THE MESOPOTAMIAN MARSHLANDS

A PERSONAL RECOLLECTION



by Azzam Alwash

I

grew up on the fringes of the marshes of southern Iraq. My father, who was the

district irrigation and flood engineer, used to take me into the marshes in the early

spring. His mission was ostensibly to inspect flood control structures in preparation for

the coming spring floods, but in reality he was just finding an excuse to go duck

hunting. Given my father’s busy schedule, I loved to go with him as I had him all to

myself in the boat, save for the boatman. We meandered in these small canals,

surrounded with reeds that towered to the sky. The water was so clear you could see the

fish scrambling away from the bow of the boat. Every now and then we would come

to a large lake where the breeze hits your face and birds would fly into the sky shying

from the noise of the boat engine.

He went from one floating village to the next speaking to the people of the marshes.

I had thought of them as backward people who lived with water buffalos and in houses

made of reeds. We were not taught in school what these people represent and the con-

nection they have with our common ancestors, the Sumerians, whose temple in Ur I

visited many times on family picnics. I have vivid memories of picnics at the Ziggurat

of Ur where as a little boy I picked at the reed bits stuck in the tar between the bricks of

the stairs leading to the top of the temple. I had no knowledge at the time that I was pick-

ing at the work of the ancestors of the Marsh Arabs, the Sumerians, nor did I understand

that the life style of the Marsh Arabs was little changed from that of builders of Ur.

Few people understand the organic connection between the mountains of Iraqi

Kurdistan in the north and the plains of southern Iraq. The marshes and the plain of

Mesopotamia are in fact a gift of the mountains of Kurdistan. The annual spring floods

that result from the snowmelt in the mountains of Kurdistan bring huge amounts of

water and soils, and deposit them in southern Iraq creating the plain that we now call

Mesopotamian. The marshes of southern Iraq are essentially retention basins that are

recharged every spring. The whole ecology and biodiversity of the area evolved around

this annual event. The water comes in and flushes the brackish water that accumulates

from the evaporation of the year before just as the reeds are coming out of winter

hibernation. The depth of the water increases just in time for the spawning of fish and

just as the birds are migrating. Furthermore, the lateral extent of the marshes is

increased, covering the grasslands along the perimeter of the marshes with a new layer

of silt and clay revitalizing these agricultural lands, which is why agriculture in southern

Iraq did not need fertilization well into the twentieth century.