Water, a cultural heritage

Landscape and Urban Planning, 16 (1988) 9 3 -103 Elsevier Science Publishers B .V, . Amsterdam - Printed in The Netherlands

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WATER, A CULTURAL HERITAGE

SERAFIN LOPEZ-CUERVO ETS Ingenieros de Monies, Universidad Palilecnica de A4adrid (Spain)

ABSTRACT LGpez-Cuervo . S., 1988 . Water, a cultural heri-

nean on the Iberian Peninsula are analysed in

tage. Landscape Urban Plann ., /6: 93-103 .

a brief historical overview . The cultural background, deeply rooted in the Spanish people, has

The contributions to water management and use by the riparian peoples of the Mediterra-

always been decisive for the acceptance of tech-

INTRODUCTION

people, a culture of water was developed, still constitute an up-to-date model of agrarian development in barren areas . Similar exploitations exist on our Peninsula, e .g. in the southeastern areas of Spain where, since prehistoric times, farmers have carried drainage water to irrigation tanks or tubs (Fig . I ) . This irrigation system (perhaps the oldest known, and, according to many authors, one which originated with intensive agriculture) maintains the criteria of maximum water use and minimum soil loss . Terrain structured in plots with minimum dragging slopes progressively evacuates water through drain holes built into step walls . At a time in which terracing in both agrarian and forest soils is subject to harsh criticism by conservationists, it is interesting to consider the efficiency of such structures, deeply integrated into the Mediterranean landscape, as a means of diminishing soil loss in the face of strong hydrological erosion processes in the area . Currently, some research programmes (Giraldez, 1986) are being conducted to study these ex-

Knowledge and, in many cases, the recovery of ancient hydraulic systems retain their economic interest in view of an increasingly scarce resource like water . However, because man is part of the natural world, technological solutions to the environment must be within his comprehension and integrated into his natural frame . Modern archaeology, using the most advanced techniques, migrational studies and ancient historical sources including myths and legends, tries to penetrate the man-environment relationship, in search of a cultural identification with exploitation structure so that each individual can clearly understand the role that water plays in his life .

ANCIENT IRRIGATION SYSTEMS Irrigation systems in northern Africa, where . since the massive movement of Cannanean 0169-2046/88/$03 .50

1988 Elsevier Science Publishers B .V .

nological solutions to the environment.

y4

Fig . 1 . Flood irrigation plots ("tablares") in south-eastern Spain .

ploitations in the province of Almeria, together with atmospheric water vapour, condensation-based collection procedures . This principle of overhead wells also has its origins in remotest antiquity, historic records being found in the Book of Judges in the Old Testament . These systems have been widely used in agriculture in barren areas . They are the basis of

the vine plantations on the Island of Lanzarote. and today focus scientists' attention on research projects on water collection from fog . or Svering's horizontal precipitations . The study of these methods of humidity deposition through mechanical stopping and condensation by night cooling is of great importance in knowing the hydrological balance, and holds great interest for the quantification

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of forest terrain contributions to total system input, as well as for the development of collectors as alternative exploitation method . References to these water-collection methods are frequent in geoponic essays. Ibn Luyun, in his 14th century "Treatise of Agriculture" demonstrates how the Arabs compiled all ancient knowledge and acted . i n the majority of cases, as mere transmitters of those cultures among the Mediterranean riparian peoples . THE ARAB INFLUENCE IN SPAIN The acceptance of our cultural roots in water management becomes clear when, during the 19th century, the Claustral of the Cathedral at Tortosa, Jose Antonio Banqueri, translated the "Book of Agriculture" by Andalusi Abu Zacaria Elm el Awan from the Arabic, and stated, in the preface. how Spain had the singular glory of presenting three distinguished works in agriculture, written in three different languages with the highest scholarship, pureness and stylistic elegance . In Latin, the work by Junius Moderatus Columela, from Cadiz, who lived in Rome in the times of the early Caesars is without doubt one of the main Roman essays on agriculture . Comparable with that by M . Terentius Varron, it was the preference of all writers on "Re Rustica" . Columela is now considered by specialists to be the direct predecessor of Arab geoponics . In Spanish, "General Agriculture" by Gabriel Alonso de Herrera, patronized by Cardinal Cisneros, offered Spain the great service of compiling the best Greek, Roman and Arabic experiences, enriched with the author's own observations . In Arabic, the "Book of Agriculture" by Abu Zacaria, from Seville, tells us in the prologue that he had read the most significant works of antiquity, from among which he drew principally on the "Nabatean Agriculture", which he translated from Chaldean. Banqueri justified

