was
renamed the Iraq Petroleum Company (I.P.C.).
Meanwhile exploration had begun, though it was scarcely active
until 1925. As the result of surveys a number of wells east of the
1 Anglo-Iranian Oil Comoanv. Koninkliie SVipII C.
agent, Gulbenkian.