The Tigris River () is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq.
The Tigris unites with the Euphrates near Basra, and from this junction to the Persian Gulf the mass of moving water is known as the Shatt-al-Arab. According to Pliny and other ancient historians, the Euphrates originally had its outlet into the sea separate from that of the Tigris.
Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, stands on the banks of the Tigris. The port city of Basra straddles the Shatt al-Arab. In ancient times, many of the great cities of Mesopotamia stood on or near the Tigris, drawing water from it to irrigate the civilization of the Sumerians. Notable Tigris-side cities included Nineveh, Ctesiphon, and Seleucia, while the city of Lagash was irrigated by the Tigris via a canal dug around 2400 BC. Saddam Hussein's hometown, Tikrit, is also located on the river and derives its name from it.
River trade declined in importance during the 20th century as the Basra-Baghdad-Mosul railway, a unfinished portion of the Berlin to Baghdad Railway and roads took over much of the freight traffic. The river was prone to flooding, drying, and silting.
Pahlavi tigr means "arrow", in the same family as Old Persian tigra- "pointed" (compare tigra-xauda), Modern Persian têz, tiz "sharp". However, it does not appear that this was the original name of the river, but that it (like the Semitic forms of the name) was coined as an imitation of the indigenous Sumerian name. This is similar to the Persian name of the Euphrates, Ufratu, after the Akkadian name Purattu.
Another name for the Tigris, used from the time of the Persian Empire, is Arvand Rud, literally Arvand River. Today the name Arvand Rud is the Persian name for the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers which in Arabic is called Shatt al-Arab.
The name of the Tigris in languages that have been important to the region: , Iraq]] {|class="wikitable" !Language !Name for Tigris |- |Akkadian | |- |Arabic |, ; حدٌاقل, Ḥudaqil |- |Aramaic |, |- |Armenian |, |- |Greek |, ; , |- |Hebrew |, Biblical |- |Hurrian | |- |Kurdish | |- |Persian |Old Persian:; Middle Persian:; Modern Persian: |- |Sumerian | |- |Syriac | |- |Turkish | |}
Recent Turkish damming of the river has been the subject of some controversy, for both its environmental effects within Turkey and its potential to reduce the flow of water downstream. Mosul Dam, located on the Tigris, is the largest dam in Iraq.
In Sumerian mythology, the Tigris was created by the god Enki, who ejaculated and filled the river with flowing water.
In Hittite and Hurrian mythology, Aranzah (or Aranzahas in the Hittite nominative form) is the Hurrian name of the Tigris River, which was divinized. He was the son of Kumarbi and the brother of Teshub and Tašmišu, one of the three gods spat out of Kumarbi's mouth onto Mount Kanzuras. Later he colluded with Anu and the Teshub to destroy Kumarbi (The Kumarbi Cycle).
Category:Mesopotamia Category:Rivers of Turkey Category:Rivers of Iraq Category:International rivers of Asia * Category:Rivers of Syria Category:Fertile Crescent Category:Tur Abdin
af:Tigrisrivier ar:دجلة arc:ܕܩܠܬ ast:Tigris az:Dəclə bn:টাইগ্রিস zh-min-nan:Tigris Hô be:Рака Тыгр bs:Tigris br:Tigris bg:Тигър (река) ca:Tigris cv:Тигр (юханшыв) cs:Tigris cy:Afon Tigris da:Tigris de:Tigris et:Tigris el:Τίγρης ποταμός es:Tigris eo:Tigriso eu:Tigris fa:دجله fr:Tigre (fleuve) fy:Tigris gl:Río Tigris ko:티그리스 강 hy:Տիգրիս hi:दजला नदी hr:Tigris id:Sungai Tigris is:Tígris it:Tigri he:חידקל jv:Kali Tigris ka:ტიგრი sw:Hidekeli ku:Dîcle la:Tigris (flumen) lv:Tigra lt:Tigras (upė) ln:Tigre hu:Tigris (folyó) mk:Тигар (река) ml:ടൈഗ്രിസ് mr:तैग्रिस नदी ms:Tigris mn:Тигр мөрөн nl:Tigris ja:チグリス川 no:Tigris nn:Tigris pnb:دریاۓ دجلہ pl:Tygrys (rzeka) pt:Rio Tigre ro:Tigru (râu) ru:Тигр (река) sah:Тигрис scn:Tigri simple:Tigris sk:Tigris sl:Tigris sr:Тигар (река) sh:Tigris fi:Tigris sv:Tigris ta:டைகிரிசு ஆறு tl:Tigris th:แม่น้ำไทกริส tg:Дарёи Тигрис tr:Dicle Nehri uk:Тигр (річка) ur:دریائے دجلہ vi:Tigris diq:Roê Dicley zh:底格里斯河This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
The World News (WN) Network, has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to user privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for wn.com, as well as e-mail newsletters.
We do not collect personally identifiable information about you, except when you provide it to us. For example, if you submit an inquiry to us or sign up for our newsletter, you may be asked to provide certain information such as your contact details (name, e-mail address, mailing address, etc.).
When you submit your personally identifiable information through wn.com, you are giving your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as set forth in this Privacy Policy. If you would prefer that we not collect any personally identifiable information from you, please do not provide us with any such information. We will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to third parties without your consent, except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy.
Except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy, we will use the information you provide us only for the purpose of responding to your inquiry or in connection with the service for which you provided such information. We may forward your contact information and inquiry to our affiliates and other divisions of our company that we feel can best address your inquiry or provide you with the requested service. We may also use the information you provide in aggregate form for internal business purposes, such as generating statistics and developing marketing plans. We may share or transfer such non-personally identifiable information with or to our affiliates, licensees, agents and partners.
We may retain other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Such third parties may be provided with access to personally identifiable information needed to perform their functions, but may not use such information for any other purpose.
In addition, we may disclose any information, including personally identifiable information, we deem necessary, in our sole discretion, to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal proceeding or governmental request.
We do not want you to receive unwanted e-mail from us. We try to make it easy to opt-out of any service you have asked to receive. If you sign-up to our e-mail newsletters we do not sell, exchange or give your e-mail address to a third party.
E-mail addresses are collected via the wn.com web site. Users have to physically opt-in to receive the wn.com newsletter and a verification e-mail is sent. wn.com is clearly and conspicuously named at the point of
collection.If you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each newsletter or communication or by e-mailing us at michaelw(at)wn.com
The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during registration and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100 percent secure, however. Therefore, though we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
If we decide to change our e-mail practices, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we think appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
If we make material changes to our e-mail practices, we will notify you here, by e-mail, and by means of a notice on our home page.
The advertising banners and other forms of advertising appearing on this Web site are sometimes delivered to you, on our behalf, by a third party. In the course of serving advertisements to this site, the third party may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. For more information on cookies, you can visit www.cookiecentral.com.
As we continue to develop our business, we might sell certain aspects of our entities or assets. In such transactions, user information, including personally identifiable information, generally is one of the transferred business assets, and by submitting your personal information on Wn.com you agree that your data may be transferred to such parties in these circumstances.