volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

no The Nahrawdn Canal.
passed several rocks standing up abruptly in mid-stream,
and in many places the violent eddies and swirls proclaimed
submerged dangerous rocks or obstructions of
some sort. We drifted for a couple of hours and then
the striking building of the Imam Muhammad of Dur
came into sight on the east bank. We passed in safety
through the rocks of Dur and then drifted slowly along
by the side of a large island full of pretty stretches of
cultivation, and when we reached the southern end of
it we had a fine view of the " Imam Dur " and of the
modern village of Dur, which looked very well in the
light of the setting sun. The tomb of this Shi'ite Imam
seemed to me to be like the so-called Tomb of Zubedah
at Baghdad, that is to say, it has a square base out of
which rises a conical tower with the quaint decoration
common to such buildings at Baghdad, Hillah, Kufah,
Kill, etc.^ It stands on a low hill between the river
and the village, and is said by Felix Jones to be visible
from Takrit. There seems to be little doubt that there
has been a town at Dur from time immemorial. There
is no proof that the district about it is the " plain of
Dura," mentioned in Daniel iii, i, as Rich thought.
A town stood there in Parthian times, and Ammianus
(xxv, 6, 9) mentions Dura in a.d. 363, and Polybins
(v. 52) in B.C. 220. Dur is frequently mentioned by the
Arab geographers, who call it " Dur al-'Arabaya," or
" Dur al-Harith,"^ and it was famous as the town at the
head of the great " Cut of Chosroes " (Al-Katul al-
Kisrawi) or the Nahrawan Canal.' This canal started on
its course to the south on the east bank of the Tigris, and
the Ishaki Canal began its course on the west bank.
Opposite Dur the river split up into a number of channels
through which the water flowed at great speed, but it
would have been comparatively easy to bridge them.
Here Jovian and his soldiers are said to have crossed
the Tigris after the death of Julian. A little below Dur,
^ A drawing of it is given by Rich. (Narrative, vol. ii, p. 148.)
^ E.g., Ibn Hawkal, p. 166 ; Yakut, ii, p. 615.
^ On the track of this famous Canal, see Felix Jones, Bombay
Records, vol. xliii, p. 55 ff.