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Water management in late antique North Africa: agricultural irrigation

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Abstract

In 1984 Brent Shaw looked at a number of issues connected with water management for irrigation in North Africa in his paper ‘Water and society in the ancient Maghrib: Technology, property and development.’ This study greatly improved our understanding of water management and exploitation in rural areas of Roman North Africa, but some of Shaw’s conclusions need to be reconsidered, particularly with reference to archaeological evidence. Important questions that need to be addressed are how water was exploited for agricultural production, and who was responsible for this; and whether or not there was a conscious policy to develop Africa’s agricultural potential either through the extension of an existing hydraulic technology or through the introduction of new water technologies. The paper investigates these problems by analysing archaeological evidence from the Kasserine survey and in particular the data from irrigation systems in the uplands and lowlands. The main focus is on late antiquity and the transition from the Roman to Vandal periods, tracing continuity in the exploitation of land and irrigation technologies. By combining the archaeology with ancient texts, and in particular a Vandal-period archive of private documents, the so-called ‘Albertini Tablets’, this investigation examines irrigation systems and the private use of water in the light of Roman legislation.

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Notes

  1. For a synthesis on the production of olive oil in North Africa and an extensive bibliography on the subject, see Vismara (2007).

  2. For detailed discussion on the subject, see Shaw (1984, 1991) and for some further considerations see Wilson (1999, pp. 318–323) and, focusing principally on water supply for urban areas, Wilson (1998, pp. 89–93) and (2001, pp. 83–84). For a general discussion on the main irrigation systems for agriculture from a wider geographical perspective, see Oleson (2000).

  3. For a detailed discussion on the aqueduct, its organisation and functions, see Wilson (1998). The aqueduct ran through the countryside. It was probably built in the Hadrianic period. Wilson (1998, pp. 79–81) also points out how the building of such a structure probably had propagandistic functions and importance, due to its impressive monumentality. For water supply in urban contexts, specifically in North Africa, see Wilson (2001).

  4. Varro, De Re Rustica 1, 11, 2: Villa aedificandum potissimum ut intra saepta villae habeat aquam, si non quam proxime; primum quae ibi sit nata, secundum, quae influat perennis. Si omnino aqua non est viva, cisternae faciendae sub tectis et lacus sub dio, ex altero loco ut homines, ex alter out pecus uti possit. ‘The steading should be so built that it will have water, if possible, within the enclosure, or at least very nearby. The best arrangement is to have a spring on the place, or, failing this, a perennial stream. If no running water is available, cisterns should be built under cover and reservoir in the open, the one for use of people and the other for cattle’ (Loeb translation 1979, pp. 208–209).

  5. The text reports exactly the same point made by Varro, that if no natural water supply exists on the territory, then cisterns need to be built (Lelli 2010). The exact date of the work is uncertain, but it is traditionally believed to have been composed under Constantine VII (ad 919–959). For a discussion of the chronology, see Lelli (2010, xxix–xxxi).

  6. Not all the geographical areas were equally exploited. In the Segermes valley for instance there is no evidence of pastoralism (Ørsted et al. 2003, 128) as in the Kasserine survey (see below). A substantial agriculturally based economy is recorded by the Jerba survey (southern Tunisia): here continuity between at least the pre-Roman and the early Roman period is recorded, with only a slight decline in the second century ad, and continuity into late antiquity (Fentress and Fontana 2009a, pp. 93–95, 2009b).

  7. For a synthesis on the transformation of the countryside in late antiquity and for the changes in land management, see Leone and Mattingly (2004).

  8. Here a number of small dry stone walls were identified, which may have had any of seven potential uses, mainly in connection with irrigation systems (Gilbertson and Hunt 1996, pp. 192, 216–217). In most cases the dating is problematic, and in some cases it has been suggested that they may have already been in use by the farmer-pastoralists living in the area in the first millennium bc (224).

  9. Hitchner (1994, p. 28) pointed out that pastoralism can be independent from agriculture or co-exist on the same territory; for a summary on the definition of pastoralism, see Hitchner (1994, pp. 28–29).

  10. It is unclear whether this occurred entirely naturally or with the contribution of human actions (Hitchner 1994, p. 29).

