The Recursive Yax-Artes
Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 2:28 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syr_Darya wrote:
<<The Syr Darya is a river in Central Asia, sometimes known as the Jaxartes or Yaxartes from its Ancient Greek name Ιαξάρτης. The Greek name is derived from Old Persian, Yakhsha Arta ("Great Pearly"), a reference to the color of the river's water. In medieval Islamic writings, the river is uniformly known as Sayhoun (سيحون) - after one of the four rivers of Paradise.
- A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam's,
from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius
vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
The name, which comes from Persian and has long been used in the East, is a relatively recent one in western writings; prior to the early 20th century, the river was known by various versions of its ancient Greek name. Following the Battle of Jaxartes the river marked the northernmost limit of Alexander of Macedon's conquests. Greek historians have claimed that here in 329 BC he founded the city Alexandria Eschate (literally, "Alexandria the Furthest") as a permanent garrison. The city is now known as Khujand. In reality, he had just renamed the city of Cyropolis founded by king Cyrus the Great of Persia, more than two centuries earlier.
The river rises in two headstreams in the Tian Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan and eastern Uzbekistan and flows for some 2,212 kilometres west and north-west Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan to the remains of the Aral Sea. The Syr Darya drains an area of over 800,000 square kilometres. Its annual flow is a very modest 37 cubic kilometres per year. Along its course, the Syr Darya irrigates the most fertile cotton-growing region in the whole of Central Asia.
An extensive system of canals, many built in the 18th century by the Uzbek Khanate of Kokand, spans the regions the river flows through. Massive expansion of irrigation canals during the Soviet period, to irrigate cotton fields, caused ecological damage to the area, with the river drying up long before reaching the Aral Sea which, as a result, has shrunk to a small remnant of its former size. With millions of people now settled in these cotton areas, it is not clear how the situation can be rectified.>>
