Asāqiyah orsaqiya (Arabic:ساقية), also spelledsakia orsaqia) is a mechanical water lifting device. It is also called aPersian wheel,tablia,rehat, and inLatintympanum.[1] It is similar in function to ascoop wheel, which uses buckets, jars, or scoops fastened either directly to a vertical wheel, or to an endless belt activated by such a wheel. The vertical wheel is itself attached by adrive shaft to a horizontal wheel, which is traditionally set in motion by animal power (oxen, donkeys, etc.) Because it is not usingthe power of flowing water, the sāqiyah is different from anoria and any other type of water wheel.
The sāqiyah is still used inIndia,Egypt and other parts of theMiddle East, and in theIberian Peninsula and theBalearic Islands. It may have been invented inPtolemaic Kingdom of Egypt,Iran,Kush orIndia. The sāqiyah was mainly used for irrigation, but not exclusively, as the example ofQusayr 'Amra shows, where it was used at least in part to provide water for a royal bathhouse.[2]
The Arabic wordsaqiya (Arabic:ساقية) is derived from the root verbsaqa (Arabic:سقى), meaning to "give to drink" or "make (someone/something) drink".[3] From this, the wordsaqiya (often transliterated asseguia inMorocco or theMaghreb[4][5][6]) has the sense of "one that gives water" or "irrigator". Its general meaning is to denote a water channel for irrigation or for city water supplies, but by extension it applies to a device which provides water for such irrigation.[3][7] Likewise,Spanishacequia, derived from the same word, is used to denote an irrigation canal or water channel in Spain.[8][9] In the Maghreb and Morocco, the related wordsaqqaya (Arabic:سقاية) also denotes a public fountain where residents could take water (similar in function to asabil).[10][11]The English termPersian wheel is first attested in the 17th century (but in the earliest case for a water-driven wheel).[12]
The termsaqiyah orsaqiya is the usual term for water-raising devices powered by animals.[13] The termnoria is commonly used for devices which use the power of moving water to turn the wheel instead.[14] Other types of similar devices are grouped under the name ofchain pumps. Anoria in contrast uses the water power obtained from the flow of a river. The noria consists of a largeundershot water-wheel whose rim is made up of a series of containers which lift water from the river to an aqueduct at the top of the wheel.[14][15] Some famous examples are thenorias of Hama inSyria or theAlbolafia noria inCordoba,Spain.[16]
However, the names of traditional water-raising devices used in theMiddle East,India, Spain and other areas are often used loosely and overlappingly, or vary depending on region.Al-Jazari's famous book on mechanical devices, for example, groups the water-driven wheel and several other types of water-lifting devices under the general termsaqiya.[17][18] InSpain, by contrast, the termnoria is used for both types of wheels, whether powered by animals or water current.[14]
The saqiya is a large hollow wheel, traditionally made of wood. One type has its clay pots or buckets attached directly to the periphery of the wheel, which limits the depth it can scoop water from to less than half its diameter. The modern version also known aszawaffa orjhallan is normally made ofgalvanized sheet steel and consists of a series of scoops. The modern type dispenses the water near the hub rather than from the top, the opposite of the traditional types. These devices were in widespread use in China, India, Pakistan, Syria and Egypt.[19]
Saqiya wheels range in diameter from two to five metres. Though traditionally driven bydraught animals, they are also attached to anengine or electric motor. While animal-driven saqiyas can rotate at 2–4rpm, motorised ones can make as much as 8–15 rpm. Formerly hundreds of thousands were in use in the Nile valley and delta.[19]
The historical Middle-Eastern device known in Arabic assaqiya usually had its buckets attached to a double chain, creating a so-called "pot garland". This allowed scooping water out of a much deeper well.
An animal-driven saqiya can raise water from 10 to 20 metres depth, and is thus considerably more efficient than a swape[clarification needed] orshadoof, as it is known in Arabic, which can only pump water from 3 metres.
