Cultural Dynamics of Water in Iranian Civilization
Cultural Dynamics of Water in Iranian Civilization

Author: Majid Labbaf Khaneiki

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-09-23

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 3030589005

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This book traces “water” back to the most primitive animistic notions that are still lingering on in the shape of such rituals as qanat marriage or rain-making. Water, in the Iranian philosophy, is used in an attempt to find an explanation for the genesis of the universe, as described in Zoroastrian Akhshij philosophy, according to which water is one of the four fundamental elements of the creation. The concept of time began to germinate in the Iranian mind, when they had to count the passage of time in order to divide their scarce water resources. Water became so omnipresent in Iranian culture that it reached even the most mysterious seclusion of the Sufi monks. In Iran’s local communities, water culture is a thread that runs through different types of production systems. This book goes beyond indigenous water knowledge and traditional irrigation techniques, and conceptualizes water as a pivotal element of Iran’s social identity, cultural dynamics and belief systems, where it examines the role of intermittent droughts in engendering and diffusing intangible cultural elements across the Iranian plateau. This book delves into Iran’s political organizations most of which were ensnared in a water-dependent lifecycle constituting a historical pattern described in this book as “hydraulic collapse” .

Water and Sacred Architecture
Water and Sacred Architecture

Author: Anat Geva

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-05-25

Total Pages: 438

ISBN-13: 1000863719

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This edited book examines architectural representations that tie water, as a physical and symbolic property, with the sacred. The discussion centers on two levels of this relationship: how water influenced the sacredness of buildings across history and different religions; and how sacred architecture expressed the spiritual meaning of water. The volume deliberately offers original material on various unique contextual and design aspects of water and sacred architecture, rather than an attempt to produce a historic chronological analysis on the topic or focusing on a specific geographical region. As such, this unique volume adds a new dimension to the study of sacred architecture. The book’s chapters are compiled by a stellar group of scholars and practitioners from the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Africa. It addresses major aspects of water in religious buildings, such as, rituals, pilgrimage, water as a cultural material and place-making, hydro systems, modern practices, environmental considerations, the contribution of water to transforming secular into sacred, and future digital/cyber context of water and sacredness. All chapters are based on original archival studies, historical documents, and field visits to the sites and buildings. These examinations show water as an expression of architectural design, its materiality, and its spiritual values. The book will be of interest to architects, historians, environmentalists, archaeologists, religious scholars, and preservationists.

Territorial Water Cooperation in the Central Plateau of Iran
Territorial Water Cooperation in the Central Plateau of Iran

Author: Majid Labbaf Khaneiki

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-11-09

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 3030014940

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This book tries to answer the question how different communities in such an arid area as the Iranian central plateau could have shared their limited water resources in a perfect harmony and peace over the course of history. They invented some indigenous technologies as well as cooperative socio-economic systems in order to better adapt themselves to their harsh environment where the scarce water resources had to be rationed among the different communities as sustainably as possible. Those stories hold some lessons for us on how to adjust our needs to our geographical possibilities while living side by side with other people. This work gives insight into the indigenous adaptation strategies through the territorial water cooperation, and describes how water can appear as a ground for cooperation. It explains the water supply systems and social aspects of water in central Iran. Topics include the territorial water cooperation, qanat’s, the traditional water management and sustainability, the socio-economic context, the sustainable management of shared aquifers system and more.

Socio-Environmental Dynamics along the Historical Silk Road
Socio-Environmental Dynamics along the Historical Silk Road

Author: Liang Emlyn Yang

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-02-27

Total Pages: 535

ISBN-13: 3030007286

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This open access book discusses socio-environmental interactions in the middle to late Holocene, covering specific areas along the ancient Silk Road regions. Over twenty chapters provide insight into this topic from various disciplinary angles and perspectives, ranging from archaeology, paleoclimatology, antiquity, historical geography, agriculture, carving art and literacy. The Silk Road is a modern concept for an ancient network of trade routes that for centuries facilitated and intensified processes of cultural interaction and goods exchange between West China, Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean. Coherent patterns and synchronous events in history suggest possible links between social upheaval, resource utilization and climate or environment forces along the Silk Road and in a broader area. Post-graduates in studying will benefit from this work, as well as it will stimulate young researchers to further explore the role played by the environment in long-term socio-cultural changes.

Adaptive Strategies for Water Heritage
Adaptive Strategies for Water Heritage

Author: Carola Hein

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-10-18

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 3030002683

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This Open Access book, building on research initiated by scholars from the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Global Heritage and Development (CHGD) and ICOMOS Netherlands, presents multidisciplinary research that connects water to heritage. Through twenty-one chapters it explores landscapes, cities, engineering structures and buildings from around the world. It describes how people have actively shaped the course, form and function of water for human settlement and the development of civilizations, establishing socio-economic structures, policies and cultures; a rich world of narratives, laws and practices; and an extensive network of infrastructure, buildings and urban form. The book is organized in five thematic sections that link practices of the past to the design of the present and visions of the future: part I discusses drinking water management; part II addresses water use in agriculture; part III explores water management for land reclamation and defense; part IV examines river and coastal planning; and part V focuses on port cities and waterfront regeneration. Today, the many complex systems of the past are necessarily the basis for new systems that both preserve the past and manage water today: policy makers and designers can work together to recognize and build on the traditional knowledge and skills that old structure embody. This book argues that there is a need for a common agenda and an integrated policy that addresses the preservation, transformation and adaptive reuse of historic water-related structures. Throughout, it imagines how such efforts will help us develop sustainable futures for cities, landscapes and bodies of water.

