However, by the early Islamic period a more sophisticated water-management system had emerged: qanats. To irrigate AlUla’s fields, early farmers likely used animals to haul goatskins of water from wells to be tipped into surface channels. Either way, the wells stored vast volumes of water for long periods, supporting AlUla’s people and agriculture. The unusual diameter of Hegra’s wells makes them more like cisterns used for storing rainwater, and they may have been an innovative hybrid system drawing from both aquifer and surface flow. While most tapped into groundwater 10 meters below the surface, the deepest is 20 meters and a remarkable seven meters wide. The city of Hegra alone had 130 wells, probably all excavated at around the same time. One of the earliest ways was to dig wells. While water bubbling up from natural springs and seasonal rains might temporarily fill wadis, to make the most of it, people needed to take control of the water. In order to create and sustain an oasis, humans must find, manage, and use the available water wisely. Underpinning these kingdoms were their abilities to manipulate and maximize the supply of water for agriculture. While AlUla’s rulers (and others) grew wealthy on this trade, farming fueled population growth so that powerful kingdoms could emerge-the Dadanites, Lihyanites, and later Nabataeans. Merchant caravans carrying incense, spices, and other luxury goods from southern Arabia to markets in Egypt, the Mediterranean, and Mesopotamia relied on the oasis for water, and were no doubt forced to pay as they traveled through. This enabled later successive peoples to settle and develop irrigated agriculture, growing crops ranging from palm dates and citrus fruits to wheat and barley, creating the oasis.įarming’s ability to support a large population lifted AlUla beyond being a valuable watering hole for desert travelers to being somewhere that could grow and develop. But AlUla was blessed with more than water: it also had fertile soils. AlUla’s earliest inhabitants lived a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle, perhaps shading beneath native acacia trees, and hunting gazelle while drinking from natural springs and pooled water at the surface. Topped up by distant rains, the aquifer raised the water table close to the surface to create a wetland in which plants could grow, and to this rare source of food and drink flocked animals and, ultimately, humans. Much of the water flows through underground systems, becoming trapped and stored as an aquifer. The story of AlUla begins millions of years ago when a wetter climate carved a huge water catchment of great valleys that converged to feed the wadi that runs through the region. The AlUla valley cradles an oasis, an island of habitable land amid Saudi Arabia’s vast seas of sand, a haven that can support communities and offer succor to travelers. Because even in the desert, there are places where water can be found to nurture life and allow plants, animals, and humans to thrive. It seems an unlikely place for farms, cities, and civilizations to emerge, but that’s what happened in the AlUla valley between the foothills of Saudi Arabia’s Hijaz Mountains. Then there’s the searing heat in a landscape that offers little shade, and the often infertile sands in which plants struggle to grow. It’s one of the harsh realities that makes the dry deserts of Saudi Arabia such a challenging place to live. Humans can survive longer without food than without water: significantly longer.
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