# Hydraulic engineering ME?Why no canals?



## Hisoka Morrow (Oct 3, 2022)

JRRT's works contained abundant hydraulic engineering such as irrigation for farmlands, such as the Pippin's witnesses at Minas-Tirith suburb farmland, and so on, yet I found out there're no canals at all. Correct me if I am wrong, were there any mentione about canals in JRRT's works? You all have my great thanks.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Oct 3, 2022)

I don't recall anything about irrigation. There is mention of "many rills rippling through the green from the highlands down to Anduin".


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## ZehnWaters (Oct 3, 2022)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> I don't recall anything about irrigation. There is mention of "many rills rippling through the green from the highlands down to Anduin".


Yeah, I think they were likely just dry-land farming. I am surprised there are no aqueducts in Gondor though. Seems a thing they'd have had.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Oct 3, 2022)




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## Elthir (Oct 3, 2022)

Gondor probably had _aquaducks_ though.

And I'm sorry.


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## ZehnWaters (Oct 3, 2022)

Elthir said:


> Gondor probably had _aquaducks_ though.
> 
> And I'm sorry.


They had black swans


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## Ugluk (Oct 3, 2022)

Tolkien may have considered canals as a product of industrialisation, and therefore eschewed them


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## Elthir (Oct 3, 2022)

ZehnWaters said:


> They had black swans


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## Olorgando (Oct 4, 2022)

Ugluk said:


> Tolkien may have considered canals as a product of industrialisation, and therefore eschewed them


Even shipping canals predate industrialization (if by that is meant the industrial revolution starting in the UK in the late 18th century) by thousands of years. Irrigation canals were known in Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus Valley Culture (aka Harappa Culture) 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. That was already known in JRRT's time.


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## Matthew Bailey (Oct 4, 2022)

This is a subject that I have given *ENORMOUS thought to*.

I am still working on it, but I have a work in progress regarding the Infrastructure and Engineering _*that *_*must exist* in order for the structures and populations to exist that we see in Middle-earth, _especially_ concerning the _Second Age _and _Early-Third Age Númenórean Nations._

Tolkien mentions in passing *multiple times* that he has used certain models or templates for cultural and social groups within Middle-earth, especially the Númenóreans, *and* that he has recognized that there are *many* topics and _“things” _ that *must exist* in Middle-earth for the basic societies that he mentions to exist.

As for Canals, there have been no cultures near bodies of water where sufficient Logistical, Mercantile, or other demands that would require such canals to be built.

The *only possible exceptions* being:

In _The Shire_, the _Southfarthing _(and then only as a remnant of the Arnorian Northern Kingdoms), the _Bucklands_, and other regions near the _Baranduin_.

And around _Pelargir_ and _Linhir_, where we MIGHT see some canals similar to those around Ostia and the Isola Sacra Canals and Harbors as the Port of Rome.

And _*possibly*_ in _Long Lake_ and _Dale_, where Erebor produced a large amount of Trade that would be better facilitated on waterways than carts/wains. 

The Region of Dorwinion _*MIGHT*_ also benefit, but ample waterways already exist there.

Similarly, _Umbar _*might* require some Canals to service artificial harbors like those built at Ostia and other Roman Port-Cities as a means for controlling the ship-building industries; built in _Umbar _for the rather sizable port and shipping industry that obviously existed their prior to the loss of it to the Haradrim a few times in the Third Age (eventually, after the Kinstrife it remained effectively in the hands of the Haradrim as the base of the Corsairs and Black Númenórean lineages).

But… Other than an unexplored region around the Sea of Rhûn, or the Eastern Coasts of Harad and Khand, there are no places where Canals would have been needed.

Middle-earth of the later Third Age had little in the way of Commerce or Mercantile Trade due to the very dispersed and small populations.

That is another thing I have looked at, in terms of:


• What do we see Sauron field as Armies? What would it take to support those Armies (not just as immediate logistics, such as food, water, and other infrastructure to produce weapons, but the populations to supply the armies, and the respective Infrastructure *required* to support such things)?

• What do we see as the defense against these armies, even if desperate, that would require the same sorts of things mentioned in the first point?

