Water Works of Ancient Civilizations

Abstract

Turkey is renowned for her outstanding remnants of ancient water works and is thus one of the foremost open-air museums of the world with regard to hydraulic structures in the world. Numerous ancient water works from a four-millenia-long period are still in operation after several centuries or even several millennia. These historical works are rich in kind to encompass dams, irrigation canals, masonry conduits, aqueduct-bridges, tunnels, water collection works, water conveyance systems, pipes, inverted siphons and water mills. Geographically, they extend all over the country, indicating the various civilizations who realized them. They date back to the second millenium BC, the Hittite civilization in Central Anatolia; to the first half of the first millenium BC, the Urartu civilization in Eastern Anatolia; to the second half of the first millenium BC and the first millenium AD, the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine civilizations in Western and Southern Anatolia; to the eleventh up to the fourteenth centuries, the Seljukide civilization in Central and Eastern Anatolia; to the fourteenth up to the early twentieth centuries, the Ottoman civilization in Turkey. Some of these ancient water works were given as interesting examples in relevant books; several of them were dealt with more detail in other specific publications, journals and proceedings.