Windmill - Windmills in Antiquity

Windmills in Antiquity

The windwheel of the Greek engineer Heron of Alexandria in the 1st century AD is the earliest known instance of using a wind-driven wheel to power a machine. Another early example of a wind-driven wheel was the prayer wheel, which was used in ancient Tibet and China since the 4th century. It has been claimed that the Babylonian emperor Hammurabi planned to use wind power for his ambitious irrigation project in the 17th century BC.