The ancient Mesopotamians created a massive, sophisticated network of canals to water their crops more than 3,000 years ago, a new study has revealed.
Researchers found thousands of ancient irrigation canals up to 5.6 miles (9 kilometers) long carved into the landscape near Basra in Iraq, which at the time was the Eridu region of Mesopotamia. Mesopotamians occupied this region along the vast Euphrates river from the sixth millennium B.C. (8,000 to 7,000 years ago) to the early first millennium B.C. (3,000 to 2,000 years ago).
