The Engineer Who Farmed the Flash Flood

Civilization

Nabataea

Occupation

Hydraulic engineer (water master)

Material

Terracotta & lime plaster

Period

c. 100 BC

Petra gets roughly 193 millimetres of rain a year, most of it in violent winter bursts. The Nabataeans met that desert arithmetic with engineering: dams that turned flash floods aside, a diversion tunnel through solid rock, kilometres of channels and socketed terracotta pipes riding the canyon walls, and — in the standard scholarly reconstruction — more than two hundred cisterns and reservoirs. The result was fountains, gardens and a great pool in the heart of one of the driest cities on earth.

A city that should not exist

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.

Sources

1. Ortloff, 'The Water Supply and Distribution System of the Nabataean City of Petra' — Cambridge Archaeological Journal 15 (2005)
2. Ortloff, 'Water engineering at Petra: recreating the decision process' — Journal of Archaeological Science 44 (2014)
3. Nabataean water management (overview with the 8-springs / 200+ cisterns / ~200 km reconstruction)
4. The Siq: dimensions, channels and the reconstructed entrance dam
5. Le Monde, 11 April 1963 — the Siq flash-flood disaster
6. Met Museum — the Nabataeans and the incense trade