his translation into Spanish as making up for the existing ignorance about Arab farming systems, not about irrigation and water distribution systems, since they remain in service and are positively valued . Irrigated areas, which were remarkably developed on the Mediterranean coast during the Roman period, are preserved in legal ordination with the contribution of the Visigothic code "Fuero Juzgo" . Water supplies to cities such as the aqueduct at Segovia, Proserpina's dam and many others scattered over the peninsula are preserved as an accurate image of the splendour of that age, still fulfilling the objectives for which they were designed . The Arabs furnished more oriental conceptions to water management . Masters in capturing and draining rivers, they created fertile plains in Valencia and Andalusia, and at the same time, developed a complete legislation on water related allowances and obligations, deeply integrated in our common law . Fernandez Casado (1985) explained how the Romans, influenced by near-eastern culture from the Etruscan age onwards developed a sort of engineering in which the authorship of the execution and conception of their works is evident, but does not make any important contribution to knowledge about the irrigation of conquered territories . Thus, the conservation or simply the recycling of the exploitation makes attribution of the work to a certain culture difficult in many cases . MEDINA AZ-ZAHRA It is perhaps in the palatine city of the Caliphate at Cordoba where this cultural symbiosis and at the same time their conceptual differences appear most clearly . Devastated and later abandoned after the fall of the Omeyan caliphate, Medina Az-Zahra constitutes an archaeological site of exceptional importance for the knowledge of His-

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pano-Arabic culture . The Christian king Ferdinand the Third donated the ruins and their surroundings to the town of Cordoba, which years later passed them on to the religious order of Saint Jeronimus . The monks made use of the property, maintaining the land as pasture, except for the recycling of stones and columns for the construction of their convent . And so we received the heritage of authenticity of these remains, the pureness of whose strata .. owing to the absence of later urban settlements, constitutes a priceless scientific legacy . Historian Ambrosio de Morales, who inhabited the convent in the 16th century, noted in his "Antiquities" : "The existing remains in the ruins of Cordoba the Ancient, the name with which the mentioned pasture land was known, come from the old patrician colony founded by

Fig. 3 . Latrine and stone basin at Medina .Az-Zahra.

Fig . 2 . Ceramic elbow drain chambers .

Marcelus" . Undoubtedly. Ambrosio de Morales wrongly interpreted its origins when he identified the Roman structures recycled by the Omeyas in the stone city_ construction, but it is also true that cultural overlapping of both people leads to confusion . The Roman sarcophagus representing the hunt of Meleagro on the side decorations, and which served as a fountain in the great column patio, is worth highlighting for its symbolism . Water in the city acquired special significance : analogies with and contributions to both cultures clearly appear in the diversity of its use. Examples of its sanitary engineering clearly show Roman roots . The ceramic tube drainages for sewage transportation have the same connection system and size as those used by the Greeks and Romans (Fig . 2) . The same simi-

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Fig . 4. .An aerial view of "foggaras" at Vera (Almeria, Spain) .

larity appears in sewerage galleries and latrines . In the former, their stone block construction, the floor and gable end layouts, their sections and profuse geometrical network clearly evoke the principles used in Roman times . Manv latrines, known since the Minoan age, are found, often in pairs ; they are always adjacent to patios or open ramps that allow direct ventilation . (Fig. 3) . Small stone basins built into side walls and draining through the sewage pipe are common, like the current use of bidets . The whole sanitary structure stands out because of its remarkable size, designed to evacuate large flows during rainy periods, as well as to help cleaning and maintenance . Nevertheless, it is in the baths where the Roman stamp is most evident . The inventory of Arabic baths in Spain is important for its number as well as for its original architectural

frame, with a surprising display of decorative techniques and motives; all of them, built between the 8th and 15th centuries, fit into the same structural distribution . Built-in pipes frequently appear in brick walls of ovens, for the supply of hot water to the baths, and their Roman origin appears obvious even from the Latin words with which the essayists distinguish the various thermal uses of the installation; frigidarium, tepidarium and caldarium . Irrigation management and city water supply structure are doubtless the clearest evidence of Arabic hydraulic criteria . The Romans, who were masters of this type of construction, seldom lowered the slope below one per cent. In contrast to the criterion of maintaining flow the Arabs developed a type of water engineering with turbulent movement. Thus, the spring and the waterwheel (that at Albolafia on the Guadalquivir, at Cor-

