Opinions on the Academic Archaeological Structure concerning the Vital Importance of Water throughout Antiquity

Abstract

There is a close connection between water and civilizations. All the archaic civilizations which played a key role in the history of humankind ever since the Bronze Age, were indeed founded along the great aquatic sources, notably, Egyptian Civilization, along the Nile River, Mesopotamian, along the Euphrates and the Tigris Rivers, Indian along the Indus and Ganges Rivers, as for the Chinese along the Yellow River. Minoan Civilization is primarily, a maritime civilization. Anatolia is a great “water land”. Each of the Ancient Anatolian Civilizations dating from the Bronze and Iron Ages had owed their ability to survive to the rivers, the brooks, the creeks, the springs along which they were founded. Such a circumstance has arguably its most idyllic echo in The Iliad even though it is an epic. Besides, Anatolia is a peninsula. Most of the ancient city states were first of all harbors which are nowadays landlocked by alluvial silt that the rivers brought forth. The fact that concerns water and civilization does not seem to have acquired the value it deserves at the archaeology departments of universities. Notwithstanding, archaeological studies are permanently subjected to transformation with the new possibilities offered by science and technology. Establishment of new academic subordinate branches in the discipline of Underwater Archaeology such as Marine Archaeology, Maritime Archaeology, River Archaeology, Harbour Archaeology and Nautical Archaeology could be mentioned as the new achievements in this domain that would enable us to overcome contemporary difficulties. Such an academic structuring may be worthwhile in clarifying the issues upon which neither Ancient History nor Literature could have shed light to date.