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City and River in Iran: Urbanization and Irrigation of the Iranian Plateau

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Brian Spooner
Brian Spooner*
Affiliation:
a Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology , University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

If viewed in full historical perspective, Isfahan may reasonably claim to have been the most important city on the Iranian plateau. It is also the most studied. However, although its unique historical monuments may possibly have (compared with the historiography of other great cities) received scholarly attention commensurate with the city's historical role, relatively little attention has been paid to its social and ecological history. Why did Shāh ᶜAbbās choose Isfahan for his capital? What are the geographical factors that distinguish the city of Isfahan from the rest of the plateau? What were their implications for the social and political history of the city? More specifically, what was the role of the river, the Zayandah Rud, in the growth of the city? Is it profitable to seek a cause and effect relationship between the organization of irrigation for the agricultural base of the region's economy and the political and economic development of the city?

Type
Original Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 3-4: Studies on Isfahan: Proceedings of the Isfahan Colloquium, Part II , Summer-Autumn 1974 , pp. 681 - 713
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1974

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References

Notes

1. welcomed the opportunity of this symposium to pursue further, and in an historical rather than an ethnographic direction, the argument of a paper originally prepared for a symposium on Irrigation and Society at the Southwestern Anthropological Association meetings in 1972 (“Irrigation and Society: The Iranian Plateau,” Downing, T.E. and Gibson, McGuire, eds., Irrigation's Impact on Society (Tucson: 1974Google Scholar). My purpose here is to explore the usefulness of the conclusions then reached on the basis of ethnographic research, for the elucidation of historical (and prehistoric) processes in the same general area--the Iranian plateau. Unfortunately, the basic historical and archaeological research that would be necessary for such an argument to be pursued to a definitive conclusion has not yet been undertaken. It may be hoped that the questions asked in this essay—from the vantage point of an ethnographer--will stimulate historians and archaeologists. It should be mentioned that it might not have been possible even to raise the questions at this stage if it were not for the work of Professors Robert McC. Adams and A.K.S. Lambton. I am grateful to Drs. Carol Hamlin and William Sumner for reading the article in typescript. Their comments and suggestions have allowed me to improve its quality significantly. The resulting essay is dedicated to the memory of Francisco Benet, who first planned a long-term comprehensive study of the deserts of the Iranian plateau--a study that would have brought us much closer to answers to the questions raised here, among others.

2. Particular attention is drawn to Asghar Talaye-Minai, Regional Analysis for Iran, Isfahan a case Study (in Persian) (Tehran: 1974). (The bibliography has been incorporated into that of the proceedings, see pp. ed.)

3. Robert McC. Adams, “Patterns of urbanization in early southern Mesopotamia,” Man, Settlement and Urbanism, Peter Ucko, Ruth Tringham and G.W. Dimbleby, eds. (London: 1972), p. 735.

4. Ibid., pp. 744-45.

5. Ibid., p. 746.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid., p. 736.

8. Smith, Philip and Cuyler Young, T. Jr., “The evolution of early agriculture and culture in Greater Mesopotamia: A trial model,” Population Growth: Anthropological Implications, Brian Spooner, ed. (Cambridge: 1972)Google Scholar.

9. Ibid.

10. Exceptions such as Kirman (cf. English, Paul, City and Village in Iran: Settlement and Economy in the Kirman Basin (Madison: 1966)Google Scholar and Brian Spooner in “Kirman and the Middle East: Paul Ward English's City and Village in Iran: Settlement and Economy in the Kirman Basin,” Iran II (1969), pp. 107-14) are significant, but appear to represent later developments.

11. Steward, Julian H., Irrigation Civilizations: A Comparative Study, Social Science Monographs 1 (Washington, D.C.: 1955), pp. 1–2Google Scholar.

12. Spooner, “Irrigation and Society.“

13. Robert McC. Adams, “Irrigation: Introduction,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1968).

14. For more detailed discussion of this framework, see Spooner, “Irrigation and Society.“

15. Adams, “Patterns of urbanization in early southern Mesopotamia,” pp. 740-41.

16. This conceptualization is Francisco Benet's.

17. See, for example, on Jandaq, Nāyband and Sipi in Strange, Guy Le, Lands of the Eastern Caliphate (Cambridge: 1905)Google Scholar.

18. For more detailed discussion see Spooner, Brian, “The Iranian Deserts,” Population Growth: Anthropological Implications, Spooner, Brian, ed. (Cambridge: 1972)Google Scholar.

19. Chahryar Adle, “Contribution à la géographie historique du Damghan,” Le Monde Iranian et l'Islam 1, pp. 74-80.

20. Dyson, Robert Jr., “The archaeological evidence of the second millennium B.C. on the Persian plateau,” The Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd ed. (1972), vol. II, part I, pp. 636–715Google Scholar.

