Hama and its ingenious norias

Hama is a very old Syrian city that was known at least 4000 years ago, strategically built on the banks of the Orontes River and an obvious stop for anyone travelling between Damascus and Aleppo.

Yet, Hamas deserves a visit in its own right, not only because is has a most charming town center but mostly because of its spectacular large wooden waterwheels – a Roman invention so ingenious that you have to see it in order to fully grasp its significance.

Known under their Arabian name as norias, their earliest traces are found in a mosaic dating from 469 AD but they may have been used before. Anyway, in the fifth century, at least 100 of these waterwheels must have existed. Hard to imagine when we are faced with “only” seventeen survivors in Hama today, for even this small reflection of times past is extremely impressive!

It is not just one waterwheel here and there, but a complete chain of norias on both sides of the Orontes. Their size varies between 23 and 69 feet (7 to 21 meters), a few stories high, and when you stand next to one of them you truly feel dwarfed! When they are activated by high water levels, which happens only rarely because of the dams constructed higher upstream, their creaking and squeaking noise is said to be deafening and terrifying at the same time. One such wheel lies flat on the ground next to the bridge, and clearly proves how ingenious and simple the very concept was.

The oldest still working waterwheels date from the 14th and 15th century and the largest one counts no less than 120 wooden scoops to carry the water to a higher level, i.e. to the connecting aqueduct from where it was led away to the irrigate the neighboring fields.

This is so incredibly ingenious!

 [Click here to see all the pictures of Hama’s norias]