Large water-raising wheel (norias of Hama)
Gran noria hidráulica (norias de Hama)
- Date
- c. 1100 · confidence low
- Place
- Hama, Syria (Orontes River)
- Credited to
- Hydraulic engineers of Syria and al-Andalus
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
Wooden wheels up to some 21 m in diameter, turned by the current, raising water into aqueducts to irrigate and supply cities. The culmination of Islamic agricultural hydraulics.
The largest of the surviving wheels (al-Muhammadiyya) dates from 1361; water wheels have existed at Hama since Byzantine times.
What it led to
- the Islamic agricultural revolution: citrus, rice, sugar cane and cotton in the Mediterranean
- the water wheels of Córdoba, Murcia and Toledo and Andalusi irrigation
- the hydraulic engineering of al-Jazari
Built on
- Roman waterwheel
- saqiya (animal-powered waterwheel)
Made possible
- Arab agricultural revolutionc. 800
- Juanelo's Artifice (raising water from the Tagus)1565-1581
- Andalusi irrigation
- al-Jazari's machines