21. Dumond, Don, “Population Growth and Political Centralization,” Population Growth: Anthropological Implications, Brian Spooner, ed. (Cambridge: 1972), pp. 286–310Google Scholar.

22. Netting, Robert McC., “Sacred power and centralization: Aspects of political adaptation in Africa”, Population Growth: Anthropological Implications, Spooner, Brian, ed. (Cambridge: 1972), pp. 219-44Google Scholar.

23. Kupper, J.R., “Northern Mesopotamia aad Syria,” The Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd ed. (1972), vol. II, part 1, pp. 1–41Google Scholar.

24. In the intramontane valleys on the west of the plateau dry farming was often possible and urbanization occurred much earlier--in some cases perhaps not significantly later than on the plains (personal communication from Dro William Sumner).

25. Raikes, R.L., “The ancient gabarbands of Baluchistan,” East and West 15 (1965), pp. 26–35Google Scholar.

26. Bands are also used in mountainous areas to conserve soil as well as moisture on a small scale.

27. In the broadest sense, cf. Merrill, R.S., “Technology: The study of technology,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: 1968), vol. 15, pp. 576-89Google Scholar and Robert McC. Adams in Spooner, Brian, “Introduction,” Population Growth: Anthropological Implications, Spooner, Brian, ed. (Cambridge: 1972), pp. xxii–xxiiiGoogle Scholar.

28. Adle, p. 72.

29. See, for example, the summaries in Le Strange and Schwarz, Paul, Iran im Mittelalter (Hildesheim: 1969Google Scholar, originally published in nine parts 1896-1935).

30. For a description of qanat technology and a survey of the literature on the origins and diffusion of qanats, see English, Paul, “The origin and spread of qanats in the Old World,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 112 (1968), pp. 170–181Google Scholar.

31. English, “City and Village.“

32. Even though I realize that at the present stage of scholarship it may be desirable to play down the “revolutionary” aspects of the cultural and other changes that followed on the development and spread of food producing economies, I use the term here in order to stress the comparability.

33. Adams,“Patterns of Urbanization,” p. 740.

34. An interesting location for an initial trial study directed at these questions would be the small oasis settlement of Khur, some 100 km. west of Birjand. Khur lies in a small depression that contains small permanent lakes visited by migrating birds, and is the focus of an astonishing number of qanats (the villagers claim 72), all but two or three of which are in advanced stages of disrepair.

35. A similar working hypothesis that would link the coming of the Iranians to technological change (in this case, datable archaeological assemblages) in western Iran has been proposed and discussed by Cuyler Young, T. Jr., “The Iranian Migration into the Zagros,” Iran 5 (1967), pp. 11–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36. For discussion and sources, see English, “the origin and spread.“

37. As in the ethnographic situation described by Fernea, Robert, Shaykh and Effendi (Cambridge: 1970)Google Scholar. See also Spooner, Brian, “Review of Robert A. Fernea, Shaykh and Effendi,” American Anthropologist 74, no. 1-2 (1972), pp. 65–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38. English, “City and Village.“

39. I am grateful to Dr. Julian Reade for this information.

40. Kuhn, T.S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: 1962)Google Scholar.

41. An important factor in this context may well have been population growth--possibly related to the migration of Iranian peoples into the area. I introduce the population factor here in order to make explicit my intellectual debt throughout this essay to Ester Boserup.

42. Fernea.

43. Further details and a guide to the literature may be found in A.K.S. Lambton, “Iṣfahān,” Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (Leiden: 1973), which is the major source for the description that follows.

44. Ibid., p. 98.

45. Ibid.

46. Personal communication from Dr. William Sumner.

47. Lambton, “Iṣfahān,” p. 103.

48. Ibid., p. 98.

49. See Lambton, A.K.S., “The Regulation of the Waters of the Zāyande Rūd,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies 9 (1937-39), pp. 666-67Google Scholar.

50. Ibid., p. 663.

51. Ibid., pp. 666-7.

52. Minorsky, V. (translator and editor), Tadhkirat al-mūlūk (London: 1943), p. 83Google Scholar slightly modified.

53. Ibid,, p. 150.

54. Use of the hoe or spade, instead of the plough, is not uncommon on the plateau, especially in situations such as oases, where it is necessary to exploit every square meter of soil to the utmost. See Mansoor Atai, “Economic report on agriculture in the Isfahan and Yazd areas,” Tahqiqat-i Eqtesadi, nos. 9 and 10 (1965), pp. 69-152.

55. Boserup, Ester, The Conditions of Agricultural Growth (Chicago: 1965), pp. 41–42Google Scholar.

56. Geertz, Clifford, Agricultural Involution: The process of ecological change in Indonesia (Berkeley and Los Angeles: 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57. Spooner, “Irrigation and Society.“

* These comments were based on a manuscript submitted by Spooner before the colloquium, now published elsewhere. For further information on this and Spooner's position paper which circumstances did not allow him to present at the meeting, see p. 681ff.