The eastern Mediterranean, later across Europe and Asia
Associated with
Greek and Roman engineers
Described and built early water mills; individual inventors are not named with certainty
Plate 021
c. 3rd century BCE onward
The eastern Mediterranean, later across Europe and Asia
No photograph is shown for this exhibition. The museum displays an image only where it can show the object honestly.
About this date
Greek writers such as Philo of Byzantium describe water-driven mechanisms in the 3rd century BCE. The Roman engineer Vitruvius describes water-driven mills in the 1st century BCE.
About credit
The device appears in written sources from the Hellenistic and Roman world. Similar machines developed independently in China.
Chapter II
The world before
Life before the Water Wheel
Grinding grain was hard manual work, done by hand with querns or by animals turning millstones.
II
The human achievement
How it came about
Engineers set a wheel into a stream, with paddles or buckets catching the current. Gears carried the rotation to a millstone. By the Middle Ages, water power drove mills across Europe, and Domesday Book (1086) records thousands of mills in England.
III
Understanding the invention
How it works
The Water Wheel, explained in two steps.
01
Step 01 of 02
Capturing a flowing force
Water pushing on the paddles (or falling into buckets) turns the wheel.
Capturing a flowing force
Gearing up
IV
The transformation
What changed for humanity
Food
Flour milling became faster, cheaper and less laborious.
Industry
Water power drove sawmills, forges, fulling mills and, eventually, textile factories.
It was the first widely used non-muscle power source. For two thousand years it ground grain, sawed wood, hammered iron and powered early factories.
V
Before and after
Life before and after The Water Wheel
Before
Hours of hand-turning for a small amount of flour.
After
A river doing the work all day.
On larger screens, drag the divider (or use the arrow keys) to give more room to the world before or after.
