The system, with over 200 major canals and 4,000 smaller ones, was used to divert Euphrates River water to farms. Researchers traced the canals using satellite imagery and geological mapping.

The canal network, detailed in the journal Antiquity, remained untouched for centuries due to a shift in the Euphrates river’s course in the first millennium BC. This left the area dry and ...

Researchers have identified an extensive Mesopotamian canal network that supplied ancient farms in the Eridu region with water from the Euphrates river before the first millennium B.C.

The research team found that the canals irrigated more than 700 farms in the region, which was inhabited between the sixth until the early first millennium B.C. Fed by the Euphrates River ...

Archaeologists used an interdisciplinary approach that included geomorphological analysis, historical map reviews ... Long ago, the Euphrates River shifted course, forcing people to abandon ...