Ancient coastline in Sumer

[Ben M-H]

Hi folks - my first post here!

I've noticed in my atlas of world history that the coastline at the
Persian Gulf was significantly different in ancient times to now. The
Persian Gulf stretched further in, such that ancient cities of Ur and
Lagesh were probably port cities, where now they are far inland. My
questions are: (1) are there any estimates of the time period over
which the coast changed; and (2) why did it change? I am a little
confused, since I assume that the change is due to climate, but if the
water level became lower, then that would be related to lower
temperatures - but that would not cause drier conditions, which I
understand occurred as well - or would it?

Any help appreciated.

Regards,

John.

[Christopher Ingham]

On Aug 22, 6:54 am, Ben M-H <benjamin_mathews-hun...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

The coastal changes are attibutable to the long-term silting-in of
river mouths caused by the cessation of sea-level rise 7000 yr BP,
inland irrigation projects beginning with the rise of urbanization and
agriculture in Mesopotamia 7800 yr BP, and long-term gradual monsoon
decline beginning 8000-10,000 yr BP.

W. J. Burroughs,_Climate change in prehistory: The end of the reign of
chaos_(New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005), 240-8:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Bf9OkziA3fYC&pg=PA240

A. Sherratt, "Envronmental change: The evolution of Mesopotamia,"
ArchAtlas (2004), online:
http://www.archatlas.dept.shef.ac.uk/EnvironmentalChange/EnvironmentalChange.php

Christopher Ingham

[Joachim Pense]

Am 22.08.2010 18:06, schrieb Christopher Ingham:
> On Aug 22, 6:54 am, Ben M-H<benjamin_mathews-hun...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>> Hi folks - my first post here!
>>
>> I've noticed in my atlas of world history that the coastline at the
>> Persian Gulf was significantly different in ancient times to now. The
>> Persian Gulf stretched further in, such that ancient cities of Ur and
>> Lagesh were probably port cities, where now they are far inland. My
>> questions are: (1) are there any estimates of the time period over
>> which the coast changed; and (2) why did it change? I am a little
>> confused, since I assume that the change is due to climate, but if the
>> water level became lower, then that would be related to lower
>> temperatures - but that would not cause drier conditions, which I
>> understand occurred as well - or would it?
>>
> The coastal changes are attibutable to the long-term silting-in of
> river mouths caused by the cessation of sea-level rise 7000 yr BP,
> inland irrigation projects beginning with the rise of urbanization and
> agriculture in Mesopotamia 7800 yr BP, and long-term gradual monsoon
> decline beginning 8000-10,000 yr BP.
>

In which century did the Shatt el Arab come into existence?

Joachim

[Christopher Ingham]

"The present river pattern probably is relatively recent, but its mode
of formation is uncertain. The Tigris and Euphrates possibly once
flowed to the Persian Gulf by a more westerly channel, while the Shatt
Al-'Arab's present lower course may have been part of the
Karun." ("'Arab, Shatt Al-," _Encyclopædia Britannica 2010 ultimate
reference suite_(CD). Chicago. = "Shatt Al-'Arab," online at eb.com.)
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/31417/Shatt-Al-Arab

Christopher Ingham

[Yusuf B Gursey]

On Aug 22, 1:39 pm, Christopher Ingham <christophering...@comcast.net>
wrote:

the name dates to Ottoman times, as in Classical Arabic *sh*aTT means
"bank" (of a river) but has come to mean "stream" in Iraqi colloquial.
mediavl Islamic geographers refer to it simly as Dijla "Tigris".

here is what Enc. Iranica has to say about the Medieval situation:

http://www.iranica.com/articles/shatt-al-arab

<<

The configuration of the Shatt al-Arab has changed over time
(Rawlinson, pp. 189-90). As Lees and Falcon observed in 1952, a
comparison of British Admiralty naval charts from 1825 and 1942
documented “a shift of the channel of the Shatt al Arab to the
northeast .”The old channel which was directed more or less straight
to the southeast from Fao (al-Fāʾū) ("Manamah" [Manama] on the old
chart) has now completely silted up, several miles of it having been
replaced by cultivated land, and the present channel follows a
northern branch” (Lees and Falcon, p. 30). In the medieval period the
Tigris is thought to have flowed down the more westerly Shatt al-Hayy
(Šaṭṭ al-Ḥayy) and, after joining the Euphrates, the two rivers run
through the Abuʾl-Asad (Arabic) or Bahmanshir (Bahmanšir) (Persian)
canal to Basra ,where another short canal known as the ‘Blind’ or ‘One-
Eyed’ Tigris (Dejla al-ʿAwrāʾ) flowed to the Persian Gulf through an
estuary (Le Strange, pp. 26, 43). Old Basra itself, however, was
located about 19 km from the canal, and required the construction of a
canal to link it to the main waterway heading south (Reitemeyer, p.
26; Pellat, p. 7). According to the 10th-century Arab geographer and
historian Masʿudi (Tanbih, p. 52), the lower Tigris from al-Maftaḥ to
al-Obolla and ʿAbbādān (which is the Arabic form; the Persianzed form
is Ābādān; see ĀBĀDĀN, i and ii) was called Bahmanshir by the Persians
(Morony, 1982, p. 48, n. 500; 1984, p. 159, n. 211). Bahmanshir is
almost certainly a contraction of Bahman-Ardašir (q.v.) (Rawlinson, p.
187), the name of both a district and its capital in Mesene/Maysān,
the most southerly portion of Mesopotamia (Fiey, p. 265).

>>