| Duration: | 12 Hour(s) - 0 Minute(s) |
| Tour Category: | Half Day Tour |
The inhabitants of the marshes live in houses built of reeds in an elegant architectural manner, as they have built them on thousands of islands, each of which contains a city or village, the most important and most famous of which is Chabayish, the city located on the left bank of the Euphrates River. The streets of this city were transformed into canals and paths, and the mashhouf (a small boat made of reeds and coated with bitumen) became their only means of transporting from one island to another through the waterways. After the natural islands were all used, they created artificial floating islands, which they built by pressing layers of sedge and earth and they called them (Chabacha). This way of living was mentioned in the Sumerian texts seven thousand years ago. It is interesting that the Sumerians have a legend about the origin of the land, as they thought that the planet originated the same way as they make these artificial islands. The residents of Chabayich depend for the greater part of their life resources on water fishing, collecting reeds, and weaving mats called (Bawari) and exporting them to the rest of the country.
