%0 Journal Article
%T River Transportation in the Old Babylonian Period according to Cuneiform Documents and Archaeological Data
%A Esma £¿z
%A Hakan Erol
%A £¿rfan Albayrak
%J -
%D 2019
%X The water sources have played one of the most determinant factors in the selection of the settlements and the agricultural lands and therefore, in the emergence of the civilizations throughout history. With some exceptions, this fact is valid for almost all territories of the earth in which the traces of ancient civilizations are visible. We can say that the human being has been obliged to live near the water sources since the oldest ages. In respect to this, it cannot be ignored that the water sources such as rivers, streams, and brooks had an effect on the emergence and the embodiment of the civilizations. Thus, the prominence in the civilization history of the basins of the Euphrates and the Tigris in Mesopotamia, the Nile in Egypt, the Indus River in India and Pakistan, the Obi and the Yenisei Rivers in Altai can be considered in this context. In addition to land transportation, the inhabitants of the Ancient Mesopotamia gave preference often to the river and canal transportation because of its ease and fastness. According to the epigraphical data, the rivers and the canals were not used only for irrigation, but for the transportation of so many things as well. The Euphrates and partially Tigris and some wide canals enabled water transportation especially via boats or ships, which shuttled between the cities of the riverside and the territories in Mesopotamia with their cargos of all kind. Thereby, thanks to waterways¡¯ convenience especially for the shipping of the commercial merchandise, the port cities established on the banks of them always had strategic importance. The waterways were also important in the political and military context because the transportation of the workers and armies and all kind of equipment and military supplies could be dispatched via rivers and canals. River transportation in ancient ages is considered to begin by the way of clinging the logs and proceeded with the human-made watercrafts such as raft, boat, kuphar, kelek (a raft of inflated skins), hippoi formed in horse-head. This kind of vehicles used in the rivers and the canals failed to satisfy the needs of especially the shipping of commercial goods to the remote regions, such as reliability, usability, and capacity. In the course of time, relatively big ships supplanted this kind of vehicles, but those remained in service of small-scale transportation and carriage. The main epigraphical sources of this study, royal archives of Mari, the correspondences of Hammurabi with his officials and the texts belong to the kingdoms of Isin and Larsa in the Old Babylonian
%K Eski Babil D£¿nemi
%K F£¿rat
%K Dicle
%K Nehir Ula£¿£¿m£¿
%K Kanal Yap£¿m£¿
%K Gemi
%U http://dergipark.org.tr/aran/issue/47533/534371