2,700-year-old water management system discovered in Ararat Plain

An international research team from the University of Warsaw and the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia has discovered a water management system in the Ararat Plain featuring structures stretching over 1,000 kilometers, according to labrujulaverde.com.

Among the findings are more than 134 kilometers of canals that may have belonged to an irrigation system built around 2,700 years ago during the Kingdom of Urartu.

The aerial image shows it all. Where the human eye, at ground level, only sees modern farmland and roads, Cold War spy satellites and current sensors have revealed a hidden landscape: dozens of kilometers of ancient canals, dikes, and dry channels that once carried water to the fortress of Argishtikhinili, in present-day Armenia.

The identified features included modern canals, former river and stream beds, ancient levees, and palaeochannels, which are abandoned or buried waterways.

The authors of the study, published in the journal Antiquity, do not claim that all identified canals belong to the Urartian period. Some may have been built or modified centuries later. More precise dating will require further archaeological research and closer study of nearby settlements.

The study shows that the Ararat Plain was not fertile by chance, but because a complex civilization decided to make it fertile.