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The Moorish invention that tamed Spain's mountains

bbc.com

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Re: The Moorish invention that tamed Spain's mountains

#21

Post by rodelrod »

krisoft wrote: post #11
zeristor wrote: post #4

There must be hundreds of places around the world who could make use of this. How many other ones in Spain have been abandoned? If this was established by the Moors then I would guess other ex-Moor states would have a similar setup.

> If this was established by the Moors then I would guess other ex-Moor states would have a similar setup. Sure thing! In Madeira they have many ancient aquaducts originally estabilished by the Moors: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levada Ancient water management is a fascinating topic. The qanats in the middle-east, and north africa are particularly interesting. They are underground water conduits and sources dug b…

Madeira was initially settled by the Portuguese in the 15th century, 200 years after the end of the Portuguese Reconquista, so it's quite a stretch to claim that the "levadas" were "established by the Moors", even if they initially brought the technology to Iberia.

Re: The Moorish invention that tamed Spain's mountains

#22

Post by usrusr »

bell-cot wrote: post #14

The article is about some low-tech but historically effective water-management techniques, brought to Spain by the Muslim conquest (711-721). It walks back very quickly on the headline's claim of "invention". And mentions that similar techniques were independently invented in other parts of the world. Note: "Moor" is both a wretchedly vague exonym, and often a mild ethnic slur.

I only know the region as a repeat tourist (just came back from my second visit this year), but my impression from this is that locals are quite proud of their cosmopolitan past and "moro" is the simply term they use for their melting pot ancestors of that era. Nothing negative about it at all.

Re: The Moorish invention that tamed Spain's mountains

#23

Post by throwawaybutwhy »

usrusr wrote: post #22
bell-cot wrote: post #14

The article is about some low-tech but historically effective water-management techniques, brought to Spain by the Muslim conquest (711-721). It walks back very quickly on the headline's claim of "invention". And mentions that similar techniques were independently invented in other parts of the world. Note: "Moor" is both a wretchedly vague exonym, and often a mild ethnic slur.

I only know the region as a repeat tourist (just came back from my second visit this year), but my impression from this is that locals are quite proud of their cosmopolitan past and "moro" is the simply term they use for their melting pot ancestors of that era. Nothing negative about it at all.

Last name of Matamoros (kills moors) is a thing, and the banner of Santiago defined the nation for centuries.

Re: The Moorish invention that tamed Spain's mountains

#25

Post by narag »

OK, I have nothing bad to say about acequias or irrigation. Having grown up with a big orchad at home I enjoyed watching all those water inventions. Not sure about "Moorish". More like "muslim era" heritage?

"Making life possible in one of Europe's driest regions" is misleading though.

Eastwards Sierra Nevada you find Almería, where all the Spaghetti Westerns were filmed. It's indeed a desertic zone, just not a very big extension.

The hyperbolic headline somehow implies a scale that's not real. In any other direction from Sierra Nevada, there's plenty of rain, water and woods. That system just provides the same for some villages on the drier zones.

Edit: OK, people disagree... so be it, but before downvoting, why don't you take a look at Google Earth and see for yourself?

Re: The Moorish invention that tamed Spain's mountains

#26

Post by [deleted] »

throwawaybutwhy wrote: post #23
usrusr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only know the region as a repeat tourist (just came back from my second visit this year), but my impression from this is that locals are quite proud of their cosmopolitan past and "moro" is the simply term they use for their melting pot ancestors of that era. Nothing negative about it at all.

Last name of Matamoros (kills moors) is a thing, and the banner of Santiago defined the nation for centuries.

[deleted]

Re: The Moorish invention that tamed Spain's mountains

#27

Post by jdasdf »

krisoft wrote: post #11
zeristor wrote: post #4

There must be hundreds of places around the world who could make use of this. How many other ones in Spain have been abandoned? If this was established by the Moors then I would guess other ex-Moor states would have a similar setup.

> If this was established by the Moors then I would guess other ex-Moor states would have a similar setup. Sure thing! In Madeira they have many ancient aquaducts originally estabilished by the Moors: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levada Ancient water management is a fascinating topic. The qanats in the middle-east, and north africa are particularly interesting. They are underground water conduits and sources dug b…

The moors were never in madeira.

The island chain was empty by the time the portuguese arrived.

Re: The Moorish invention that tamed Spain's mountains

#28

Post by pfdietz »

zeristor wrote: post #3

I don’t know why I find water harvesting so fascinating, nifty use of aquifers. There was a civilisation in the Sahara that had tunnels in the mountain that provided water, I imagine they ran dry. Persia had (has?) underground tunnels that convey water to farmland. With the increasing amount of heavy rain fall I’m not sure how much of that can be caught and sequestered. This was made all the more apparent when there…

It wasn't in the Sahara, but the civilization at Petra (in what is now SW Jordan) was built around sophisticated hydraulic engineering.

It eventually collapsed when earthquakes damaged the system beyond their capacity to repair. Being subjugated by Rome didn't help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSfFq02pK4s

Re: The Moorish invention that tamed Spain's mountains

#29

Post by User23 »

zeristor wrote: post #3

I don’t know why I find water harvesting so fascinating, nifty use of aquifers. There was a civilisation in the Sahara that had tunnels in the mountain that provided water, I imagine they ran dry. Persia had (has?) underground tunnels that convey water to farmland. With the increasing amount of heavy rain fall I’m not sure how much of that can be caught and sequestered. This was made all the more apparent when there…

> There was a civilisation in the Sahara that had tunnels in the mountain that provided water, I imagine they ran dry.

Was that the Garamantes?[1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garamantes

Re: The Moorish invention that tamed Spain's mountains

#30

Post by justnah »

usrusr wrote: post #22
bell-cot wrote: post #14

The article is about some low-tech but historically effective water-management techniques, brought to Spain by the Muslim conquest (711-721). It walks back very quickly on the headline's claim of "invention". And mentions that similar techniques were independently invented in other parts of the world. Note: "Moor" is both a wretchedly vague exonym, and often a mild ethnic slur.

I only know the region as a repeat tourist (just came back from my second visit this year), but my impression from this is that locals are quite proud of their cosmopolitan past and "moro" is the simply term they use for their melting pot ancestors of that era. Nothing negative about it at all.

>but my impression from this is that locals are quite proud of their cosmopolitan past and "moro"

Literally no one is.

There is a vast difference between giving credit for a given concept/tool/technique because it's useful, and thinking the locals have sort of ancestral connection with a foreign invader.

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