Hama: Maintainers of Norias

Date: c. 1807

The purpose of wooden norias serve to raise water from the river. The Spanish traveler Domingo Francisco Jorge Badía y Leblich (d. 1818), better known by his pseudonym Ali Bey al Abbasi, found the water wheels of Hama to be very well constructed. Some were nearly thirty two feet in diameter. The water was conveyed to mosques and other parts of the city. He praises how well these wheels have been maintained and preserved. See also: Carpenter; Sawyer.

Citation: al-Abbasi, Ali Bey. Travels of Ali Bey in Morocco, Tripoli, Cyprus, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, and Turkey. Between the Year 1803 and 1807 (Philadelphia: Printed for John Conrad, at the Shakespeare building, by James Maxwell, 1816. After London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1816), II, pp. 334-35.