Page - 9 - in The Power of Urban Water - Studies in premodern urbanism

1 Introduction 9 Outlook The present volume touches ondiversewater issues that are at the heart of urbanity. To date, there are only a very few systematic water studies that comprise several of the constituting elements of urbanity (Fig. 1). Most often, comprehensive studies cover large regions, so that they cannot look at the interrelationships of different factors.28 The present volume cannot fill thisgapeither.However, it is intendedtostimulate futurestudiesonsinglecitiesorsmall-scale, regional water networks. It is obvious that this can only be done through multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches. Archaeology, geology, botany, zoology, but also ancient and medieval history, philology, art history or even religious science are essential disciplines for investigating the fluid relationships between society and the environment, between urbaniza- tionandwater inpre-modern times. However, we arewell aware of the fact that the cultures of antiquity and of the following periods (the so-called ‘MiddleAges’) never existed in isolation, butdevelopedvia transcultural contacts: theancientMediterranean inexchangewithAfrica, theNearandFarEast, andNorth- ern Europe, the Middle Ages with North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. In such a global perspective, traditional periodisations such as ‘Antiquity’ and ‘MiddleAges’ – the latter with a specifically Christian connotation – have to be questioned.29 Thewidening of the per- spective is of primary importance, too, for the topic of urbanization andwater, becausewater has manifold material and immaterial manifestations, especially in Islamic culture, which change or expand the Latin Europeanperspective ofusus aquarorum. This is not to deny lines of tradition fromantiquity, but towiden theperspective for future researchon the topic.30 Bibliography Abel 2017:M.Abel,Water as thePhilosophical andOrganizationalBasis for anUrbanCommunity Plan: theCase ofMaillezaisAbbey, in:M.Abel (ed.),MedievalUrbanPlanning. TheMonastery andBeyond (Cambridge 2017) 8–45. Augsburg2018: TheCity of Augsburg (ed.), TheWaterManagement of theCity of Augsburg.Nomination for the UNESCOWorld.WorldHeritageCandidature.Heritage ListNominationDossier (Augsburg2018). Bartlomeet al. 1999:N.Bartlome–E. Flückiger–M.Körner (eds.), StadtzerstörungundWiederaufbau: ZerstörungendurchErdbeben, Feuer undWasser (Bern 1999). Bauer 2018: T. Bauer,Warumeskein islamischesMittelalter gab.DasErbederAntikeundderOrient (München 2018). BayerischeGesellschaft fürUnterwasserarchäologie 2011: BayerischeGesellschaft fürUnterwasserarchäologie (ed.), ArchäologiederBrücken. Vorgeschichte, Antike,Mittelalter, Neuzeit, Archaeologyof bridges. Prehistory, Antiquity,MiddleAges,ModernEra (Regensburg2011). Blackman2001:D. R. Blackman (ed.), Frontinus’ Legacy. Essayson Frontinus’Deaquis urbisRomae (AnnArbor 2001). Blackman2008:D. J. Blackman,Sea Transport, Part 2:Harbors, in: J. P.Oleson (ed.), TheOxfordHandbookof EngineeringandTechnology in theClassicalWorld (Oxford2008)638–670. Bradley–Stow2012:M.Bradley–K.Stow (eds.), Rome, PollutionandPropriety. Dirt, DiseaseandHygiene in theEternal City fromAntiquity toModernity (Cambridge2012). Brantz 2017:D.Brantz, Assembling theMultitude:QuestionsAboutAgency in theUrbanEnvironment,Urban History44, 2017, 130–136. Burdett –Rode–Groth2018: R.Burdett –P. Rode–M.Groth,Dynamicsof theUrbanAge, in: R. Burdett – P. Rode (eds.), ShapingCities in anUrbanAge (NewYork2018) 10–24. 28 Dessales 2013;Rogers 2018. 29 Fauvelle-Aymar 2013; Bauer 2018. 30 Magnusson 2001;Walton 2006; Schattner –Valdés Fernández 2017; Czeguhn et al. 2018. See the comparative presentationof pre-modernwatermanagement systems inAugsburg 2018, 334–338.