Noria

A noria is a water powered scoop wheel that lifts water from a river or stream into a small aqueduct, using the current own energy rather than animal or human power to raise water for irrigation or town supply. Paddle driven water lifting wheels of this kind appear in ancient Egypt by the 4th century BC, and the Roman architect Vitruvius described the device in the 1st century BC; Romans later replaced its wooden compartments with attached ceramic pots. Engineers of the Islamic Golden Age refined the noria further, including a flywheel mechanism attributed to ibn Bassal in the 11th century and a crank mechanism described by al-Jazari in 1206, and norias built on these traditions still stand in places such as Cordoba and Toledo in Spain, some still turning today.