KAREN MUTTON - WATER REALMS ancient water technologies and management.

WATER
REALMS

Ancient Water
Technologies and
Management

Karen Mutton

Hidden Realms

Copyright 2021

by Karen Mutton

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 978-1-948803-33-5

Published by:

Adventures Unlimited Press

One Adventure Place

Kempton, Illinois 60946 USA

Printed in the United States of America

AdventuresUnlimitedPress.com

WATER REALMS

Ancient Water
Technologies and
Management

Karen Mutton

Other books by Karen Mutton:

SUNKEN REALMS
SUBTERRANEAN REALMS
SCATTERED SKELETONS IN OUR CLOSET

Other books of interest:

VIMANA

ARK OF GOD

BIGFOOT NATION

GIANTS ON RECORD

THINGS AND MORE THINGS

INVISIBLE RESIDENTS

ANCIENT TECHNOLOGY IN PERU & BOLIVIA

THE MYSTERY OF THE OLMECS

PIRATES AND THE LOST TEMPLAR FLEET

TECHNOLOGY OF THE GODS

THE ENIGMA OF CRANIAL DEFORMATION

ANCIENT ALIENS AND SECRET SOCIETIES

THE CRYSTAL SKULLS

ANCIENT ALIENS ON THE MOON

ANCIENT ALIENS ON MARS

ANCIENT ALIENS ON MARS II

ANCIENT ALIENS AND JFK

HIDDEN AGENDA

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

This book covers a vast amount of information about ancient hydraulic technologies which has been previously confined to the dry pages of academic journals. In this age of increasing population pressures upon finite water supplies, some of the ingenious technologies employed by the ancients across the globe need to be re-examined and utilised. Since the dawn of civilisation in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, the Americas, China and Greece, towns and cities have implemented water management technologies for sanitation, irrigation and industrial purposes. Sanitation is defined as instituting measures to promote health and eliminating disease, particularly by:

The provision of clean potable water.

The elimination of wastewater and sewage.

1. Technologies for providing drinking and bathing water include:

Wells, cisterns, tanks, dams, settlement tanks, reservoirs, fountains and baths

Sophisticated pipelines attached to aqueducts, cisterns and canals

Complex hydraulic systems such as Roman aqueducts, Persian qanats and Peruvian puquios

Tunnel systems in ancient Jerusalem and Samos, Greece

Many of these structures still survive, such as:

Ancient dams in Egypt, Spain and Japan

Aqueducts across the Roman world, the most famous being Segovia, Spain and Pont du Gard in France, as well as scores more in Italy, Turkey and North Africa.

Greco-Roman fountains in Tivoli, Sagalassoa

Sacred wells in Sardinia and across ancient Britain

Integrated water capture and storage systems in Petra, Jordan

Tunnels dug through solid rock in Israel at Hazor, Meggido and Jerusalem

Baths at Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley and the great Roman thermae such as the Baths of Caracalla and the British town of Bath

The puquios underground aqueduct system in the Nazca desert

Persian qanats, including tunnels and wells built across the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa

2. The elimination of wastewater and sewage was practised in Crete, Greece, Rome, the Indus Valley, China and various South American cultures via latrines, drains and separate pipelines leading to rivers or cesspools. Recycling of wastewater for irrigation purposes was well developed in the 2nd millennium from Crete to China using drains, pipelines and culverts.

Sophisticated drainage at Knossos, Crete and Indus Valley cities

The Cloaca Maxima drain built by the Etruscans in Rome

The Great Drain of Athens

Teotihuacan in Mexico had extensive canals and drainage

3. Irrigation projects for crops were completed before historical records were kept in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and China. These impressive projects included the draining of lakes, diversion of rivers, dams, reservoirs and the construction of weirs, sluices as well as extensive canal systems.

Examples of huge reclamation projects include the draining of Lake Kopas in Greece and the Dujiangyan project in China.

Canals in Babylon and The Great Canal, China

Grand gardens in ancient Persia, Egypt and Mesopotamia, such as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon have not survived, although some ancient gardens in Japan still exist.

4. Sophisticated hydraulic civilisations in South East Asian countries such as Sri Lanka and Cambodia flourished in early historical times.

Sri Lanka has some of the most extensive hydraulic projects in the world, dating to over 2,000 years ago.

The Khmer Kingdom in Cambodia had extensive works around Angkor.

Aquaculture, the cultivation of fish and eels for food by building ponds and walls was practised for millennia in southern Australia, as well as China, Egypt, Rome and Hawaii. These projects include:

Extensive fish ponds in Hawaii

The eel traps of Brewarrina, in southern Australia

5. In ancient Greece, Rome, the Middle East and China water wheels were employed to mill grain, pump water and for other purposes.

These include overshot, undershot and central water wheels

Ancient gravity fed pumps perfected by the Hellenistic Greeks include the Archimedes Screw, the siphon and the inverted siphon.

The Minoans and Romans used heated water. The Romans heated water with the hypocaust system of underfloor heating.

From these examples, as well as many more described in Water Realms, it is apparent that the ancients on all inhabited continents invented technologies to locate, collect, store, transport and/or utilise water, often on a grand scale. Their tenacity and ingenuity deserves our admiration. Their achievements deserve to be shared with the world.

TABLES

Measurements provided in this book are either in imperial or metric depending on the original source. To find the equivalent, use the following table:

1 inch = 2.54 centimetres

1 foot = 0.30 metre

1 yard = 0.91 metre

1 mile = 1.69 kilometres

1 acre = 0.40 hectares

1 square mile = 2.59 square kilometres

1 metre = 0.062 miles

1 kilometres = 0.62 miles

1 hectare = 0.00386 square miles

GLOSSARY

ADIT- a horizontal passage leading to a mine for access or drainage

AQUEDUCT- an artificial channel for conveying water, typically as a bridge across a valley or gap

ARCHIMEDES SCREW- an ancient pump used for transferring water from low-lying water to irrigation ditches

BARAY- an artificial body of water in the Khmer empire of Cambodia

CALYX- bronze connector which regulated water use in Roman towns

CANAL- artificial waterway to convey water for irrigation or passage of boats

CASTELLUM DIVISORIUM- a Roman structure that was situated at the end of an aqueduct, where the water was delivered to a basin and then dispersed.

CENOTE- natural underground reservoir of water in the Yucatan

CHAHA BARG- quadrilateral park layout in ancient Persia

CHAIN PUMP- a water pump in which circular discs are positioned on an endless chain, often used in Roman mines

CHULTAN- Mayan underground chamber or cistern

CISTERN tank for storing water

COMMUNICATING VESSELS- the surface of a liquid is horizontal when several vessels are connected.

CULVERT- a tunnel carrying a stream or open drain beneath a road

EMISSARY- channel, natural or artificial, by which an outlet is formed to carry off any stagnant body of water