Kingdom of Kush The saqiya was known in Meroitic Nubia (
Kingdom of Kush) from the 3rd century BC, where it was known as
Kolē. The
Ancient Nubians used the saqiya to improve irrigation during the
Meroitic period. The introduction of this machine had a decisive influence on agriculture as this wheel lifted water 3 to 8 metres faster than the
Shaduf, which was the previous irrigation device in the Kingdom. The Shaduf relied on
human work while the saqiya was driven by buffalos or other animals. which is a combination or the words
ara (speedy or a spoked[wheel]) and
ghaṭṭa "pot" in
Sanskrit. That device was either used like a sāqiyah, to lift water from a well while being powered by
oxen or people, or it was used to
irrigate fields when it was powered in the manner of a water-wheel by being placed in a stream or large irrigation channel. In the latter case we usually speak of a noria as opposed to a sāqiyah. In
Ranjit Sitaram Pandit's translation of
Kalhana's 12th century chronicle
Rajatarangini, this mechanism is alluded to when describing a
yantra used for drawing water from a well. According to
Jagtar Singh Grewal, the introduction of artificial irrigation by well (
Sakiyah) in the 11th century in Punjab after the Turkic conquest of the area allowed for an increased population in the northern sections of the region's
doabs.
Egypt , painted by
David Roberts in 1838 Paddle-driven water-lifting wheels had appeared in
ancient Egypt by the 4th century BC. According to
John Peter Oleson, both the compartmented wheel and the hydraulic noria appeared in
Egypt by the 4th century BC, with the saqiya being invented there a century later. This is supported by archeological finds at
Faiyum, where the oldest archeological evidence of a
water wheel has been found, in the form of a saqiya dating back to the 3rd century BC. A
papyrus dating to the 2nd century BC also found in Faiyum mentions a water wheel used for irrigation, a 2nd-century BC
fresco found at
Alexandria depicts a compartmented saqiya, and the writings of
Callixenus of Rhodes mention the use of a saqiya in the
Ptolemaic Kingdom during the reign of
Ptolemy IV Philopator in the late 3rd century BC. Early Mediterranean evidence of a saqiya is from a tomb painting in Ptolemaic Egypt that dates to the 2nd century BC. It shows a pair of yoked oxen driving a compartmented waterwheel. The saqiya gear system is already shown fully developed to the point that "modern Egyptian devices are virtually identical". It is assumed that the scientists of the
Musaeum, at the time the most active Greek research center, may have been involved in its implementation. An episode from
Caesar's Civil War in 48 BC tells of how Caesar's enemies employed geared waterwheels to pour sea water from elevated places on the position of the trapped Romans. The saqiya was sufficiently iconic in the Egyptian mind that a style of earring named after it was produced between the 1830s and 1950s, which is still worn today by enthusiasts and collectors of vintage Egyptian jewelry.
Roman Empire Philo of Byzantium wrote of such a device in the 2nd century BC; the historian
Vitruvius mentioned them around 30 BC; remains of tread wheel driven, bucket chains, dating from the 2nd century BC, have been found in baths at
Pompeii, and Costa, Italy; fragments of the buckets and a lead pipe, from a crank handle operated, chain driven,
bilge pump, were found one of the 1st century AD
Nemi ships, of
Lake Nemi; and a preserved 2nd century AD example, used to raise water from a well, to an aquifer in London, has also been unearthed.
Talmudic sources The term used by
Talmudic sources for a saqiya is '
antelayyā-wheel.
Medieval Islamic realm 's advanced saqiya, both animal- and water-wheel-driven (1206). A manuscript by
Ismail al-Jazari featured an intricate device based on a saqiya, powered in part by the pull of an
ox walking on the roof of an upper-level reservoir, but also by
water falling onto the spoon-shaped pallets of a
water wheel placed in a lower-level
reservoir. Complex saqiyas consisting of more than 200 separate components were used extensively by
Muslim inventors and
engineers in the
medieval Islamic world. The mechanical
flywheel, used to smooth out the delivery of power from a driving device to a driven machine and, essentially, to allow lifting water from far greater depths (up to 200 metres), was employed by
ibn Bassal (
fl. 1038–1075), of
al-Andalus. The first known use of a
crank in a saqiya was featured in another one of al-Jazari's machines. The concept of minimising the intermittence is also first implied in one of al-Jazari's saqiya devices, which was to maximise the efficiency of the saqiya. and were in everyday use throughout the medieval Islamic world. ==See also==