Amusing Dunia: The Norias of Hama

The norias of the ancient Syrian metropolis of Hama are seventeen historic waterwheels located along the Orontes River that appointment dorsum to the Byzantine Era , although locals claim they are older still.

The H2O wheels , called noria , are business office of the city’s now-defunct irrigation arrangement , together with were designed to elevator H2O from the river together with deed it through aqueducts to agricultural fields together with people’s home. The wheels were powered yesteryear the electrical flow of the flowing river. As the wheels moved , wooden buckets placed at the periphery of the wheels scooped H2O out from the river together with emptied it into aqueducts. Gravity thence Pb the H2O along aqueducts to its finish inwards diverse parts of the city.

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Photo credit: Alessandra Kocman/Flickr

It’s hard to nation when together with where the showtime noria came into existence. Ancient writings of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio , a Roman armed forces engineer , suggests that they powerfulness bring been invented yesteryear the Romans , likely inwards the 1st century BC. Other sources advise norias were developed inwards Bharat inwards the 5th or 4th century BC , afterwards which the applied scientific discipline spread to the due west together with China. Another possibility of root is Hellenic Republic only about the belatedly tertiary or early on 2d century B.C , equally ancient manuscripts suggests.

In whatsoever instance , norias were eventually adopted yesteryear Muslim engineers who made sure enough improvements to the device , for instance , the add-on of the flywheel mechanism used to smoothen out the delivery of power. Norias became increasingly pop throughout the Middle East. Some of the norias used inwards the medieval Islamic globe were equally large equally twenty meters inwards diameter together with could elevator equally much equally ii ,500 liters of H2O per minute. The norias at Hama are the largest surviving representative of this medieval technology.

At 1 betoken , at that topographic point were to a greater extent than than 30 norias inwards Hama , but solely 17 of the master copy H2O wheels bring survived into the 21st century. They are notwithstanding inwards expert working status , although the H2O from these wheels is no longer used.

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