L'Eau primordiale - Leçons de Mésopotamie

Traversed by the two rivers associated with the biblical Paradise, whose power and dangers may have inspired the myth of the Flood, ancient Mesopotamia is also the land where irrigation was invented and developed for the first time. These early experiments in human control of water, achieved through the artificial transformation of the natural environment, gave rise in Mesopotamia to the first known hydraulic works (early canals, bridges, aqueducts, pipe networks, artificial lakes, etc.). They were a source of change for the territory and its inhabitants, whose long-term strengths and weaknesses will be examined. Deliberately relying solely on the Louvre’s own collections—whose richness makes such a project possible—the exhibition is set within the department’s permanent galleries to explore the entire body of Near Eastern antiquities through the lens of water and its environmental lessons from past to present.