  11. The structure in mortared stones was 1.8 km long. The cistern measured 13.82 m in diameter and 2 m deep (Hitchner 1995b, pp. 147–148).

  12. The Djebel Selloum is the mountain defining the eastern edge of the Kasserine Survey (Fig. 3). Here a number of ‘concentric rows of dry stone terraces both to the north and south of the settlement in connection with a small fortified farm’ have been identified (Hitchner 1995b, pp. 148–149).

  13. One good example is the field walls that are indicated on the map with 014 and which are associated with the presence of a courtyard farm, 010 (producing olive oil). These create artificial terraces in the ridge, built in order to ‘take advantage of landscape drainage patterns running southwest to northeast’ (Hitchner 1995b, p. 149). Similar evidence is also recorded in the fields: 004, 241 and 252.

  14. These were: a well (to the northeast of the farm, 1.5 m in diameter); a channel (to the south of the farm) going from the plateau down to a large wadi basin; on the same side there was also a sluice wall built across the channel; another terrace irrigation system 295 has been recorded (Hitchner 1995b, pp. 150–153).

  15. Cistern 013, underground, was located around 100 m north–northeast of building 007. A second cistern was recorded near structure 266. All these hydraulic systems were probably connected with farm 266 (Hitchner 1995b, pp. 153–154).

  16. For a general discussion on centuriation and its organization, see Parra (1990); and specifically in North African contexts, see Peyras (1994).

  17. The Roman fiscal system exercised a clear control over the way in which tenants were exploiting their lands (Kehoe 1988, pp. 155–156). This probably also influenced the way in which the land was progressively organised.

  18. The Libyan Valleys Survey clearly demonstrated the difficulties in dating walls, often used for irrigation systems (see Footnote 11).

  19. See Wilson (1997, pp. 11–16) on the various systems recorded with reference to du Coudray La Blanchère (1895).

  20. For the full and complete publication with photographic reproduction of each of the Albertini Tablets, see Courtois et al. (1952).

  21. For a detailed discussion and further bibliography, see De Ligt (1998–1999), Wessel (2003, pp. 89–113) and Vera (1988). The inscription refers to the coloni (e.g. tenants) of the Fundus Villae Magnae Variane, which was probably an Imperial estate. This is the process of sharecropping that developed in North Africa in the Roman period (see Kehoe 1988, pp. 156–162).

  22. The numbers in brackets refer to the numbering system of the documents in Courtois et al. (1952).

  23. CIL VIII 4440 = 18587. Lamasba is modern Henchir Merouana in Algeria. The inscription was found at the end of the nineteenth century and it refers specifically to regulations about the irrigation system. For discussions, see Pavis D’Escurac (1980, pp. 181–186): the area to be irrigated is partitioned following its level (the terrace, 182), and the time is allocated according to the surface area to be irrigated (185); and especially Shaw (1982).

  24. For the organization of the foggara system in the Fazzan, see Wilson and Mattingly (2003, p. 263): the technology was probably introduced to the Fazzan in the later first millennium bc and remained in use until some time in the second half of the first millennium ad.

  25. E.g. the so-called lex rivi Hiberiensis from the Ebro Valley in Spain, a second-century ad law governing a major irrigation system, specifying the duties of maintenance, administering the system, and the process for deciding annually the schedule of irrigation for the year to come (Beltrán Lloris 2006).

  26. Pavis D’Escurac (1980, p. 180). The system of distributing water by time is already mentioned by Pliny, Naturalis Historia XVIII, 188.

  27. CJ 11.63.1 and Monier (1955); see also Pavis D’Escurac (1980, p. 187).

  28. For instance in Leptiminus pottery kilns producing Africana I amphora (used to transport olive oil) are recorded from the third century ad (Mattingly et al. 2011, 214).

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Acknowledgments

This paper greatly benefited from discussion with Prof. Christer Bruun and Prof. Andrew Wilson, to whom I am also very grateful for comments and suggestions on the final version of the article. Gratitude is due to the two anonymous reviewers for Water History for their constructive criticism and suggestions. The remaining errors are my responsibility.

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  1. Department of Archaeology, Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK

    Anna Leone

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Leone, A. Water management in late antique North Africa: agricultural irrigation. Water Hist 4, 119–133 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12685-012-0052-0

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