The Watermills of Mosul in the Ottoman Period

Abstract

This paper presents a documentary and archaeological study of the watermills in Ottoman Mosul to gain a political and social-economic understanding of the water-resource management in Mosul and its north-eastern hinterland in the early modern period. Watermills are of importance to historians, as the simple buildings equipped with sophisticated hydraulic devices, for teasing out various strands of water-resource management and agricultural economies from a regional and longue-dureé perspective. By synthesizing historical and archaeological methodological approaches, this paper aims to address the questions of what historical legacy of Mosul was left to the Ottoman Empire regarding the water infrastructure, including watermills and irrigation systems, and what contribution the Ottoman administration made to the development of Mosul’s water infrastructure. It presents an archaeological examination of a group of milling installations in Wadi Bandawai in the north of Mosul, demonstrating changes in settlement patterns during the long Islamic period, from the 7th to early 20th centuries, and also drawing attention to methodological problems with Islamic and Ottoman archaeology concerning the periodization of material culture.