This installment takes a look at the 2,200-year-old saqiya.
Until quite recently, one of the perennial problems of life in the Middle East was the lifting of water from rivers and wells for irrigation. Near the Nile and other large rivers, annual floods naturally watered a thin strip of land along sloping banks. Using a seed drill known as a seluka, the inhabitants of the Nile valley were able to farm the inundated areas. But these narrow bands of fertility, often only a few yards wide, could not sustain even a sparse population. Hence, in ancient times, numerous irrigation methods were developed to extend cultivation.