ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 211, 22 September 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA.

AND THE IRRIGATION SYSTEM THAT MADE IT A FERTILE TERRITORY. Well-developed irrigation schemed enabled Mesopotamia, Armenia, and other provinces in the near and middle East, formerly to become the seats of mighty empires that possessed great trading centres. To-day, they have comparatively few cities of any importance, and their commerce is carried on by caravans. The largest city in Mesopotamia, and the most celebrated, is Bagdad. Its present population '3 about 150,000, as compared with about ■1,000,000 nine centuries ago. The di'fyrences between Mesopotamia in tho ninth and tenth centuries and to-day were caused by the destruction of the early irrigation works of the Abassd Caliphs in the fifteenth cvntury. Bagdad (says Dr. Arthur Selwyn Brown in the "Scientific American") has been the s:te of important cities from the remotest historical times. But tho present city was founded by tn.« Caliph Mansur in A.D. 762. The site was chosen on account ot the rrch alluvial plains :n the vicinity, and tho ample water resources of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The previous cities of Bagdad ware settled by Persians wh i carried out irrigation works on a sma !| scale- in tho plains a little to the south. Those works showed that great wealth could bo won from the land by means of irrigation, and the Caliphs, who in their travels with their armies in Persia and Arabia learned the value of the accumulation of wealth in times ot peace, gave as much attention to the development of irrigation works around Gagdad as they did to the city itseU. Tn tho height of prosperity Bagdad possessed tho greatest system of irrgaticn canals that has ever been conthe vicinity of the city measured over 3,000 miles in length. These canals were well built, supplied with storage basins, locks and weirs, bridges, and loading docks for barges, and were kept in good order. In addition to the canals around Bagdad tliere were a large number, both north and south of the city, whi'iii joined the Euphrates with the Tigrs and there were several running parallel with the rivers. The largest of the outside canals was known as the Chosroes Canal. It was built in early historical times to con-n.x-t Bagdad with the city of Dur, about 100 miles to the north. This groat canal was extended by the Cal'ph Mansur to the city of Madharaya, the modern Kut-el-Amara. Th ; s gave the canal a length of 290 miles. Utir Calip's carritd it 150 miles beyond Dur. Whenever this canal passed through loos? soil it was over 200 feet in width and 6 feet deep. Where the ground became rocky it was reduced to a width of 40 or .50 feet. This trunk canal nrried a large boat traffic and supplied water to hundreds of miles of lateral canals and irrigation ditches. It enabled dose settlement to be made over many thousands of miles of most splendid farming country. South of the ancient city of Kufah, on the Euphrates, no»v -ailed Kovbehi, there wwe great iir fo a.i>n developments on what was pro >.& tu be tho richest agricultural land :n Asn. liu' Euphrates has since shftoj its N-d about 30 miles east.v.,ri of Us o'.l course, and the rich canal lands are now nothing but unhealthy, r<c-Jy swamps, the haunts of large nerls of water buffaloes, cranes, and other animals and birds. Between Dur and Basorah there were over fifty trunk canals joining the Tigris and Euphrates. These canals irrigated an area of about 37 000 s<iua.r>e m'les of rich farming lands. These lands, called the "Meadows of Gold," were worked to the fullest extent under all the Abbasid Caliphs between tli? years A.D. 750 and 125?. when Bagd-ad was sacked by the Mongols, .and the rule of the Caliphs ended After the Mongolian invasion Bagdad was no longer the capital of the Mohammedans, and tho Holy City ->f Islam. It reverted to Persia, and became the capital of the Province of Irak. It was occupied by tho Mongols until A.D. 1411, when it fell into possessions of the Black Turkomans, who in turn, in 1469, were dispossessed by t!:? white Turkomans.

The Persians retook Mesopotamia from th,i White Turkomans Sn 150«, ami. in 1534, they gave way to the Ottoman Turks, who have sine? retained possession.