noria

Waterwheel, Hamah, Syria.

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noria, undershot waterwheel used to raise water in primitive irrigation systems. It was described by the Roman architect Vitruvius (c. 1st century bce). As the noria turns, pots or hollow chambers on the rim fill when submerged and empty automatically into a trough when they reach or exceed the level of the centre of the wheel. In antiquity the wheels may have been as much as 12 metres (40 feet) in diameter. Norias of the medieval period were even larger; the largest noria at Hamah, Syria, dates from 1000 ce and is 20 metres (66 feet) in diameter. The wheel-turning force of the stream was sometimes augmented by humans or animals on a connected treadmill.