PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR:  Francesco TROIANI
TITLE: Fluid Crescent. Water and Life in the Societies of the Ancient Near East
FUNDING AGENCY: Ministero dell’istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca, PRIN Bando 2017

START DATE: Gennaio 2020
END DATE: Dicembre 2022
ABSTRACT:
The research aims to explore the relationship between water and landscape and how this special condition affected and influenced the life of ancient communities in the ancient Near East, in Mesopotamia and Syria, from the 5th to the 2nd millennium BC. The research will pivot around three case-studies: the site of Tell Zurghul, ancient Nigin, in southern Iraq, the site of Ebla in northern Syria, and the Oasis of Damascus in southern Syria. Beyond to the availability of archaeological data (material culture, archaeozoological and archaeobotanical remains), the choice reflects the possibility of investigating two different ecosystems where the presence of water deeply changes the morphology of the environment and interacts with the daily life of people (e.g. arable lands, production of both items and food). On the one hand, southern Mesopotamia is a region where the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, together with the huge quantity of canals – either natural or artificial, and the marshes define a very special environment with a constant interchange and mixture of types of water; in Syria, where agriculture can depend on rainfall, the management of water (rivers and lake) creates other specific systems of settlement with resulting implications on the forms of occupation of the landscape and exploitation of the resources.