Word: nabataean
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Pottery Mains. The Nabataean capital, Petra, is a museum of exceptional hydraulic engineering. Besides the Siq dam and diversion system, it has a spreading network of channels cut into the rock to lead water to the city from distant springs. In one detail the Nabataeans were even ahead of the Romans. Instead of high aqueducts, they used carefully sealed pottery pipes to carry water under pressure, as modern water systems use pipes of metal...
When he hears of visiting engineers searching for water in Nabataean country, Dr. Hammond likes to point out that the tricks of modern geology can be a waste of time. The first step, he believes, should be to look for fragments of Nabataean pottery, which was remarkably thin and strong. It often leads to ruins of buildings in apparently waterless places. "But water is always available," says Dr. Hammond. "The Nabataeans wouldn't have built a town if they couldn't get water...