Interesting this pops up on the front page now, I just listened to the "In our time" podcast episode about this civilization a couple of days ago. Baader-Meinhof strikes again!

Baader Meinhof alert. I had never heard of this civilisation, and their foggara water system, until I listened to the In Our Time episode a couple of days ago, and now here they are on HN.

Very strange article.

No word of the slavery that maintains the underground channel

A perfect example of where we are going if we consume non renewable resources. And yet the article isn’t cheap in praising their awareness

Repeating many times the same Roman perception.

> Today it is a ruin, but one that remains unmistakably alive.

wat? why is it still alive? the paragraph just ended like that, no further explanation? I get the feeling I should not trust these words. (Looking at the pre-2023 articles by the same writer, they are in a very different writing style. Sigh.)

That "ABOVE: aerial view of fortified structure of Sharba" picture though is amazing. Like it was swallowed by the sand, or it's an outgrowth, a welt being covered by a skin of sand.

And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat (foggaras) is intriguing.