More West Asian Environment
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Around 3000 BC, in the time of the Sumerians, people began to dig great canals and ditches to carry the water of the Tigris and the Euphrates farther away from their banks, to water the fields and make the wheat and barley grow. At first this worked well, but by 2500 BC this irrigation had already caused a big problem. The river water down near the Persian Gulf has a lot of salt in it from the salty ocean water backwashing up into the rivers. When the Sumerians spread it on their fields, year after year, a little bit of salt would be spread on their fields too. The water evaporated, but the salt remained on the fields. After five hundred years of that, the Sumerians' fields all began to get too salty to grow crops well! Now that whole area is just one big salt marsh, and nobody does grow crops there.
Cedar of Lebanon
On the western side of the Tigris river there are low mountains, the Zagros mountains, where nomads and shepherds have always lived and still live today.
The more coastal areas, toward the Mediterranean, have a different problem, but one which was also caused by people. All along the coast, there used to be forests of trees, the famous cedars of Lebanon. People came from all over West Asia to get these trees to use for building. The king Gilgamesh was one of them. But too many trees were cut down, and not enough were planted. Now there are hardly any trees in Lebanon or Israel (though people are trying to replant them).
For more about the West Asian environment, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:
The Ancient Euphrates (Geography of the World Series), by Charnan Simon (2004). For kids.
Middle East, by Ian A. Morrison (1991). Geography and culture, for young adults.
Climate Change - Environment and Civilization in the Middle East, by Arie S. Issar and Mattanyah Zohar (2004). By specialists, for specialists.
Why did people want to punch Socrates?
Where did Egyptians bury your liver?
How old are the Rocky Mountains?
What does a half-timbered house look like?
How do you spin wool?
(a project)
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