بقوةالماء الجاري طحن القدماءحبوبهم ومن الدقيق صنعوا خبزهم .. كتاب في سبيل موسوعةعلمية

By the power of running water, the ancients ground their grains and made their bread from the flour

The ancients used the power of running water, as we mentioned, in grinding their grains.

(Illustration of a simple mill with a horizontal rotating wheel)

(Illustration of a simple grain mill: The two millstones, the top of which rotates, and the bottom of them is stationary. The top of them is rotated by an axis, which is the axis of the rotating wheel at the bottom of the picture. The flowing water is directed to the blades of the rotating wheel, and as they rotate, they turn the millstone. This was one of the first mills known In history, in the Middle East, about 2,100 years ago, it was invented by the inhabitants of the mountains and hills, where water flows quickly from top to bottom.)

(Illustration of a compound mill with a vertical rotating wheel)

(Illustration of a grain mill, in which the wheel pushed by running water keeps it in a vertical plane. Since the two millstones are always in a horizontal plane, there must be two other interlocking wheels in the middle between the wheel, which is the source of the power, and the millstone that benefits from the rotation. vertical to horizontal rotary motion)

Perhaps the first simple grain mill was invented by the people of the Middle East who lived in mountainous areas where the water sloped steeply. In this simple mill, we notice that the wheel driven by running water is in a horizontal plane, as are the millstone and its stones, and between the two stones the grain flows and grinds. The simplicity of this mill arose from the fact that the two of them, the wheel and the mill, are in one horizontal plane, so their axis of rotation is the same.

The Romans used a less simple mill to grind grains, because its wheel, which is driven by water, is in a vertical position. Water flowing in a river or the like hits its blades, so it rotates and the millstone remains in its natural position, that is, in the horizontal plane. Therefore, there must be wheels in the middle of them that transform the rotating movement from its horizontal axis to the vertical axis.

The ancient Romans called this mill the Vitruvian, after its inventor, the Roman engineer Vitruvius, and it grinded 400 pounds of grain per hour, while the two men grinded with their muscle strength only 14 pounds of grain per hour, and that is if they continued working for a full hour.

Did the development of the wheel stop at this point?
of course not .