Studia Palmyreńskie (6-7.1975)

Dora P. Crouch

THE WATER SYSTEM OF PALMYRA

The water system of Palmyra consists of the following elements: springs,
wells, cisterns, aąueducts, foggaras, dams in the wadis, water lines and foun-
tains in the streets, and sewers.

GEOLOGY

Water is available here, in spite of only four inches of rainfall a year,
because of the underlying geology of the region. According to Carle, who has
madę the only formal stndy of the water system at Palmyra, the underlying
stone is hard limestone which has crystalized in important masses of several
hundred meters in extent, forming the structure of the great mountain chains
of the region, and the substructure of the plateau where Palmyra sits. This stone
is impermeable molecularly but permeable by fissures and grottos which
characterize it and are used as reseyoirs1. Such geological formations allow
also for the possibility of underground rivers. In a rather technical short ar-
ticle about dissolved salts in the underground region of Palmyra, V. Frolow
has indicated that there is some underground connection and transference of
salts between the water at Efca, the chief spring of Palmyra, and that of wells
seyeral kilometers east and west of it. The saltiness is caused by the salt marshes
and by gypsum beds, and is compounded by greater heat absorption at Pal-
myra, where the water circulates morę rapidly than elsewhere in the region2.
There are, in fact, two kinds of water in this area, sweet water from certain
wells and springs, and water that is strongly sulferous. Visitors to Palmyra
have often commented on this.

1 G. Carle, De Valimentation en eau de Palmyre dans les temps actuels et anciens,
,,La Geographie” XL (July-August 1923), p. 153; hereafter: Carle.

2 V. Frolow, Regime des sels dissous dans les eaux souterraines de la region de Pal-
myre, „Comptes Rendus des Sciences” 194 (January—June 1932), p. 2155.