Water wheel

The oldest mention of the subordination of the water element to specific economic needs dates back to 40 centuries (at the turn of the XNUMXth century BC). It is included in the Babylonian Code of Laws. There is a paragraph on the penalties imposed on those guilty of stealing water wheels, which were then used to irrigate farmland. We can safely say that these were the oldest devices that convert the energy of inanimate nature into mechanical, i.e. first engines. The oldest water engines (water wheels) were probably wooden. The blades, by means of which the flow of the river set the wheel in rotation, also played the role of scoops. They raised the water to a higher level and poured it into a suitable wooden trough leading to irrigation canals.