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.
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Famous quotes containing the word antiquity:
“We do not associate the idea of antiquity with the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do of the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable always. The Indians have left no traces on its surface, but it is the same to the civilized man and the savage. The aspect of the shore only has changed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)