The Moorish invention that tamed Spain's mountains
bbc.com
bbc.com
This also requires far less resources than building an aqueduct.
I'm not sure why many think it is so fascinating the Romans built aqueducts. The Etruscans built hydraulic works as irrigation channels, drainage systems, dams, etc., while the Greeks had also built similar hydraulic structures long before Roman influence. And the Romans neither invented aqueducts nor built the first aqueducts. The first sophisticated long-distance raised conduit canal systems were constructed in the Assyrian empire in the 9th century BCE, half a millennium before the earliest Roman aqueducts.
There were highly advanced aqueducts /in Spain/ long before the Moors came along.
It is the fallacy of simple location to try to pinpoint concrete details in explicit segments of space and time. It does not matter to Leibniz where Newton discovered calculus, only whether Newton did so first by up to a decade. It would be fallacy of simple location for Leibniz to claim, "but that was at Cambridge, not Paris." The Romans can no more claim validly they were first in Spain with the aqueduct than Leibniz can claim validly he was first in Paris with the calculus.
Umayyids (the "Syrians" who conquered Spain) and religious fanaticism don't go hand in hand: Most Umayyid rulers were political nihilists at best.
Compare Spain today; you can barely get around without being fed jamon. My understanding is that historically there was actually a purposeful, vindictive re-introduction of pork in to (nearly all) Spanish food to "flush out" any Muslims in hiding after the Moorish period and this culture of ham-in-everything has basically continued to the present. (Source: Traveling with a Muslim in Spain)
I visited Spain as a vegetarian a few years ago and I found the pork thing so weird. I'd go into a random bar and ask for a beer then they'd give it to me with a plate of sausages on the side without mentioning it or asking first!
Some Spanish king was concerned about the accidents of drunk people while riding or traveling at chariot between villages, and required that the vine served to travelers include some food to mitigate the alcoholic effect. To obey the new law, innkeepers started to put a slice of bread over the vine jars, like a lid covering it. The Spanish word for lid is "Tapa"; so you have your drink, and "the lid". This only applies to a bar/restaurant context.
You can order one or several tapas of "X" with your drink but in that case is an extra. You'll be served a bigger amount (or a more elaborated mouthful) of the product that you asked for, and is expected that you pay for it. (Same if you order a ration or a half ration of X).
Is not obligatory to eat it. If you are a vegan or have food allergies, just explain it politely and they will remove the offending dish, and probably bring you a more appropriate replacement if they have one.
> Compare Spain today; you can barely get around without being fed jamon. My understanding is that historically there was actually a purposeful, vindictive re-introduction of pork in to (nearly all) Spanish food to "flush out" any Muslims in hiding after the Moorish period and this culture of ham-in-everything has basically continued to the present. (Source: Traveling with a Muslim in Spain)
Jews were also victims of such dietary inquisition (sometimes literally).
> my understanding is that this is to [...] annoy muslims.
Not. We have a culture also, and pork is a big part of the European culture since the glaciation. Culture that we share with most European and Asian people, from China to Portugal. Europeans ate pork much before Islam. Other cultures have food taboos around pork. We, don't. We toke many useful things of the Muslim culture, but keep the things that worked in European cultures also.
But nobody will force you to eat Jamon in Spain if you explain your diet restrictions in advance.
(And not all things that look like jamon are necessarily made of pork).
Instead what they did was build on top of existing stuff. The Arabs didn't invent aqua ducts. They got it from other civilizations. What Arabs did do was connect ideas from the Greeks, Romans, Indians, North Africa, and sub sahara Africa. And because they were laid back with the fewest rules, lot more innovation and mashing of ideas occurred during this period.
this was in contrast to the Roman Catholic Church which was more domineering and controlling to a fault.
Search youtube for "how Islam saved western civilization" for a rundown. The library in Spain was a collection of all the great European works until Europe awokened in the Renaissance which was built off of the works Arabs had continued.
"Making life possible in one of Europe's driest regions" is misleading though.
Eastwards Sierra Nevada you find Almería, where all the Spaghetti Westerns were filmed. It's indeed a desertic zone, just not a very big extension.
The hyperbolic headline somehow implies a scale that's not real. In any other direction from Sierra Nevada, there's plenty of rain, water and woods. That system just provides the same for some villages on the drier zones.
Edit: OK, people disagree... so be it, but before downvoting, why don't you take a look at Google Earth and see for yourself?