• What are the Predator-Prey Relationships that would exist re: Orcs in the Hithaeglir that would be necessary in Human and Elf populations to support the Predatory Orcs of _Gundabad_, and the various _Hithaeglir _Orc Settlements down to _Moria_? This would also include Dol Guldur, which contrary to those God-Awful movies was a populated Fortress Town, likely able to support between 10,000 and 20,000 “Soldiers” of some sort (Who would be the principal business _*of*_ Dol Guldur, meaning only about 25% more population as purely support, given how such locales worked, historically, such as the Roman Castrum-Towns of Europe and England/Britain — If you see a Town/City in England with the Stem/Ending “—Caster” or “—Chester” … Then that city grew out of a Roman Military Fortress-Town/City)

• Tolkien has a few comments on such Trade, such as in *The Lord of the Rings* Volume 2, Book 4, Chapter 4: _Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit_, where Mablung and Damrod, Rangers of Ithilien in service to Faramir, mention that prior Trade when guarding Samwise and Frodo during the ambush of the _Haradrim_/_Southrons._ That such trade existed means that things like the brief mention of _Harlond _as the “_Port of Minas Tirith_” and the _Pelennor_ make that Port more akin to Ostia than just a few buildings. *Even just the internal trade of Gondor* would necessitate Harlond being many thousands of people.


We are given references that indicate that _Minas Tirith_ (Or _Minas Anor _at that time), _Minas Ithil_, and _Osgiliath_ were cities with populations in the hundreds of thousands. _Pelargir_, likewise, was a center of Shipbuilding in the South, and the City that the Faithful tended to flee to when the troubles in Númenór in the _Mid/Latter-Second Age_ became more extreme. 

But just the major Urban Centers of Gondor in the Eastern Portions of the Nation near the Anduin are remarkably similar to the Early-Roman Republic and Latin League of the 6th to 4th Centuries BCE, where you have Rome, Veii, Caere, Nomentum, Gabii, Casinm, Alba, Fedenae, Satricum, Tellenae, etc.

Rome, Ostia/Ostie, Veii, and Caere occupy a region roughly equivalent to that of _Minas Anor _+ _Harlond_ and _Pelargir_, _Minas Ithil_, and _Osgiliath_, and would likely have had a population that was similar, of roughly 3 Million at the peak, and around 2 Million at the fall of _Osgiliath _during the _Kin Strife_ of the 15th Century, _Third Age._

But I bring that up also to point-out:

Most of the population of Gondor lived in a region quite mountainous, like that of Etruria and Latinuim of which Rome was to eventually rule, and which functioned as a kind of “model” for _The Númenórean Kingdoms in Middle-earth_, whether in the _Second Age _or _Third Age_.

You don’t get a lot of Canals in such areas.

As a last comment upon Aqueducts and _Minas Tirith_:

1) It likely didn’t need them, given Tolkien’s predilection for large rocks with huge numbers of Springs issuing from them.

2) Even with a large natural water supply (like many of the Towns of the Rockies and Alps, where you have cities built around a large and *very abundant* spring (Or, in the Osarks, like Hot Springs, Arkansas, which provided Hot-and-Cold running water to a population prior to such things being common), Minas Tirith probably _*did*_ have aqueducts. Given its smaller size as a city (with a peak population of between 250,000 and 500,000), it would only have needed one or two. The mountain behind it would have produced a natural means of providing an aqueduct that then fed most of the Pelennor.

#2 above also brings us to another point: Sanitation.

Rome just dumped its sewage into the Tibur. But other cities that had Aqueducts supporting them, that didn’t dump their sewage into a river, tended to have efluivial swamps into which the sewage dumped, which then produced enormous quantities of fertilizer for nearby agriculture, and purified the water for downstream usage where such swamps/fens/mires emptied into a waterway.

_Minas Anor_ and _Minas Ithil_ both likely used such a method, as did other “Urban” or Township Settlements in Gondor, with that of _Minas Anor/Tirith _located to the South of the City, flowing to the West of _Harlond,_ such that here you MIGHT have seen a Canal where SOME goods were taken between the swampier regions where the Sewers of _Minas Tirith _emptied and _Harlond_, as a better means of transporting the Agricultural Goods of _Harondor_ and _South Ithilien _to the major Urban Centers near _Minas Anor/Tirith _and the _Pelennor _(_The Pelennor _likely held as many people as _Minas Anor/Tirith_, as it was nearly capable of supporting the entire population of _Minas Tirith _in the latter Third Age).