In Spanish an animal-driven saqiya is named aceña, with the exception of the Cartagena area, where it is called a noria de sangre, or "waterwheel of blood". There is also a much rarer type of saqiya which is driven by wind.[clarification needed]
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The saqiya was known in Meroitic Nubia (Kingdom of Kush) from the 3rd century BC, where it was known asKolē.[20]TheAncient Nubians used the saqiya to improve irrigation during theMeroitic period. The introduction of this machine had a decisive influence on agriculture as this wheel lifted water 3 to 8 metres with much less labour force and time than theShaduf, which was the previous irrigation device in the Kingdom. The Shaduf relied on human energy while the saqiya was driven by buffalos or other animals.[20]
The sāqiyah might, according toAnanda Coomaraswamy, have been invented in India, where the earliest reference to it is found in thePanchatantra (c. 3rd century BCE), where it was known as anaraghaṭṭa;[21] which is a combination or the wordsara (speedy or a spoked[wheel]) andghaṭṭa "pot"[22] inSanskrit. That device was either used like a sāqiyah, to lift water from a well while being powered byoxen or people, or it was used toirrigate 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.[23]
InRanjit Sitaram Pandit's translation ofKalhana's 12th century chronicleRajatarangini, this mechanism is alluded to when describing ayantra used for drawing water from a well.[24]
Paddle-driven water-lifting wheels had appeared inancient Egypt by the 4th century BCE.[25] According toJohn Peter Oleson, both the compartmented wheel and the hydraulic noria appeared inEgypt by the 4th century BCE, with the saqiya being invented there a century later. This is supported by archeological finds atFaiyum, where the oldest archeological evidence of awater wheel has been found, in the form of a saqiya dating back to the 3rd century BCE. Apapyrus dating to the 2nd century BCE also found in Faiyum mentions a water wheel used for irrigation, a 2nd-century BCfresco found atAlexandria depicts a compartmented saqiya, and the writings ofCallixenus of Rhodes mention the use of a saqiya in thePtolemaic Kingdom during the reign ofPtolemy IV Philopator in the late 3rd century BCE.[26]
Early Mediterranean evidence of a saqiya is from a tomb painting in Ptolemaic Egypt that dates to the 2nd century BCE. 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".[27] It is assumed that the scientists of theMusaeum, at the time the most active Greek research center, may have been involved in its implementation.[28] An episode fromCaesar'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.[29]
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.[30]
Philo of Byzantium wrote of such a device in the 2nd century B.C.;[31] the historianVitruvius mentioned them around 30 B.C.; remains of tread wheel driven, bucket chains, dating from the 2nd century B.C., have been found in baths atPompeii,[32] 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 A.D.Nemi ships, ofLake Nemi;[33][34][35] and a preserved 2nd century A.D. example, used to raise water from a well, to an aquifer in London, has also been unearthed.[36]
The term used byTalmudic sources for a saqiya is 'antelayyā-wheel.[37]
A manuscript byIsmail al-Jazari featured an intricate device based on a saqiya, powered in part by the pull of anox walking on the roof of an upper-level reservoir, but also bywater falling onto the spoon-shaped pallets of awater wheel placed in a lower-levelreservoir.[38]
Complex saqiyas consisting of more than 200 separate components were used extensively byMuslim inventors andengineers in themedieval Islamic world.[39] The mechanicalflywheel, 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 byibn Bassal (fl. 1038–1075), ofal-Andalus.[40]
The first known use of acrank in a saqiya was featured in another one of al-Jazari's machines.[41][verification needed] 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.[41] Al-Jazari also constructed a water-raising device that was run byhydropower, though the Chinese had been using hydropower for the same purpose before him. Animal-powered saqiyas and water-powerednorias similar to the ones he described have been supplying water inDamascus since the 13th century,[42] and were in everyday use throughout the medieval Islamic world.[41]
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