5000 years ago residential areas in Mesopotamia (nowadays Iraq) were provided with water through canals between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Those people built and maintained an ingenious network of canals and pipes.
Iraqs’ origin lay to the south, where the rivers Tigris and Eufrates search a way to the sea. That is why this land was called "two stream land", a translation of the word meso–potamia. About 5000 bC several Sumerian states fused into Babylon and Assyria.
                                                                                          Urfa

Sennacherib (704-681 bC), son of Sargon II, concurred Juda in 701 bC and destroyed Babylon in 689 bC. He left Dur-sharrukin, his father's residence and made of Ninivé the capital of his Assyrian empire (in 700 bC), using lots of slaves and servs.
He has constructed amongst others:
* a wall, double, 25 m high, with 15 gateways (the gate of Nergal is the finest);
* a canal (15 km long) for water supply. It is conducted over an aqueduct of 280 m long, 22 m wide. For the construction they used 2 million block!