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Article: Ruins of an ancient trading center soon to be under water.(Features)(Ideas)
- Article from:
- The Christian Science Monitor
- Article date:
- April 4, 2002
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Christian Science Publishing Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Peter N. Spotts Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
The ancient city of Assur, once the seat of a mighty empire and now an archaeological window into a key period in the history of human civilization, is on the verge of falling victim to a dam.
The ruins lie in the path of a reservoir that will fill when Iraq completes the Makhoul Dam across the Tigris River some 124 miles south of the city of Mosul. The dam is designed to provide irrigation water to Iraqi farmers who rely on the Tigris, a river whose flow has been reduced by dams upstream.
"The loss of a place like Assur, which was a world capital, would be a catastrophe for ...