Lift Irrigation

The first devices for lifting water from a source such as a well or a river or a canal were simple devices that made use of human strength. The shaduf had a bag and rope attached to the one end of a wooded arm or beam with a counter balance at the other end of the arm (see Fig. 1.1). The beam rotates around an axis so that the person operating the shaduf pulls down the bag into the water, then lifts the bag with water, and then drops the water from the bag. The shaduf was known in Mesopotamia as early as the time of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 2300 B. C.). According to the legend

Fig. 1.1 Shaduf (copyright permission with Bruce Salters, used with permission)

About the origin of Sargon, he was supposed to have been abandoned by his mother as a baby into a canal (naru) and to have been taken up by a man with a bag of water from this canal. Also there is a shaduf represented on a cylindrical seal from Mesopotamia dated by 2200 B. C. (Viollet, 2006). This technology appeared later in Egypt, with the technology well under way during the 18th Dynasty (ca. 1570 B. C.) and was effective by Roman times (Butzer, 1976). This device allowed the irrigation of crops near the river banks and canals during the summer. Another device for lifting water was the saqiya illustrated in Fig. 1.2. This device is further described in Chapter 3 Water Technology in Ancient Egypt.