The Harbaqa Dam or Kharbaqa Dam ( ar, سد خربقة) was a
Roman era
Palmyrene gravity dam in the
Syrian desert
The Syrian Desert ( ar, بادية الشام ''Bādiyat Ash-Shām''), also known as the North Arabian Desert, the Jordanian steppe, or the Badiya, is a region of desert, semi-desert and steppe covering of the Middle East, including parts of so ...
about southwest from
Palmyra
Palmyra (; Palmyrene: () ''Tadmor''; ar, تَدْمُر ''Tadmur'') is an ancient city in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early seco ...
on the road to
Damascus. The dam, built of rubble,
concrete
Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most ...
, and dressed with
ashlar
Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitr ...
stones, dates to the first or second century AD. The dam later was used as a water supply for the
Umayyad
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...
palace of
Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi
Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi ( ar, قصر الحير الغربي) is a Syrian desert castle or ''qasr'' located 80 km south-west of Palmyra on the Damascus road. The castle is a twin palace of Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi, built by the Umayyad caliph ...
.
Overview
The dam was built in the first/second-century AD by
Palmyra
Palmyra (; Palmyrene: () ''Tadmor''; ar, تَدْمُر ''Tadmur'') is an ancient city in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early seco ...
. It was restored and used again by the
Umayyad
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...
s in the eighth century for irrigation purposes. It served as a major water supply for the nearby
Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi
Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi ( ar, قصر الحير الغربي) is a Syrian desert castle or ''qasr'' located 80 km south-west of Palmyra on the Damascus road. The castle is a twin palace of Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi, built by the Umayyad caliph ...
, to which it was connected by a
canal
Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface fl ...
.
[ The dam collected the seasonal floods of Wadi al-Barada in a storage basin that could be used all year.][Butcher, 2003, p. 163.] The remains of the dam are well-preserved for lack of quarrying from nearby settlements.[Gerster; Trümpler, 2007, p. 364.]
The dam was built out of a concrete
Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most ...
core faced on both air and water face with ashlar
Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitr ...
stones. The wall is around wide at the base, high and stretches for in length.[ The dam wall had three outlets. Two outlets were located at the base that allow the torrential water to flow in winter. The third one, ]terracotta
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous.
In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta i ...
with a smaller diameter, crossed the dam in a steep slope and was located about from the top on the upstream side.[Schlumberger, 1939, p. 201.] The former reservoir, now filled with silt
Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel wh ...
, had a capacity of and measured up to in length and in width.[
The dam was first surveyed in 1934 by Antoine Poidebard. A more detailed survey and excavation was conducted by a French archaeological team led by Daniel Schlumberger in 1938.][Calvet; Geyer, 1992, p. 80.]
See also
* List of Roman dams and reservoirs
This is a list of Roman dams and reservoirs. The study of Roman dam-building has received little scholarly attention in comparison to their other civil engineering activities, even though their contributions in this field have been ranked alo ...
* Roman architecture
Ancient Roman architecture adopted the external language of classical Greek architecture for the purposes of the ancient Romans, but was different from Greek buildings, becoming a new architectural style. The two styles are often considered o ...
* Roman engineering
The ancient Romans were famous for their advanced engineering accomplishments. Technology for bringing running water into cities was developed in the east, but transformed by the Romans into a technology inconceivable in Greece. The architecture ...
References
Bibliography
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{{Roman dams
Dams in Syria
Ancient Roman dams
Gravity dams
Buildings and structures in Homs Governorate