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Bible Encyclopedias
Tigris
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
or Tigris, one of the four rivers of Paradise, twice mentioned in Scripture under the name of Hiddekel (; ), which signifies 'the rapid Tigris.'
The Tigris rises in the mountains of Armenia, about fifteen miles south of the sources of the Euphrates, and pursues nearly a regular course south-east till its junction with that river at Korna, fifty miles above Basrah (Bassorah). The Tigris is navigable for boats of twenty or thirty tons' burden as far as the mouth of the Odorneh, but no further; and the commerce of Mosul is consequently carried on by rafts supported on inflated sheep or goats' skins. The Tigris, between Bagdad and Korna, is, on an average, about two hundred yards wide; at Mosul its breadth does not exceed three hundred feet. The banks are steep, and overgrown for the most part with brushwood, the resort of lions and other wild animals. The middle part of the river's course, from Mosul to Korna, once the seat of high culture and the residence of mighty kings, is now desolate, covered with the relics of ancient greatness in the shape of fortresses, mounds, and dams, which had been erected for the defense and irrigation of the country. At the ruins of Nimrod, eight leagues below Mosul, is a stone dam quite across the river, which, when the stream is low, stands considerably above the surface, and forms a small cataract; but when the stream is swollen, no part of it is visible, the water rushing over it like a rapid, and boiling up with great impetuosity. It is a work of great skill and labor, and now venerable for its antiquity. At some short distance below there is another Zikr (dyke), but not so high, and more ruined than the former. The river rises twice in the year: the first and great rise is in April, and is caused by the melting of the snows in the mountains of Armenia; the other is in November, and is produced by the periodical rains.
Public Domain.
Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Tigris'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/kbe/t/tigris.html.
