Sediment of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers: An Early Modern Perspective

Sediment deposition by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers created the physical landscape on which the civilizations of ancient Iraq evolved. Scholars in the past century have combined material with textual evidence to capture the complexity of this sedimentary context and assess its role in human history over the long term. This essay uses untapped archival sources generated by the Ottoman Empire to shine a new light on the subject, emphasizing the impact of sedimentation on irrigation agriculture and channel movement during the early modern period. Ottoman documents, moreover, improve our understanding of how states and societies adapted to the opportunities and challenges provided by sediment transport. In their capacity as giant conduits for sedimentary movement, the Tigris and Euphrates formed selective pressures on the Ottoman state in Iraq that shaped and was reshaped by it. For the study of river systems worldwide, the early modern history of the Tigris and Euphrates reveals the utility of taking fluvial sediment into account when analyzing other hydrological processes such as avulsion.