Shatt al-Arab
— — the river two rivers become.
Not only on a wall.
“The river two rivers become, after the Tigris meets the Euphrates above al-Qurnah and the water finds one last name before the sea. On the Iranian side it runs past Abadan and Khorramshahr, through what was once the largest date palm grove on earth. Some of it has come back.
Shatt al-Arab, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Shatt al-Arab, called Arvand Rud on Persian maps, is the river formed where the Tigris and Euphrates meet near al-Qurnah in southern Iraq and run about 200 kilometres southeast to the Persian Gulf. Its lower reach traces the border between Iran and Iraq, with the Iranian cities of Abadan and Khorramshahr on the eastern bank in Khuzestan Province. The waterway has carried Mesopotamian trade for millennia and remains the only Iraqi outlet to the Gulf.
Tidal salinity has crept upstream since the 1970s, as dams on the Tigris and Euphrates reduced freshwater flow and Gulf water pushed further inland. The Karun River, joining at Khorramshahr from the Zagros, was historically the largest tributary; its diversion has compounded the salt. Date palms, which once numbered an estimated seventeen to eighteen million along these banks, suffered catastrophic loss during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980 to 1988 and to the salinity that followed.
Harvest along the Shatt runs from late September through November, when the surviving Iranian groves around Abadan and Minoo Island bring in the year's crop. Khuzestan is among the hottest inhabited places on earth, with summer afternoons regularly above 50°C and winter mornings mild enough to work the orchards. The river's tidal rhythm – two highs and two lows daily, felt as far inland as Basra – sets the pace of small-boat traffic on both banks.