Food Sources: Earth, Water, and Air - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 43

located. The name is of interest because
it suggests that bitumen ( īr ) may have
been used to make the dam watertight
and solid. Another dam on the Āb-i Gar-
gar, called the Pul-i Bulaytī, was added to
the · ū ª tar system in Islamic times. This
was a power dam; mills were installed in
tunnels cut through the rock at each side
of the channel, the dam providing the
necessary head of water to drive the mill
wheels. A third bridge dam was built,
also in Sāsānid times, over the Kar ¶ a at
Pā-yi Pul. It fell out of use when it burst in
1837. Its remains were seen by Sir Aurel
Stein in 1938.
At Ahwāz, there was another great
dam (but not a bridge dam), probably
over 3,000 ft. long. and about 25 ft. thick.
Its remains were to be seen until recently.
Al-Muaddasī describes the dam as being
wonderfully constructed from blocks of
rock behind which the water was held
back. He states that the water was divided
into three canals, which watered the fields
of the estates of the people of the city, and
that without the dam Ahwāz would not
have been populous and that its canals
could not have been used. The collapse of
the dam in the 9th/15th century brought
ruin to the city.
Numerous storage dams and their
remains are to be found in many parts of
Persia. Although their overall contribution
to irrigation was not as great as that of
anāt s, or of the dams in ‡ ūzistān, they
were of considerable local importance and
enabled land which could not otherwise
have been cultivated to become produc-
tive. One of the most interesting systems
is that on the Kur River in Fārs, which
has provided irrigation for the Kurbāl dis-
trict to a greater or lesser extent for some
2,000 years. The most famous dam of this
complex is the Band-i Amīr, built about
349/960 by the Būyid Aud al-Dawla,
probably on earlier, possibly Achaemenid,

foundations. Prior to its reconstruction,
the water of the Kur could not be raised
to irrigate Upper Kurbāl. Al-Muaddasī,
who wrote soon after the dam was built,
and Ibn al-Bal ¶ ī, who wrote rather
under 150 years later, describe the dam in
similar terms. The latter states that Aud
al-Dawla brought engineers and workmen
to the place in order to build the dam and
spent much money on its construction.
The dam was made of stone set in mortar,
reinforced by iron anchors, which were
set in lead. Upstream and downstream
the river-bed was paved for several miles,
and the supply canals extended for over
ten miles, serving 300 villages in the
Marwda ª t plain. Ten water-mills were
built close to the dam, the crest of which
was wide enough to allow two horsemen
abreast to ride across it. Upstream from the
Band-i Amīr there were five other major
dams for the irrigation of Lower Kurbāl.
These included the Rām ¡ ird dam, built
on Achaemenid foundations, which was
almost as large as the Band-i Amīr, and
five downstream, the last of which, the
Band-i aār, was only a few miles from
Lake Ba ¶ tagān into which the Kur flows.
By the 6th/12th century, the Band-i Amīr,
the Band-i aār and the Rām ¡ ird dam
had fallen into a state of decay and were
repaired by the Sal ¡ ū governor of Fārs,
the Atābeg ⁄ alāl Dīn Čawlī Saāw. The
Rām ¡ ird dam was again rebuilt towards
the end of the 6th/beginning of the 13th
century, and there were several recon-
structions after that date.
In the eastern provinces of Persia there
were also a number of dams and irrigation
works on the Oxus or Āmū Daryā and
on other great rivers and lesser streams.
Some of these were repaired, and others
constructed by the Muslims. Sīstān was
dependent almost wholly upon the control
of the water of the Hīrmand (Helmund)
River. Zaran ¡ , the capital of the province