I found this picture in the Encyclopedia of the Orient.
It show a side of the city facing the Tigris river. I like this picture because the house in the lower right of the image, the one with two floors, looks like the house where I was born. May be it is the very same house.
At the seasons of flood, the lower floor get filled of water. But at summer, it feels nice and cool.
18 comments:
Truth teller,
That's a rather attractive way of changing the subject.
Lynnette in Minnesota
One thing I have puzzled over is how Iraqis in previous centries survived the summer heat before there was electricity and air conditioners.
It looks like the lowest floor of that house is below the entrance, a "basement". Usually a basement is located below ground level, but that one looks like it has one which is below the water level of the river sometimes!
Do most houses in Mosul have basements, with floors below ground level?
in the south the old houses had high windows that were angled to take advantage of the summer winds, and set a cross breeze through the house. And people slept through mid-afternoon.
Very lovely picture.
I've been searching for tourist information on Mosul with little luck. One tourist who passed through Mosul since the war was a Russian hitchhiker in 2003. Here is the very interesting story of that adventure.
Link
Another crazy guy who wandered through Mosul in 2003:
Link
Another account of tourists visiting Mosul, this one much much older...
Link
Truth teller,
I feel as if we are being rude and ignoring you. We seem to be paying more attention to Hurria in the other post. I don't have any nice pictures to show you, so I will think of something innocuous to ask you.
Hmmm, do you like old (American) movies? If you do and you haven't seen "Casablanca" or "The Sting", I would recommend them. If you like newer movies, I just saw "The Aviator". I would recommend it as well.
Lynnette in Minnesota
Possible future of Iraq ?
http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/
Truth Teller, can you please tell us more about this place ?
Thank you
waldschrat
50 years ago, all the houses in Mosul had a basement. Usually below the ground level, the ground and the walls of the basement were covered on the inside by marble. It was really cool.
Before few years, when the dam of Mosul was built. The water table elevated and most of these basement were filled with water. Now the new buildings have no basements.
I've been trying to explore Iraq using the internet and found this site which has pictures of many archeological sites:
Link to archeological photos
Truth Teller -
Here in Sacramento most houses are built without basements for the same reason (the water table is too high, the city is near two rivers). A few houses have basements, and I think the building code permits them if they have automatic pumps ("sump pumps") to remove water if flooding begins.
Thank you for the photograph. The various shades of ochre are nice.
One school I went to had all but one of its classrooms on the ground floor, or one floor up. The one basement classroom was the only cool room in hot weather.
Michael in Framingham
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