Here we go again... windmills in the Roman Empire

Hi everybody!

Long time no see.

I started a thread a few years ago regarding windmills in the greco-roman world.

This has come to my knowledge:

"Archaeological works are continuing to unearth Roman-era windmills in the ancient city of Misis, an important Roman-era city, as part of a project titled “The Infinite City: Misis” done by Yüreğir Municipality in the southern province of Adana.
/…/
He said works still continued to revive two second- and third-century windmills."

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/wi...ght-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=105166&NewsCatID=375

I also read this in the Oxford handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World regarding the word anemourion:

"The precise meaning remains obscure, but a reasonable guess would be 'windwhirl' or the like. Nor is it obvious what this 'windwhirl' would be: a toy for children or, perhaps, a useful machine? In the latter case, one would rather think of a water-rising plant of the simple kind still common in the Italian countryside."

What do you think? Do you know anything more about the possibilities of windmills in the Roman Empire?

Regards,

Jan
 
Hi everybody!
What do you think? Do you know anything more about the possibilities of windmills in the Roman Empire?

As we discussed four and two years ago, you know I'm not opposite to the idea Romans could have had access to windmills, but I'm a bit cautious about Romans having significantly used windmills, including in the eastern provinces : the lack of attested litterary or archeological sources is the main problem.

Now, this could be really interesting. But call me conservative there, I'd wait for confirmation : so far, this claim doesn't seems to be supported by other archeologists and historians (while not being dismissed either) and is essentially supported by the archeologists working there.
I see no reason to dismiss it out of hand for this, but confusions are still possible : I'll wait, with interest, until the jury comes out.
 
This has come to my knowledge:

"Archaeological works are continuing to unearth Roman-era windmills in the ancient city of Misis, an important Roman-era city, as part of a project titled “The Infinite City: Misis” done by Yüreğir Municipality in the southern province of Adana.
/…/
He said works still continued to revive two second- and third-century windmills."

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/wi...ght-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=105166&NewsCatID=375

If what the article says is true, we would have to rewrite long chapters about ancient sources of energy, since wind power would enter human history 500 years or more earlier. BTW, it wouldn't be that strange, since we have other examples for "modern" technology from Anatolia in Roman times: the Hierapolis watermill.

However, I'm quite confident this won't happen. The article you quoted was published on October 21, 2016. I searched for Misis and Yüreğir, but there are no other mentions of windmills on the web. A discovery like a Roman windmill would (hopefully) caused at least some echo in the scientific world. Even the English media in Turkey haven't written anymore about it. I think that there was some translation problem: either the subject were Byzantine ("Roman") windmills, or Roman watermills.

As a translator, what would you think when reading the word mill?

Or there is no problem with the translation, and the archaeologist just misinterpreted the archaeological find.

I also read this in the Oxford handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World regarding the word anemourion:

"The precise meaning remains obscure, but a reasonable guess would be 'windwhirl' or the like. Nor is it obvious what this 'windwhirl' would be: a toy for children or, perhaps, a useful machine? In the latter case, one would rather think of a water-rising plant of the simple kind still common in the Italian countryside."

What do you think? Do you know anything more about the possibilities of windmills in the Roman Empire?

I just read J. G. Landels' book Engineering in the Ancient World (mostly because he writes somethin about steam power) and there is a chapter about Hero's windmill organ. Needless to say that this is the only literary evidence for an ancient use of wind power. Here Landels turns some attention to the word anemourion too:

The word anemourion does not occur anywhere else except as a proper name for a promontory in Asia Minor, but must mean something like 'wind-fan'. [...] The device was clearly a toy, but why did nobody (apparently) see its potential as a power source. Perhaps its scale was the real reason. A power source, by definition, has to be something which could replace a man or a small animal - that is, something which developed about 0.25 h.p. at least. It may well be that a samll windmill, with rigid wooden vanes, was simply not thought of in this category, and nobody tried experimenting with a bigger and better one. But it is still very puzzling.

And I must confess that it's really very puzzling for me too, especially because Landels' explanation isn't quite satisfactory for me. It's like treating ancient men as stupid to assume that they couldn't scale up a very simple engine, simple compared to the sophisticated devices Hero developed besides the windmill. The only reason I could imagine why the windmill didn't spread during Roman times is that the watermill was enough of a mechanical source of power in Roman times, especially in ancient Egypt where Hero worked. If the inhabitants of Roman Egypt needed non-human energy, they could use animals or the water of the Nile. But I admit that even this explanation isn't very convincing.
 
Yes, the tech was available, but part of the Romans' problem was that they refused to innovate when it came to labor decreasing technology. Their agricultural tools were atrocious, and their answer for any labor problem was "throw more slaves at it." I'm sure if you have a forward-thinking emperor somewhere along the lines you might get some sort of funding for a windmill or watermill technology, but more than likely any improvement would be focused towards better plows and collars the like.
 
Yes, the tech was available, but part of the Romans' problem was that they refused to innovate when it came to labor decreasing technology.
This blunt affirmation goes against most evidence, litterary as archeological : I would only mention the widespread use of watermills in Romania, including in great concentrations such as in Barbegal.

As for the cliché about ploughs and collars...
Most of the widespread comparisons come from outdated studies, especially with the collar whom restitution more or less came along the lines of "let's assume that Romans used the worst possible kind of equipment", even in face of evidence. In the harsh reality, roman collars doesn't seem to have that crushed the horses, something known since the 1970's.

Regarding ploughs, I will only point that heavy plough was used in northern-eastern Gaul, Britain and Roman Germania. Why didn't it get more widespread? Mostly because it wasn't fit the economical agricultural model of Romans which was based on, suprise, mediterranean agriculture, on which heavy plough is basically unusable (and was unused until the XVIIth)

Now, can we be spared the antics on Antiquity, and actually discuss real things?
 