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Fig . 5 . A section of the water-conduction gallery of Medina ',z-Zahra .

doba, is a masterpiece) represent the transformation they imposed on the movement of water . The furnishing of the necessary flows for the supply was most probably done through drainage of different areas of the mountain range . A branch of this probable gallery network still supplies the Tcja fountain, in what is thought to be the original area of the main conduction . Water collection in Medina Az-Zahra in a way evokes the exploitations constituted by different secondary galleries which increased main conduction flows and which . with their ventilation shafts, are so common in Palestine, Kurdistan, Iran and other countries in which "foggaras" are still built as water supply systems . "Foggaras or "jattaras" have been recently

identified in areas of Almeria (Fig . 4) even though some authors deny that such structures, which date at least from the time of Aquemcnids, existed in Moslem Spain . Oliver Asin (1959) identified the origin of the name of Spain's capital city as that of a place with abundant underground water-collection tunnels. "My purpose is only to suggest that "Matrice" could have well been the name of the town before it was occupied by the Moslems, especially considering the topographical resemblance between that first Madrid and the towns called "Matriz" . because of a Matrix creek being a fundamental element of landscape in all of them" . However, other authors point out that this type of collector is typical of the desert regions of the Moslem world, with its first known application on the Iberian peninsula in Madrid, with its name derived from Mayrit . In the Az-Zahra supply, the water main, already increased by contributions received along the way, climbs a slope of nearly 33% by 34 vertical wells which reduce the slope between stretches somewhat less than 5% . Each well has its evacuation gallery almost 1 m above its bottom . so that the final section acts as deposit areas for solids (Fig . 5) . Sand filters present in similar Roman structures are substituted by deposits in all the wells along the descent . A singular work in this supply, is the Valdepuentes Aqueduct . Built of limestone blocks, it is bonded with rope, marked with burnt wood, normally in a two-to-one proportion, following caliphal art rules, the whole construction being linked with limestone mortar . It consists of three imbricated horseshoe arches, the central one of which, wider in span, has a thick left stem, going out in both directions (Fig . 6) . The whole work is covered with red paint reproducing the quartering of the bond . The rectangles and triangles of the side arches have the remains of former border designs . The singularity of such decoration and the careful execution stand out from the constructive

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Fig. 6 . The aqueduct of Valdepuentes (Cordoba, Spain) .

Fig . 7 . Water stairway ; gardens of Gencralife (Granada . Spain) .

solutions adopted for the rest of the supply system, which leads us to suppose that its environment could have had landscape planning in which water played a very important role . THE GARDENS On a large scale, the well system at Valdepuentes must have reproduced the sound ef-

fects of the small channels built into the handrail of the "water stairway" at the Generalife (Granada) (Fig . 7) . The association of water and garden works in two different ways . One is static, in which the pond constitutes the axis of the garden, as in the case of the myrtle patio of the Alhambra in Granada and the high gardens of Medina Az-Zahra . This is perhaps the most genuine representative of the quatri-

i I",

Fig . 8 . The gardens of Medina Az-Zahra .

partite Persian garden (cahr bag) in which the distribution of quarters clearly symbolizes paradise, divided by four main stone-paved pathways and with irrigation channels on both sides (Fig . 8) . The Central Pavilion, with its pattern of symmetrical tanks, constitutes the visual perception centre in the perspective of the surroundings. Here the water has the effect of a mirror, and the soft undulations of its surface try to produce the effect of rotation through the reflection of the light . The other, dynamic, way relies on the aesthetics of spouts and sonority of cascades, as in the fountain of the lions in the Alhambra (Fig . 9) . Water emerges in adjacent rooms and is guided to the centre of the patio, where it is used for the spouts coming out of the lions' jaws . The water play is completed with a central fountain from a different supply . The lions

have been dated to the 11th century, contemporary with the elephant of another fountain found in the area of Trassierra, north of Medina Az-Zahra, that was used as a recreational zone for dignitaries of the Calipha's Court (Fig . IC) . This zoomorphic statuary raises doubts about its origin, and especially about the existence of a precise iconographic meaning . The gardens of Az-Zahra, in which careful excavation of the whole unit has recovered the original strata with great fidelity, consist of two adjacent plots with a height difference of 13 m between them The upper garden consists of a ground filling that was never tamped down . The ground appears not to be compacted, and is inclined to absorb water and keep humidity to the extent that, even during dry periods, footprints remain strongly marked even though no recent

