BBLs are a series of weekly, informal talks by CHF fellows on their current research, and members of the academic and business communities on topics involving the history of chemistry, political and social issues of importance to chemists and chemical engineers, and issues affecting the future of chemical research.
Abigail Schade, “Squeezing Water from a Stone: Perceptions of Groundwater in al-Karaji’s 11th-Century ‘Treatise on the Extraction of Hidden Waters’”
Baghdad mathematician al-Karaji wrote his treatise, sometimes called the “oldest hydrology textbook,” on the characteristics of groundwater in the 11th century. Experts in the modern field of geohydrology have praised Karaji’s work as remarkably accurate. Since Karaji’s work focused on traditional methods of groundwater drilling in his native Iran, this how-to manual provides a glimpse of historical agricultural techniques and hydrological expertise usually not available to the historian in such detailed written
form.
This topic is part of the author’s dissertation on traditional technologies of groundwater irrigation in arid regions of the ancient and medieval world. This dissertation in international/global history is being completed in the Department of History at Columbia University, where the author is a Whiting Fellow for the 2009–2010 academic year.
Learn more about CHF's Brown Bag Lecture series.
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