Water-S in the Western Indian City (10-16th C).

Presenter:

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Abstract

In South Asia, water has been largely responsible for the shaping of the urban landscape. Not just cities like Varanasi, Ayodhya or Dwarka which religious narratives has been woven around water and its spiritual dimension, not just port towns like Calcutta, Calicut or Khambhat (Cambay) which economic dynamism relied on their water/land connection, but also other South Asian cities have prominent waterscapes and water structures.

A rich bibliography on water monuments in South Asia provides today extensive data on individual structures such as well and step wells, tanks and lakes, tahkhana-s and garden installations etc. My paper proposes to look at water at the larger scale of the city, and to consider connections, interactions and concurrences that participated to the construction of waterscapes and water management systems in an urban context. It aims to show that the development of water structures built in and around the city participated to the shaping of an urban identity, whereas the inhabitants could access multiple waters for multiple uses.

The paper presents the results of my recent and ongoing archaeological and historical work on access to water in the Western India cities, especially Ahmedabad, Bharuch and Dabhoi.