[53] It was visited and planned by Sarre and Herzfeld in 1907; Sarre, Reise in Mesopotamien, in the Zeitschrift der Gesch. für Erdkunde zu Berlin, 1909, No. 7, p. 429. Sarre pronounces the greater part of the ruins to date from the time of Justinian.
[54] Ibn Ḥauḳal is, I think, the first to speak of it. Idrîsî says that it had busy markets and that much traffic went through it. They wrote respectively in the tenth and twelfth centuries.
[55] Zur antiken Topographie der Palmyrene, p. 39.
[56] The reference is not, however, certain: Moritz, op. cit. p. 35.
[57] Sachau travelled up the left bank of the Khâbûr, and should therefore have crossed the course of the canal, but he makes no mention of it.
[58] I should conjecture that on the Euphrates as on the Tigris the disappearance of the settled population dates from the terrible disaster of the Mongol invasion.
[59] I looked carefully for any trace of a big canal opposite Ṣâliḥîyeh and saw none.
[60] Anabasis, Bk. I. ch. 5, 9.
[61] With the doubtful contribution made by Ammianus Marcellinus to the question, I have dealt in the Appendix to this chapter.
[62] Amm. Mar., Bk. XXIV. ch. i. 6.