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Fig . 9 . The fountain of the lions, Alhambra (Granada, Spain) .

Fig . 10 . Fountain of the elephant (Cordoba . Spain) .

irrigation has taken place . It would not be strange, in view of the advanced knowledge that Arabic people had about water management, that this was a perfectly planned underground water exploitation . Rainwater and irrigation excess may have supplied tanks and fountains attached to the outside walls without any other apparent supply than the upper garden's drainage regulation . Water for the irrigation of the lower garden comes from a large tank placed in a high position, from which water flows through ditches with different sections, depending on the channel's slope, and with intermittent perpendicular small arches, each one preceded by a water penetration hole . Irrigation has been studied through a digital

model of the terrain, which has permitted the analysis of topographical parameters and flow distribution by channels . Comparison of the results with historical data from the time shows a great similarity to recommendations given by Arabic geoponics for this type of irrigation . Slope is identified with the elbow-finger proportion recommended by Ibn Luyun ( 1975) . "it is enough to give each elbow of the arm a slope equal to the thickness of a fingertip, which, besides, is the most common procedure . The finger is equivalent to the length of six lined up barley grains touching one another . The grain is equal to six horsetail hairs also put together". The elbow as a measuring unit is of great importance for discovering the constructive

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rhythm and patterns used in Caliphal art . The Rassasi elbow, from Mecca, was adopted by Qassan of Cordoba Muhammed Ben Faray al Rassas . who engraved it on a column of his Aljama mosque . This value obtained from different studies gives it an equivalence of 55 .77 cm assuming model irrigation-plot slopes between 3 and 6°/u, depending on the type of crop . In these gardens, according to Ibn Luyun, the higher one should be covered by trees, and the lower one should have crops, because of the recommendations on slope in fruit tree plantations . It is worth noting that many of the instruments used to achieve ground levelling and to measure the differences in height needed by water are still used by Andalusian and Levantine farmers . Among such instruments, a remarkable one is the muryiqual, which consists of a wooden triangle with a mark in the middle of one side, through which there is a string, with a weight at the end . If the string is aligned with the mark and the angle of the muryiqual is pointing to the ground, the surface between the two equidistant sticks is levelled . The principle is similar to the current procedure of levelling by heights . THE LEGACY It is commonly accepted that the Omeyan culture, which maintained close ties with the remains of Hellenic science, showed progress in our peninsula. We shall not enter the controversy of whether the customs of Christian Spaniards during the early centuries of the reconquest were the image of Moslem prestige that sometimes depressed and humiliated (Castro, 1975), even though, in spite of everything, it forced an unwitting imitation, even after Moorish political and military splendour had vanished, or the opposite view, according to which the renewal of Andalusia during the I3th century was deep and radical (Castilians turned her into an extension of Castile) . The evidence, if it has not completely disappeared,

is difficult to perceive . In one way or another, the legacy of fine sensibility for water remains in our people . Juan Ramon Jimenez (1935) reported how the person in charge of irrigation at the Generalife carries an innate sense for the music of water in his soul . "I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, how a thin shadow of a man stood leaning against the dull white, all and only silence, hearing totally amazed, turned into a sharp man's shadow : another shadow like me, on the rail of the stairway . It seemed to me like it approached with care and vagueness . At last he spoke in a tone that did not prevent my hearing the water . And : "Listening to the water, right?" "Yes, sir". I answered him standing up in my dream, "and it seems like you like listening to it too ." Between both of us, I on a paved landing of the stairway, he on the other side of the handrail, water continued coming, looking at us for an instant every second, fleeing afterward, stopping perhaps a point to look up, speaking downward, singing, smiling, crying (in Spanish, sonllorando : crying and smiling at the same time) getting lost, emerging again with hypnotizing presence and absence, with I don't know what truth and what lie . "Am I not going to like it, sir", he told me . "if I've been listening to it for 30 years" . "Thirty years!" I said, from I don't know what date of mine and without exactly knowing the years my mouth was telling him . "Imagine the things it has told me" . And then : "What I have heard" . And he slid through the night . and was lost in the dark and in the water" . At the end of the re-conquest, the peninsula had a cultural heritage in water management which allowed the development of its resources through the application of more scientific and economic criteria . Remarkable achievements include the construction, at the end of the 16th century, of the curved gravity

