A NEW APPROACH TO THE DESCRIPTION OF A BABYLONIAN HYDRAULIC WORK BY HERODOTUS

Herodotus is a fascinating author, not only to scholars of history, but also to a wide spectrum of scientists, such as engineers, who are not usually considered to be relevant to humanistic studies. A strong indication of the persisting interest in Herodotus is the recent proliferation of books, for example those of C. Dewald and J. Marincola and A.M. Bowie, on various aspects of his work. At the same time, there is a remarkable interest in the evolution of knowledge in different scientific fields which promotes the understanding of a) the relationship between socio-economic phenomena and technological progress and b) the process of acquiring and documenting scientific knowledge. In the field of hydraulics and hydrology in particular, this interest is documented by journal papers (for example by L.W. Mays et al. and D. Koutsoyiannis et al.), books (for example by A.K. Biswas, Ö. Wikander), book chapters (for example by A.I. Wilson) and conference proceedings.