Table Of ContentIRRIGATION in
EARLY STATES
NEW DIRECTIONS
Edited by
STEPHANIE
ROST
THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
ORIENTAL INSTITUTE SEMINARS • NUMBER 13
oi.uchicago.edu
IRRIGATION in
EARLY STATES
NEW DIRECTIONS
oi.uchicago.edu
oi.uchicago.edu
IRRIGATION in
EARLY STATES
NEW DIRECTIONS
Edited by
Stephanie Rost
with contributions by
Maurits Ertsen; Vernon L. Scarborough and
Christian Isendahl; Martin Sterry, David J. Mattingly,
and Andrew Wilson; Jason A. Ur; M. Kyle Woodson;
Marco Madella and Carla Lancelotti; Stephanie Rost;
Robert C. Hunt; Hervé Reculeau; Emily Hammer;
Michael J. Harrower; Juan Carlos Moreno García;
Li Min, Liu Bin, Wang Ningyuan, Lang Jianfeng, and Wei Yi;
Miriam T. Stark; and JoAnn Scurlock
and responses by
Sylvia Rodríguez; Carrie Hritz; and McGuire Gibson
Papers from the Oriental Institute Seminar
“Irrigation in Early States: New Directions”
Held at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
March 3–4, 2016
THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
ORIENTAL INSTITUTE SEMINARS • NUMBER 13
oi.uchicago.edu
The University of Chicago
The Oriental Institute
Oriental Institute Seminars 13
ISBN-13: 978-1-61491-071-8
LCCN: 2022933152
ISSN: 1559-2944
© 2022 The University of Chicago.
All rights reserved. Published 2022.
Printed in the United States of America.
Publication of this volume was made
possible through generous funding from the
Arthur and Lee Herbst Research and Education Fund.
Series Editors
Thomas G. Urban, Charissa Johnson, Steven Townshend,
and Andrew Baumann
with the assistance of
Rebecca Cain
Cover Illustration
Cuneiform tablet showing plan of fields at Nippur.
Courtesy of the Penn Museum, object number B13885.
Cover Design
James M. Slate
Layout
PerfecType, Nashville, TN
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). ∞
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Table of Contents
Preface .........................................................................vii
Introduction .....................................................................ix
part i: features of irrigation
1. A Leak in the Irrigation System May Not Be Seen: How to Connect Agency
and Long-Term Effects in Irrigation .............................................3
Maurits Ertsen
2. Cross-Cultural Archaeology and the Role of the Tropics in Informing the Present ....23
Vernon L. Scarborough and Christian Isendahl
3. Foggaras and the Garamantes: Hydraulic Landscapes in the Central Sahara .........41
Martin Sterry, David J. Mattingly, and Andrew Wilson
part ii: the empirical investigation of ancient irrigation
4. Remote Sensing of Ancient Canal and Irrigation Systems .........................65
Jason A. Ur
5. The Archaeological Excavation and Explanation of Ancient Canal
Irrigation Systems in Southern Arizona, USA ...................................83
M.Kyle Woodson
6. Archaeobotanical Perspectives on Water Supply and Water Management
in the Indus Valley Civilization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113
Marco Madella and Carla Lancelotti
7. Written Sources in the Empirical Investigation of Ancient Irrigation:
The Operation of the I-sala Irrigation System in the Umma Province
in Late Third-Millennium bce Southern Mesopotamia ...........................137
Stephanie Rost
part iii: the economic function of irrigation
8. Irrigation, Food Surplus, and Complexity: A Case from Hohokam, a Prehistoric
Neolithic Culture in the American Southwest ..................................175
Robert C. Hunt
9. “Opener of Canals, Provider of Abundance and Plenty”: Royal Investment
in Large-Scale Irrigation in Second-Millennium bce Upper Mesopotamia ...........209
Hervé Reculeau
v
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vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
10. Role and Characteristics of Irrigation in the Kingdom of Urartu ...................269
Emily Hammer
part iv: the sociopolitical function of irrigation
11. A New Interpretation of Irrigation and Ancient State Formation:
Political Rhetoric, Social Logic, and Spatial Heterogeneity .......................309
Michael J. Harrower
12. Wells, Small-Scale Private Irrigation, and Agricultural Strategies in the Third
and Second Millennia bce in Egypt ...........................................323
Juan Carlos Moreno García
13. Water Management at the Liangzhu Prehistoric Mound Center, China .............351
Li Min, Liu Bin, Wang Ningyuan, Lang Jianfeng, and Wei Yi
part v: the cosmological dimension of irrigation
14. From the Mekong to the Tonle Sap: Water Management and Cosmology
in Cambodia’s Ancient States ................................................369
Miriam T. Stark
15. World-Encircling River .....................................................405
JoAnn Scurlock
responses
16. All Water Is Local ..........................................................431
Sylvia Rodríguez
17. Discussant Remarks ........................................................439
Carrie Hritz
18. Response .................................................................447
McGuire Gibson
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Preface
This volume is the result of the annual postdoctoral fellow conference held at the Oriental
Institute (OI) of the University of Chicago on March 3–4, 2016. The conference, “Irriga-
tion in Early States: New Directions,” brought together experts in the field of irrigation
studies and covered a wide regional and temporal scope. The case studies presented take
the reader around the globe, from South and North America to Africa and West, Central,
and Southeast Asia. The book and its individual chapters reexamine the long-held debate
about the role of irrigation in the formation of early states. Because many early civili-
zations developed in large river valleys, earlier approaches argued that their evolution
followed a similar trajectory as a result of their dependency on irrigation. Our enhanced
knowledge of ancient civilizations, however, has taught us that the evolution of social and
political complexity is neither linear nor the result of an interplay among a set of predict-
able prime movers leading to a similar outcome in various parts of the world. There is a
consensus that the circumstances under which civilizations emerged are characterized by
both diversity and similarity and that irrigation cannot have been the sole driving force
behind the development of social and political complexity. Once the evolutionary perspec-
tive was taken out of the investigation of ancient irrigation, space was created for renewed
investigation of the multiple functions that irrigation may have had in the development
and functioning of early states. The conference made use of this space in conducting a
cross-cultural study of ancient irrigation with a larger quantity of data and, more impor-
tantly, the goal of highlighting the diversity of functions that irrigation had in early states
and the variety of conditions under which it developed. We hope that the contributions in
this book inspire new directions in the investigation of ancient irrigation and ultimately
lead to a more nuanced understanding of the past.
