The Origin and Diffusion of Qanats in Arabia: New Evidence from the northern and southern Peninsula

Abstract

In scattered areas of the Arabian Peninsula, beginning several centuries before the first Christian millennium and for several centuries after, public works efforts were mounted to convey water from mountain aquifers, via subsurface aqueducts, onto drier valleys and plains. These subterranean, gravity‐driven filtration galleries, known generically as qanats, were transplanted across the Peninsula first by Persians, and later by others who borrowed their technology. Much scholarly work has been produced to account for their constructions in Iran, Oman, and many other countries throughout the world where qanats were eventually built. But this story of technological diffusion has been left with notable gaps. This paper offers a synthesis of the history of qanats from earlier studies, together with fresh evidence collected from 1993–1998 fieldwork in some of these ‘gaps’in the northern and southern Peninsula. This collation offers evidence of three distinct pathways of diffusion of qanat technology from Persia across Arabia, and discusses the current use and future of qanats throughout the region.