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Figure 4.10. Petra, the Nabatean city 'half as old as time', Jordan Desert.
Another ingenious method of harvesting water was devised by the Persians more
than 2,500 years ago and consists of a chain of wells aligned above a gently sloping
underground tunnel which taps into shallow groundwater located within alluvial fans
or within the piedmont zone of desert uplands, The water is conducted up to twenty
kilometres or more downslope to where it is retrieved at the surface and diverted into
a series of channels for domestic use and for irrigation ( Figure 4.2 ). These features go
by many names: karez in Persian, qanat from an early Semitic word (hence 'canal'
in English) and foggara in Arabic. The chain of wells technique was introduced into
central Asia and Arabia from Persia more than 2,000 years ago, where a system of
well-maintained karez provided water for the Persian capital Persepolis, and it was
brought to North Africa and Spain by the Arab invaders a thousand years later, and
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