The conference, and the publication of the participants’ contributions, could have not
been realized without the generous support of many people. I thank, first and foremost,
Arthur and Lee Herbst for their continuing and generous financial support of the annual
postdoctoral fellow program. I thank Gil Stein, former director of the OI, for giving me
the opportunity to work and undertake research at the OI; Chris Woods, professor of
Sumerology and former director of the OI, and now Williams Director of the University of
Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, for being a true and supportive
mentor; and Mariana Perlinac, assistant to the director of the OI, and Brittany Mullins,
the OI’s former associate director of development, not only for providing support for the
conference but also for helping me get settled at the OI and in Hyde Park. I also express
special thanks to the OI publications office’s former managing editors Tom Urban and
Charissa Johnson, former editor Leslie Schramer, and current managing editor Andrew
Baumann and editorial assistant Rebecca Cain, whose tremendous editorial support and
continued assistance made the organizing process of the conference and the publication
of this book smooth sailing. I thank Kiersten Neumann, curator, for giving the conference
vii
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viii PREFACE
participants a great tour of the OI Museum galleries; Knut Boehmer, IT support specialist,
for excellent technical support; and Charles Derbigny for logistical support in running
the conference. I am also grateful to Morag Kersel, associate professor of anthropology at
DePaul University; Richard Payne, associate professor in ancient Near Eastern history at
the University of Chicago; and James Osborne, assistant professor of Anatolian archaeolo-
gy at the Univers ity of Chicago, for functioning as session chairs. My gratitude also goes to
Steve Camp, the OI’s former executive director; D’Ann Condes, former financial manager;
and Nathanial Francia for handling the financial aspects of the conference. Many thanks
also to two previous postdoctoral conference organizers, Ilan Peled and Miriam Mueller, to
whom I could always turn for advice. I also thank my postdoctoral colleague Lynn Welton,
who was very generous in helping and providing input. Finally, I thank all the speakers
for being such a pleasure to work with and for providing truly excellent contributions to
this volume.
Watercolor rendering of an irrigation system by Johanna Rost
oi.uchicago.edu
Introduction
Ancient irrigation and the formation of early states have been the focus of a consider-
able body of research and theoretical literature in the fields of archaeology, anthropology,
and history. The fact that many early civilizations, particularly of the Old World, emerged
in large river valleys (e.g., Euphrates-Tigris, Indus, Nile, Yangzi) led scholars to assume a
causal relationship between the organization of large-scale irrigation and the development
of social and political complexity. The earliest studies on ancient irrigation management
argued that those civilizations followed a similar trajectory in their evolutionary histo-
ry due to their dependence on irrigation. Thus, ancient irrigation management was very
much understood in terms of an environmental determinism reflective of the paradigm of
its time that went along with identifying (through cross-cultural comparisons) the prime
movers responsible for the social and cultural evolution of humankind. Hence, Julian
Steward1 called for a cross-cultural comparison of these “hydraulic civilizations” in order
to understand and explain the mechanism behind this allegedly similar evolutionary histo-
ry, which was thought to be found in the managerial requirements of large-scale irrigation
(e.g., construction/ operation, water distribution, conflict resolution). Most scholars at the
time assumed that the organization of large-scale irrigation systems required centralized
control. This need for centralized control led to the development of institutions whose
political control was expanded to other aspects of social life and gave the impetus for the
formation of the state.2
These early studies on ancient irrigation were very much influenced by the work
and writings of Karl Wittf ogel.3 He presents a wide array of case studies from the Orient
and Far East in his book Oriental Despotism to show that water control on a large scale will
inevitably lead to the formation of despotic forms of governance. The “hydraulic hypoth-
esis” formulated by Wittf ogel insists that the construction and maintenance of “massive
hydraulic devices” was institutionally decisive if it was conducted on large-scale irrigation
(“hydraulic agriculture”) and took place in an arid or semiarid river plain.4 To be success-
ful, massive hydraulic devices are needed for (1) irrigation (preparatory operations) and
(2) flood control (protective operations).5 The construction and maintenance of hydraulic
devices would require tremendous amounts of labor, which could only have been recruit-
ed and supervised by a central “directing authority.”6 Further, the need for centralized
oversight led to greater political integration. The control of access to water and land in a
1 Steward 1955.
2 Childe 1950, 8; Millon 1954, 178; Steward 1955, 2; Sanders and Price 1968, 177–87.
3 Wittfogel 1957.
4 Wittfogel 1957, 18–19, 23–24.
5 Wittfogel 1957, 23–24.
6 Wittfogel 1957, 18, 25–29, 50–54.
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