Evening star., 1950-11-12
By lowrence GriswoId

Oy LoWIeHCS STsSHOio
Ka-Dingirra was the name
given Babylon by the Sumerian
people who built it. Babel
was the Semitic name of the
later Chaldeans. Both names
meant the Gate of God. A
Thousand years before the birth
Of Christ, Babylonia rivaled
Egypt as the capital Of the
civilized world. A thousand :
years after the birth Of Christ,
the Islamic Caliphate at Bagh-
dad rivaled Byzantium as the
worlds political head. Intel
lectually. Baghdad's leadership
was undisputed. Both Babylon
and Baghdad were made pos
sible by an elaborate irrigation
system, now in ruins.
For almost 1000 years the
Land Between the Rivers-Meso-
potamia-had been the Eastern
terminus Of the Fertile Crescent.
The mighty Tigris and Euphra-
tes Rivers. arising in the noun
tains Of the North, pursued an
almost parallel canal linked
path through the land to come
together just above the port Of
Basra to form the Shaft al
Arab.
Late last month the Iraqi gov
ernment announced that the
ancient canals would be re-
stored. and limited that an
American director of the canal
commission would not be mac
ceptable. Thus the oldest canal
system on earth. an irrigation
project over 5000 years old,
awaits rebuilding, and the Fer
tile Crescent may again become
as fruitful as in the age of the
Patriarch Abraham, who was
born in ur.
Fine Canal System
In the time of Abraham, there
was no Shaft al-Arab. The
Tigris and Euphrates joined the
Persian Gulf near Ur of the
! Chaldees. Basra was below sea-
level, not 80 miles away from the
gulf. as it is today. But thou
sands OF. tons of silt deposited
annually at the deltas of the two
rivers by the spring floods caused
the land to extend into the gulf
at a rate calculated at about
three quarters of a mile every
decade. This occurred early in
the Sd millennium BIC. AS the
delta extended, the sitting
tended to spread out from the
banks as the rivers overfowed
and, when at length the Tigris
and Euphrates Joined, the land
forming process increased for a
time. but finally slowed as the
delta crept into continually
deeped water Of the Persian
Gulf.
Like the Nile, the lands of the
Mesopotamian, or Iraqi, delta
were extremely fertile. But long
before the delta reached the site
Of modern Basra, the Baby
lonians had created a canal sys-
tenn which was far more deserv-
ing of the title of Wonder of
the Ancient World" than the
fabled Hanging Gardens of
Babylon.
Even the Etemananki, the sun
tower. the Tower of Babylon
was far less interesting from an
engineering standpoint than the
tunnel which passed under the
Eupllrates River to connect
Babylon East with Babylon
West This feat antedated the
Hudson Tunnel by more than
1000 years. Considering that
the volume of water which flows
between the banks of the Eu-
pirates, when in flood, is ap-
proximately five to eight times
the volume of the Hudson River,
the skill and mentality which
drew the plans and supervised
the work can be appreciated.
The canal system of Baby
lonia managed to support pop
ulation of more than 16 million
at the time of the Caliphate.
Then Came the Mongols
Before the 18th Century was
we'll advanced. the canal system
made 1raq one of the most fer
tile agricultural areas upon
earth. The canals connected
the Tigris and Euphrates at in
tervals as they flowed south
ward over the fiat plains, and
other canals radiated outward
from the rivers to the east and
west. Storage dams were
erected at several sites, and
drainage provided so that the
alkalis made soluble by the
water could not precipitate and
sterillze the soil. Instead of the
dusty land which Iraq is now,
colo in winter and over-hot in
summer, it was more temperate
in every respect so that when
the first Caliph searched for his
new capital, he chose the site of
modern Baghdad "for its green
fairness and its peace" So
Baghdad, the "Abode of Peace"
was built early in the eighth
century and became the capital
of the Sheikhs ul-Islam.
In 1858 AID. catastrophe
struck the world. A year earlier
the Mongol Hordes had famed
out from Samarkhand toward
the west. At Baghdad, the
Caliph received an arrogant de-
mand for surrender from HUI
aku Khan, grandson of Ghengis
Khan, whose forces approached
Baghdad from the north and
south. The Caliph answered
with defiance, withdrew his
forces from Baghdad west to
the Round City of Old Baghdad,