Una disputa por agua de riego en el Šarq al-Andalus: las alquerías de Ṭurruš y Qarṣ (Sagunto), 619 H/1222

Abstract

Water from the Palancia River has been used to irrigate crops since the Middle Ages through a great canal known as the Séquia Major de Sagunt. This channel is mentioned in the only Valencian document prior to Christian conquest in the thirteenth century: a friendly agreement between the villages of Ṭurruš and Qarṣ, inscribed in Islamic law, which aimed to resolve the ongoing dispute between them regarding how water how water should be distributed. The document initiated a field study based on hydraulic archaeology that made it possible to locate Qarṣ huerta farmlands and the structures that made up the system, revealing how the water distribution and the application of usage rights by the communities worked. From the study we concluded that the Qarṣ village did not build the channel but was added to its irrigation system later. As a result, it only had rights to surplus water.