Hydrography of Mesopotamia

Rivers and Channels in Babylonia from the 4th to the 1st Millennium BCE

Mesopotamia owed its wealth to its fertile soils, which could only be utilised with the help of a complex irrigation system. Rivers and canals therefore played a critical role, as their courses changed significantly several times over the millennia.

Starting in February 2024, the SNSF Sinergia project «Hydrography of Mesopotamia» (HyMes) aims to compile archaeological, geological and textual evidence from the 4th-1st millennium BCE and to map the fluvial system of Southern Mesopotamia for the individual cultural periods. In addition to archaeological data, satellite images will be evaluated and compared with cuneiform sources. Digital models will help to calculate the quantities of water and deduce the sizes of agricultural fields that could be cultivated with it, and the project will provide model-based information on the interaction between water management and the development of the earliest civilisation.

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The HyMes project is a partnership of the Institute for Archaeological Sciences and the Institute of Geography at the University of Bern, the Institute of Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the Free University of Berlin, and the Swiss National Data and Service Center for the Humanities (DaSCH).

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The HyMes project is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation: SNSF Sinergia project 10000050