Well

A well is a vertical cavity dug into the soil and/or rock to reach an underground water table. Wells can be lined, with stones and/or baked bricks, or not, depending on the firmness of the ground.

Although this technology appeared as early as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic in the Levant, it reached the north of the Arabian Peninsula in the 5th/4th millennia BCE (Gebel 2013) and the Persian Gulf coast in the early 3rd millennium BCE (Weisgerber 1981: 203).

During the 1st millennium BCE, in Southeast Arabia, the abundant identified wells provided drinking water for humans and livestock, allowed the irrigation of agricultural land and the manufacture of mudbricks (Charbonnier 2015: 63–65). For instance, a 7-m-deep well was excavated at the Iron Age site al-Madām 1. It was dug in the bedrock and small notches were carved into the side of the well to access its base in order to clean it.

See also Water Management

Julien Charbonnier

References and suggested readings

• Charbonnier, J. 2015. Groundwater management in Southeast Arabia from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age: a critical reassessment. Water History 7(1): 39–71. DOI: 10.1007/s12685-014-0110-x.
• Gebel, H.G. 2013. Arabia’s fifth-millennium BCE pastoral well cultures: hypotheses on the origins of oasis life. PSAS 43: 111–126 www.jstor.org/stable/43782872
• Weisgerber, G. 1981. Mehr als Kupfer in Oman. Ergebnisse der Expedition 1981. Der Anschnitt. Zeitschrift für Kunst und Kultur im Bergbau 33: 174–263.

_{Alternate spellings: Wellspring, Waterhole}