Page 250 - The Tigris Expedition

We Search for a Pyramid and Find Makati^ ^

plain of sand and gravel stretched as far as the eye c made us
taken to the edge of an open hole in the ground ^
recoil because it seemed quite bottomless. darkness.
descended for at least thirty vertical feet until los P n
The ground around the opening was slightly raised 1
crater with dirt and gravel brought up from below. e
looked over the desert we could see similar craters at interva s in a
stra ight line towards both horizons. We learnt that deep down in
the ground these shafts were interconnected by a subterranean
aqueduct dug for miles upon miles with such precision that the
water flowed in an even descent irrespective of hills or other
irregularities on the surface terrain.
Near the source a falaj had to run at surface level, or it might even
be elevated, to gain the required declination, and we were speech­
less when we saw an open aqueduct coming down the hillside
above a river, then passing under the river and up on the other side!
At the crossing point the water tumbled into the top of a chimney­
like stone tower, then passed beneath the river bed to come up again
through the top of a slightly lower tower on the other side. From
then on it flowed elevated again along another hillside in the
direction of the sun-scorched plains, where it was to begin its long
and cool journey deep underground. We were told that some of the
falaj ran for many miles at an incredible depth below deserts and
canyons. Some were maintained by the present Arabs and a few
were perhaps even built by them, but the origins of this incredible
display of engineering skill and mass labour was lost in antiquity.
Whoever had first built them, the falaj of prehistoric Oman gave to
me a logical explanation to a puzzle connected with the prehistoric
water conductors discovered by Bibby and his collaborators on
Bahrain. These Dilmun aqueducts, too, were found deep below the
sand, with the same peculiar stone-lined ‘chimneys’ rising at inter­
vals to the surface. In all likelihood, like those of Makan, those of
Dilmun had been built intentionally underground and had not been
covered afterwards by wind-blown sand drifts.
^t an CVen more aPParent and mobile link between Dilmun and
Makan became clear as we drove in Costa’s Land Cruiser down the
broad and flat wadi that led from the temple site and the surround­
ing mines to the open beach at Sohar. This old town and former
capital lay where a broad river must once have had its outlet in the
sea, in the remote millennia before the copper miners had put an end
to t e inland forests. The enormous smelting activities testified by
tne remains of prehistoric slag shows that here, as in so many other

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