Human-Earth System Dynamics
Human-Earth System Dynamics

Author: Rongxing Guo

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-05-16

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 9811305471

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This book explores the factors and mechanisms that may have influenced the dynamic behaviors of earliest civilizations, focusing on both environmental (geographic) factors on which traditional historic analyses are based and human (behavioral) factors on which anthropological analyses are usually based. It also resurrects a number of common ancestral terms to help readers understand the complicated process of human and cultural evolution around the globe. Specifically, in almost all indigenous languages, the words ‘wa’ and any variants of it were originally associated with the sound of crying of – and certainly were selected as the common ancestral word with the meanings of “house, home, homeland, motherland, and so on” by – early humans living in different parts of the world.This book provides many neglected but still crucial environmental and biological clues about the rise and fall of civilizations – ones that have largely resulted from mankind’s long-lasting “Win-Stay Lose-Shift” games throughout the world. The narratives and findings presented at this book are unexpected but reasonable – and are what every student of anthropology or history needs to know and doesn't get in the usual text. “Professor Guo explores the dynamics of civilizations from the beginnings to our perplexingly complex world. There are lots of thought-provoking ideas here on the rise and decline of civilizations and nations... Anyone wishing to understand global developments should give this book serious consideration.” ----John Komlos, University of Munich, Germany, and Duke University, USA “It is interesting to see a Chinese perspective on the questions of deep history that have engaged Jared Diamond, Yuval Harari and David Christian. Guo argues that understanding cyclical threats has been the key to human progress, which is driven by the dialectic of material privation and human ingenuity.” ----Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University, USA

The Iranian Plateau during the Bronze Age
The Iranian Plateau during the Bronze Age

Author: Collectif

Publisher: MOM Éditions

Published: 2020-03-19

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 2356681779

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The book compiles a portion of the contributions presented during the symposium “Urbanisation, commerce, subsistence and production during the third millennium BC on the Iranian Plateau”, which took place at the Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée in Lyon, the 29-30 of April, 2014. The twenty papers assembled provide an overview of the recent archaeological research on this region of the Middle East during the Bronze Age. The socio-economic transformation from rural villages to towns and nations has prompted many questions into this evolution of urbanisation. What was the impact of interactions between cultures in the Iranian Plateau and the surrounding regions (Mesopotamia, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, Indus Valley)? What was the overall context during the Bronze Age on the Iranian Plateau? What was the extent and means of the expansion of the Kuro-Araxe culture? How did the Elamite Kingdom become established? What new knowledge has been contributed by the recent excavations and studies undertaken in the east of Iran? What was the influence of the Indus Valley culture, known as an epicentre of urbanisation in South Asia? What are the unique characteristics of the ancient cultures in Iran? While the urbanisation of early Mesopotamia has been the subject of much debate for several decades, this topic has only recently been raised in respect to the Iranian Plateau. This volume is the product of an international community from Iranian, European, and American institutions, consisting of recognised specialists in the archaeology of the Iranian Bronze Age. It provides an overview of the latest research, including abundant results from current on-going excavations. The current state of archaeological research in Iran, comprising many dynamic questions and perspectives, is presented here in the form of original contributions on the first emergence of towns in the Near and Middle East.

The Cultural Dynamics in Water Management from Ancient History to the Present Age
The Cultural Dynamics in Water Management from Ancient History to the Present Age

Author: Xiao Yun Zheng

Publisher: IWA Publishing

Published: 2021-05-15

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9781789062038

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The Cultural Dynamics in Water Management from Ancient History to the Present Age focuses on exploring the idea of water culture and how water culture has been generated from water management and social life. It discusses the structure, attribute, type, and the dynamic mechanism of water culture theoretically. It also deals with its diversity and practice in water management with cases from twelve countries, geographically covering most continents of the world. This book is divided into five main sections which include the theoretical discussion of water culture, the historical water culture, the water culture and water management in indigenous societies, the cultural role in local water management, the water cultural practice in the present age using the case of water museum, etc. It is based on a historical and geographical approach to exploring the cultural dynamics in water management. It shows how people abide by their culture to manage water in ancient society and in indigenous, local, social, and urban society. This helps to provide an in-depth understanding of the cultural dynamics in water management to bridge the cultural idea of water management from history to the present and to the future. This book highlights that technical and engineered ways are not enough to solve water problems and achieve water sustainable management if we neglect the cultural dynamic role. Successful water management is always based on the culture from history and this is likely to continue so as to achieve better water management.