Wittfogel’s hydraulic hypothesis (1957) motivated much of the early archaeological discourse in the Near East to seek a connection between large-scale irrigation and the centralized power in early states; provoking researchers to challenge his views. The current research shows a more complicated picture2. Various agencies controlled the irrigation works, but water management was indeed the backbone of ancient Near Eastern society.

Advances in irrigation research have used multiple methods, from historical analyses to the use of GIS. In terms of remote sensing, LANDSAT (Adams 1981), CORONA and SRTM satellite imagery paved the way for large-scale landscape studies in the Near East (Ur 2002; Philip et al. 2002; Wilkinson 2003). Unfortunately, because of the political situation, most of the research on irrigation has almost stopped in recent years or moved elsewhere. The importance of irrigation studies has not diminished but its magnitude has rather increased due to current environmental and political issues.

The paper will present the UnderTheSands project, aiming to locate and reconstruct the irrigation network of the areas under study in the Near East and explore their chronological dynamics. Four areas have been selected for the project. These are located in Iraq, Iran and Turkmenistan. The chosen regions in UnderTheSands have diversified characteristics, which will allow to development of a novel workflow for the large-scale analysis of irrigation networks that later can be applied to any other areas presenting similar features. By studying the irrigation networks in these selected areas, we will understand the long-term socio-economic and historical circumstances that produced and maintained these irrigation networks.

The proposed methodology will include remote sensing, terrain analysis, hybrid Machine / Deep Learning methods, archaeomorphology, spatial correlation indices, and historical studies) and various spatial data sources (including multispectral imaging, synthetic aperture radar, and TanDEM-X). The application of Google Earth Engine (GEE) will create a possibility to work with an enormous amount of data incorporating the workflow developed by UnderTheSands. The project will be based at the Landscape Archaeology Research Group (GIAP) at the Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology (ICAC) in Tarragona.

The paper will present the research objectives, methods and initial results of the “UnderTheSands: Ancient irrigation detection and analysis using advanced remote sensing methods” project (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01-101062705), funded by The European Union.

Adams, Robert McCormick. 1981. Heartland of Cities. Surveys of Ancient Settlement and Land Use on the Central Floodplain of the Euphrates. Chicago / London: University of Chicago Press.

Philip, G, D Donoghue, A Beck, and N Galiatsatos. 2002. “CORONA Satellite Photography: An Archaeological Application from the Middle East.” Antiquity 76 (291): 109–18.

Ur, Jason A. 2002. “Surface Collection and Offsite Studies at Tell Hamoukar, 1999.” Iraq 64: 15–43. https://doi.org/10.2307/4200517.

Wilkinson, Tony James. 2003. Archaeological Landscapes of the Near East. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Wittfogel, Karl August. 1957. Oriental Despotism; a Comparative Study of Total Power. New Haven: Yale University Press.