Nomads and Empires: Water in the Ancient near East
3.0
creditsAverage Course Rating
Water and its histories reveal deep similarities and pivotal differences among human societies that are critical to understanding the human past and our future. Environments are often defined by water availability and periodicity, water is a frequent theme of religious traditions and a common point of political conflict. The hydraulic hypothesis, one of the longest-standing potential explanations for the rise of the world’s earliest civilizations, claims that organizational requirements of large-scale irrigation spawned ancient political hierarchies and cities. Archaeologists now know irrigation was not the only factor responsible for the origins of ancient states, but water management was important to agriculture in every region of ancient state formation. This course explores economic and social histories of water in the ancient Near East. It examines water’s diverse roles in ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Levantine and South Arabian agriculture, politics, ritual and religion, including water’s interconnected significance in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Fall 2014
Professor: Michael Harrower
Students praised this course for having an engaging instructor who encouraged students to have in-class discussion on the course’s subject matter, which he managed to connect to modern day issues. Students had few issues with the course though some wished the course would shift from being a lecture-focused course to one that included more discussions. Suggestions for improvement varied; multiple students wanted lectures to be more focused on one specific topic or area such as water in religion or water in literature and then dive deeper into that subject area. Prospective students should know that students found the course provided a good overview of water usage and its central place in history throughout the region, which was a subject that multiple students found relevant to various majors and interests. 246