I grew up in Córdoba (which is west from Sierra Nevada). It gets to 49 centigrades in the summer. It’s not officially considered “a desert”… but it will soon. Temperature has been going up and rain went down. Fewer plants survive each summer.
This is a pattern that you see through all the Spanish south. Desertification is a big, visible problem that should not be minimized. I recommend that you apply your own advice to yourself.
So the headline is precise and I'm wrong when I say those acequias can only provide water for small zones... and because it's a "sensitive point", nobody can disagree.
Appaling.
IMHO this is one of the few reasonable uses of this term (which has otherwise acquired a negative connotation). The Muslims who colonized Iberia were referred to as Moors because of their Maghreb origin (cf old Mauritania), which itself is the other, technical, use of the term.
And given that it’s the BBC I’d give them a pass for correct usage, even if it’s likely few in the audience will get it, with many instead enjoying the derogatory implication.
That's not the whole truth. Invaders came from far away Arabia, but they were few. From the top of my head, a few thousands.
Roman era Hispania was said to reach a million population. Not sure if that number declined during the Goths' kingdom (that were also a minority themselves) so the Arabians had to recruit 100k warriors of Maghribi origin to help them subjugate the peninsula.
When I hear "Moorish" (I'm Spanish, not an English native speaker, so not sure how they've come with that word) I suspect they're translating "un invento del tiempo de los moros" that would be more precisely translated as "an invention from the time of muslim Spain".
If it was invented here, it was a Spanish invention, no matter what the religion or ethnic group of the author was. If it was brought from outside, it would be interesting to know if it came from Arabia or the Maghreb.
I disagree that "moro" is a bad word in Spanish. It's just descriptive of NW Africa. Those countries are Morocco and Mauritania in English and I don't see their inhabitants protesting the names.
There's a weird projection phenomenom around denomyns: some people attribute ill intentions to perfectly natural names that the addressed people find fine. In Spain, I've heard someone upset about calling "Chinese" to... Chinese people and suggested calling them "Asian" or something like that because "Chinese" is derogatory. WTF?
Just because such a region does not have a city like Madrid or even Albuquerque does not mean that people do not live there, nor that they are not reliant to some extent on acqueias.
Groasis:
https://www.groasis.com/en/technology/how-does-the-reforesta...
The mass of the water provides thermal regulation as well as a trickle of water, which can catch rain as well as being topped up manually.
The overall goal is for the tree to grow down to the aquifer and then thrive. It helps a lot if there’s work to catch storm runoff into the aquifer.
The OP is more about conveying water through the aquifer.
Edit: URL added
There was a civilisation in the Sahara that had tunnels in the mountain that provided water, I imagine they ran dry.
Persia had (has?) underground tunnels that convey water to farmland.
With the increasing amount of heavy rain fall I’m not sure how much of that can be caught and sequestered.
This was made all the more apparent when there was a sudden downpour in London some years back and the river Fleet, sewer as it is now backed up into the office’s canteen.
It eventually collapsed when earthquakes damaged the system beyond their capacity to repair. Being subjugated by Rome didn't help.
Was that the Garamantes?[1]
How many other ones in Spain have been abandoned?
If this was established by the Moors then I would guess other ex-Moor states would have a similar setup.
Modern irrigation is incredible, modern cities are amazing, modern software connects most humans on the planet. But ... we can learn.
Talking about notion of a central authority that provides governance is an anachronism in the context of North Africa. But that’s a separate discussion.
Sure thing! In Madeira they have many ancient aquaducts originally estabilished by the Moors:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levada
Ancient water management is a fascinating topic.
The qanats in the middle-east, and north africa are particularly interesting. They are underground water conduits and sources dug by human muscles alone.
The island chain was empty by the time the portuguese arrived.
There were no moors in Madeira.
I don't understand why this knowledge isn't being written down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat#Qanat_vs._spring-flow_tu...
For anybody that wants to go down a very interesting rabbit hole start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorish_Science_Temple_of_Amer... and wander as needed. Would also recommend the related mystery of this man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Fard_Muhammad.
Note: "Moor" is both a wretchedly vague exonym, and often a mild ethnic slur.
Literally no one is.
There is a vast difference between giving credit for a given concept/tool/technique because it's useful, and thinking the locals have sort of ancestral connection with a foreign invader.