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dam at Tibi, which, at 43 m high has held the world record for three centuries ; the dam at Elche, built in the mid-17th century, and considered the first vault dam built, because of the way it resists water thrust . During the 16th century, the works of the Tauste, Imperial de Aragon and Castilla channels were begun to provide transportation systems . and in an attempt to make fluvial navigation and irrigation extension compatible . The work suffered continued delays and the channels were not completed until two centuries later because of the lack of resources and a traditional approach to irrigation . It is stated by the Parliament of Valladolid in 1548 that "The deputies begged the Emperor to have expert foreign people commissioned to visit the rivers and waters of Castile, and once the irrigable grounds were inventoried, to provide all that might be necessary for their benefit ." The benefits of newly broken lands or tithes due to the increase in production from ground transformed from dry into irrigated land, which had been granted to Emperor Charles the First by Pope Julius the Third, were extended by Benedict 14th in 1794 to new openings . Bencdiet the 14th declared : "That the Royal Patrimony is the only interested part in the tithes and first fruits arising from extension of irrigated areas or new crops in Royal Terrain" . This colonial regime maintained by the House of Austria suffered a radical change at the beginning of the 19th century, with a legislative development concerning waters which ended with the Law of Waters in 1866 . This law, which has remained in force over a century, is considered to be an achievement of Spanish regenerationism . In its articles, the National Hydrological Forest Service was created (1901) in recognition of the significant role of forests in the hydrological cycle ; years later (1926) the Hydrographic Confederations appeared . Alzola (1979) pointed out this need in 1899 . "In view of the scarcity of water in our rivers

we must, above all, encourage the construction of reservoirs, reforming the existing law in the sense of granting them larger aids than those for irrigation channels . Also, our wild country should be reforested, as an effective means of attracting rain to our barren country" . This impulse that has been maintained has made it possible for Spain to pass from 900 000 irrigated hectares in 1900 to 2 800 000 in 1980, while regulating capacity has been increased from 4000 Hm' in 1940 to 42 000, with a reforested surface of 3 000 000 ha in the same period . This water-forest relationship, established by Platon and recently echoed by the Council of Europe in its Bill of Water (the sixth point of which establishes that "the maintenance of the adequate plant cover, preferably the forest, is essential for the conservation of hydrological resources") has been accurately interpreted by the social unit of our country on the basis of its cultural heritage, showing how, in the hydrological cycle, nature is contemplated as an organic whole, and the natural world is not looked upon as a fund of natural resources .

REFERENCES Abu Zacaria Ebu cl Awan . 1802 . Libro de Agricultura (translated into Spanish by J .A . Banqueri. Imprenta Real Madrid . Alzola y Minondo, P., 1979 . Historia de ]as Obras Ptiblicas en Espana . Colegio do Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos. Ediciones Turner, Madrid (first printed in 1899) . Castro, A ., 1975 . La Realidad Historica de Espana . Editorial Porrua, Mexico . Fernandez Casado, C ., 1985 . Ingenieroa Hidrdulica Romana . Colegio de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos. Ediciones Turner . Madrid . Giraldez, J .V ., 1986 . Informes Tecnicos . Programa de lovestigaciCn de Recursos Hidriulicos Alternativos . Fundacidn Ramdn Areces . Madrid . Ibn Luyun . 1975 . Tratado de Agricultura (translated into Spanish by J . Eguaras) . Patronato de la Alhambra, Granada . Jimenez, J .R ., 1935 . Conferencia Politico-Poetica . Residencia dc Estudiantes, Madrid . Oliver Asin, J ., 1959 . Historia del Nombre Madrid. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Madrid .