EL-KOWM - JLBK

Short Historical Dictionary on Urban Hydrology and Drainage. © Jean-Luc Bertrand-Krajewski - 02/2006. 1. EL-KOWM. El Kowm (or Al Kawm) was a neolithic ...
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Short Historical Dictionary on Urban Hydrology and Drainage

EL-KOWM El Kowm (or Al Kawm) was a neolithic city from the PPNB* period, located between the Euphrates river and the city of Palmyra in Syria. After having been abandoned around 11000 BC, the city has been re-occupied and rebuilt around 7000-6500 BC, with a large sedentary agglomeration of approximately 3 ha (Cauvin, 1997). El Kowm is famous as one of the first places in the Middle-East where domestic infrastructures and devices dealing with water and wastewater have been built (Viollet, 2000).

Figure 1 : Combination of drainage devices. The pipe starts as a hole bored through a doorstep; then it passes under the soil before it reappears as an open gutter along half of the room; it finally crosses the external wall of the house. This system is the most complex one observed in El Kowm (A photography, B side view, C axonometric view) (in Stordeur, 2000, p. 46).

© Jean-Luc Bertrand-Krajewski - 02/2006

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Short Historical Dictionary on Urban Hydrology and Drainage

The city has been explored in detail by the French archaeologist Danielle Stordeur, who published a comprehensive research report (Stordeur, 2000). The information given hereafter is extracted from her report. The city of El Kowm 2 (the only part of the city which has been explored) was composed of well structured and compartmented houses. In many of them, structures were built to drain domestic wastewater: lateral gutter between rooms, drainage holes through doorsteps or walls, or combined systems draining the water from room to room before discharging it outside through the wall (Figure 1). Some drainage pipes were similar to those found earlier in the Syrian city of Bouqras* (Cauvin, 1997; Contenson and Van Liere, 1966). A 10 cm wide semi-circular gutter in the middle of a street has also been discovered (Figure 2), which drained the water from two adjacent houses. However, it seems that this gutter has been progressively filled with refuse.

Figure 2 : Example of a street drainage gutter in El Kowm, which was progressively filled with refuse (in Stordeur, 2000, p. 90).

Habuba Kebira Ugarit

Bouqras

El Kowm SYRIA

Beirut Mediterranean Sea

IRAK

Mari Bagdad

Damascus

Jerusalem

References Cauvin J. (1997). Naissance des divinités, naissance de l'agriculture - La révolution des symboles au néolithique. Paris (France) : Editions du CNRS (nouvelle édition), 310 p. ISBN 2-27105454-0.

© Jean-Luc Bertrand-Krajewski - 02/2006

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Short Historical Dictionary on Urban Hydrology and Drainage

Contenson H. de, van Liere W.J. (1966). Premier sondage à Bouqras en 1965. Rapport préliminaire. Annales archéologiques arabes syriennes, 16(2), 181-192. Stordeur D., (dir.) (2000). El Kowm 2 : une île dans le désert - La fin du néolithique précéramique dans la steppe syrienne. Paris (France) : CNRS Editions, 322 p. ISBN 2-27105720-5. Viollet P.-L. (2000). L'hydraulique dans les civilisations anciennes - 5000 ans d'histoire. Paris (France) : Presses de l'Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, 374 p. ISBN 2-85978-335-0.

© Jean-Luc Bertrand-Krajewski - 02/2006

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