Jawa drinking water reservoir

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The Jawa drinking water reservoir was a water supply system in the Copper Age settlement of Jawa in Jordan .

The city of Jawa was founded between 3750 and 3350 BC. Settled. It is located in the basalt desert east of Amman . At that time 10 ponds for water supply were built in three construction phases. The largest contained 31,000 m³ and had an approximately 7 m high dam .

Three phases

Initially, in phase I, ponds 1 to 3 west of the city were created. Their storage volume totaled approx. 42,000 m³. The largest pond, pond 3, had a barrier structure , which was built from two 1 m wide and 5 m high walls with a clearance of 2 m, which had a filling of earth, clay and ash for sealing. On the air side, there was an embankment made of bulk material with a slope of 1: 2.5. A much smaller embankment was arranged on the water side, possibly as a drainage. Pond 4 with a storage capacity of 4000 m³ was created southeast of the city. The ponds were connected by canals and the water was channeled in through bypass dams.

In phase II, ponds 5 and 6 were also built southeast of the city. A total of around 50,000 m³ of storage space was now available.

In phase III the dam of pond 3 was apparently supposed to be raised by two meters. After that it could have held 31,000 m³, but was probably never completely completed because it would have flooded parts of the lower town. Maybe that's why it was destroyed. The remains of this stone dam can still be seen today. Thereupon the ponds 7 to 9 could have been built some distance from the city and the pond 10 in the southeast at the ponds 4 to 6. The dams of ponds 7 to 9 were constructed similarly to the old dam of pond 3. These three had a storage volume of 2000 m³, pond 10 had a volume of approx. 10,000 m³. The buildings of phase III, especially pond 10, are more primitive than the older ones and bear witness to the decline of the city, which may have been a result of fighting between residents of the lower and upper towns.

exploration

Today only ruins of the city and hints of ponds remain. They were rediscovered from an airplane in 1931 and explored by Winnett from 1950, by Helms from 1972 to 1976 and by Vogel in 1988. At the location of ponds 1 and 2 there is a modern water basin today.

literature

  • Alexius Vogel: The Kupfersteinzeitlichen dams of Jawa in Jordan, in: Historische Talsperren 2, Garbrecht, publisher: DVWK, Wittwer, Stuttgart 1991

Web link

Coordinates: 32 ° 20 ′ 6 ″  N , 37 ° 0 ′ 12 ″  E