Irrigation and Hydraulic Structures in the Near East during the 1st Millennium BCE: Intercultural Approaches
This project will explore aspects of the landscape archaeology of water and irrigation systems in Achaemenid Persia in comparison with analogous practices in other cultures of western Asia in the 1st millennium BCE.
The Achaemenids’ practices in this domain were partly inherited from their Near Eastern predecessors (Elamite, Neo-Assyrian, Urartian and others). The project will attempt to trace the extent of this indebtedness to different traditions, but also to highlight the Achaemenids’ own contributions in this regard. Special attention will be given to the transmission of technology and the role of specialized workmen in the transmission, but also to the importance that the development of irrigation works can be presumed to have had in the ideology of 1st millennium BCE Near Eastern rulers.