MB


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## Ugluk (Oct 4, 2022)

Any need for waterborne transport in Gondor would be met by the


Olorgando said:


> Even shipping canals predate industrialization (if by that is meant the industrial revolution starting in the UK in the late 18th century) by thousands of years. Irrigation canals were known in Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus Valley Culture (aka Harappa Culture) 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. That was already known in JRRT's time.


Irrigation canals for the most part (which I have seen first hand in the case of the Harappan examples), along which small boats could progress. Nothing like the major networks of transportation canals as were constructed in Europe and North America in the 18th and 19th centuries. Both used the rivers themselves and their tributaries and distributaries for transport. The Egyptians did dig one major canal under Pharaoh Necho from the Nile delta to the bitter lakes and from their to the head of the Gulf of Suez.

There was the Grand Canal in China, begun in the 5th century BC and completed in the 13th century AD, still the longest canal in the world. But that took advantage of the unique geography of the Chinese coastal plain and the availability of a huge labour force (China's population was ~50 million in the 5th C BC and ~100 million by the 13th C AD and of course unified control and efficient administration. But this is outside the cultural-geographic referents


Matthew Bailey said:


> This is a subject that I have given *ENORMOUS thought to*.
> 
> I am still working on it, but I have a work in progress regarding the Infrastructure and Engineering _*that *_*must exist* in order for the structures and populations to exist that we see in Middle-earth, _especially_ concerning the _Second Age _and _Early-Third Age Númenórean Nations._
> 
> ...



The Greyflood as far as Tharbad was also mentioned in Unfinished Tales as a route for riverine traffic. Originally the ford probably marked the upstream limit of navigability. The town would have serviced both the Great South Road and the river


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## Eljorahir (Oct 5, 2022)

I know of a certain Wizard's Vale that came to be heavily irrigated. Though, I suppose the hydraulic engineering of the Ents at Isengard is not quite the type of canal construction you're looking for.


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## grendel (Oct 5, 2022)

They mention dikes for drainage when describing Farmer Maggot's property; also Deadman's Dike up near Lake Evendim. So they obviously had SOME artificial channeling of water. But no, not much, apparently.


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## Ugluk (Oct 5, 2022)

Irrigation dykes and drainage can be quite small, less than a metre high - think of paddy fields.

Deadmans Dike probably referred to an earthen fortification see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offa's_Dyke


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Oct 5, 2022)

Yes, like Helm's Dike.


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## Matthew Bailey (Oct 11, 2022)

Ugluk said:


> Any need for waterborne transport in Gondor would be met by the
> 
> Irrigation canals for the most part (which I have seen first hand in the case of the Harappan examples), along which small boats could progress. Nothing like the major networks of transportation canals as were constructed in Europe and North America in the 18th and 19th centuries. Both used the rivers themselves and their tributaries and distributaries for transport. The Egyptians did dig one major canal under Pharaoh Necho from the Nile delta to the bitter lakes and from their to the head of the Gulf of Suez.
> 
> ...


That is my point.

That the River itself was navigable, and there were no further populations where a canal would have been appropriate. The ground likely rises too fast into _Eregion _and _Khazad-Dûm _for a canal to be useful. Now, in the _3rd Age_, _Cardolan_ could have had settlements in _Enedwaith _and _Minhiraith _where a canal could have been a convenient means of transportation of goods.

And even earlier than this, in the _Second Age_, _Númenór_, when it began its large fleet-building program, and used the Forests of Middle-earth (including the planting of Tree-Crops to be harvested hundreds of years later), a canal or canals to the Ship-Building locations, or to the river, and thence to those regions, would likely have been a means to collect the lumber.

We see these in the Early Americas, and some in the Old World (Northern & Eastern Europe), along the Rhine and Danube, where the Canals were solely for the moving of felled trunks of trees to sites for their use as shipbuilding or cutting into lumber for other construction (Those used by the Roman’s for that purpose tended to be temporary, as the Romans did not seem to think Strategically about planning for their shipbuilding as occurred later for Ocean-Going Ships).

MB


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