@LSCatilina pointed out the little mistakes in your technological argumentation, now you should reconsider your social argument:

and their answer for any labor problem was "throw more slaves at it."

That's a pretty much flawed argument. The industrial revolution of the 18th century took place not in a time of scarce manpower, but of abundance of it. Remember that before the actual industrial revolution, an agricultural revolution took place in 18th century England freeing up masses of farm laborer who could then be used for industrial production. Abundunce of workpower will lead to an increased production, but it hasn't to be connected with a technological stagnation.

Also, you should remember how the numbers of slaves evolved during Roman history. Roman history spans 1000 years and wasn't static. During the great conquests of the republic, i. e. during the 2nd and 1st century BC, supply in slaves was abundant and Roman economy relied on the use of slaves. But as the empire ceased to expand and manumission became common, prices of slaves certainly rised - what you can say about the republic can't be said about the Principate, and the Dominate with it's pseudo-feudal tenant farmers (coloni) is again something completly different.

but part of the Romans' problem was that they refused to innovate when it came to labor decreasing technology.

Please stop with national characterization:(. "The Romans", "the Chinese", "the Mayas" ... can we speak about "the althistorians" too? What do you mean with Romans? All inhabitants of the city of Rome, citizens or not? All Roman citizens? All inhabitants of the Roman Empire? Only men or also women and slaves? And when? During the monarchy? During the early republic? During the Dominate? Please be precise in your argumentation and don't generalize.
 
But as the empire ceased to expand and manumission became common, prices of slaves certainly rised
Actually, no : supply of slaves was ensured by inner reproduction, and outer traffic trough the limes. There's no real sign that slaves prices that raised (while it doesn't say it was necessarily cheap, it's more of an "expensive commodity") : if something it seems that slave prices in the Late Empire become cheaper, while there's no sign theirr use really declined by the Late Empire.
Kyle Harper published several works about these questions, but Slavery in the Late Roman World is particularily interesting.

and the Dominate with it's pseudo-feudal tenant farmers (coloni) is again something completly different.
Feudal economy is as much a sound concept than republican economy or pharaonic economy. It's dealing with a different sphere of human activity, and taking for granted that it somehow leads the economy.

On this regard, the domanial structure of Late Antiquity doesn't really that differs from either the previous structures (Principate or Late Republic), neither the succeeding (not the Early Medieval structures, obviously, but as well classical medieval structures) on the basic forms. Meaning a great reliance over agricultural demesnes not only for production but for fiscal or para-fiscal revenues.
 
Actually, no : supply of slaves was ensured by inner reproduction, and outer traffic trough the limes. There's no real sign that slaves prices that raised (while it doesn't say it was necessarily cheap, it's more of an "expensive commodity") : if something it seems that slave prices in the Late Empire become cheaper, while there's no sign theirr use really declined by the Late Empire.

Okay I underestimated the natural reproduction of slaves (the same is true for slavery in the American South during the 19th century). Still, the comparison between the Industrial Revolution and the great number of slaves in Roman times show that abundance of workforce doesn't produce the result expected by a large group of historians, that is technological stagnation.

What I meant then writing "pseudo-feudal" is that the legal form of the institutions of the coloni reminds me the legal status of serfs in societies I'm used to call "feudal" because, well, I was taught to do so.
 
Still, the comparison between the Industrial Revolution and the great number of slaves in Roman times show that abundance of workforce doesn't produce the result expected by a large group of historians, that is technological stagnation.
Abundance of mapower doesn't led automatically to an increased production, as the situation in Late Republic could point, tough.

What I meant then writing "pseudo-feudal" is that the legal form of the institutions of the coloni reminds me the legal status of serfs in societies I'm used to call "feudal" because, well, I was taught to do so.
Coloni status isn't that distinct from what existed in the Principate, either under the same name, either as havily clientelized/submitted farmers, tough. It got institutionalized in IIIrd, mostly to reaffirm imperial authority and order, but to make a radical distinction between the IIIrd and the Ist...
As for feudal, it's an abusive denomination : servage isn't tied to feudalism (heavily declining in most of continental Europe by the XIIth, resurrecting in Eastern Europe in the XV/XVIth due to both speculative economy, and political needs), as much as slavery isn't proper to a specific economical-social formation.

What I was taught, and stressed on, is that feudality concerns political and upper social matters, not the whole of society.
 
Abundance of mapower doesn't led automatically to an increased production, as the situation in Late Republic could point, tough.

No, that's right. Abundance of workforce lead in the Late Republic to mass unemployment of the free and landless peasant (correct me if I'm wrong, but that provided the framework for the agrarian reform of the Gracchi).

What I was taught, and stressed on, is that feudality concerns political and upper social matters, not the whole of society.

I think that we just use the word feudality differently. What you (and most modern historians) mean with feudality is the political system, while I'm using it in the sense it was used during the French Revolution, concerning the rights of the "Lords" over their peasants/serfs.
 
That's a pretty much flawed argument. The industrial revolution of the 18th century took place not in a time of scarce manpower, but of abundance of it.

The key distinction isn't really the abundance or lack of abundance of labor (really meaningless ideas on their own), but high or low priced labor. Cheap labor can and in fact does usually lead to technological stagnation because cheap human labor usually outcompetes any comparably priced capital production goods. However, expensive labor heavily incentivizes investment in relatively expensive capital production goods, so you get technological progress.

Expensive labor on its own doesn't drive technological progress, of course. There are other necessary components of the process, too, but the industrial revolution saw a large amount of still relatively highly paid (and therefore highly productive) wage earners entering the labor force for several generations in a row. That's not what happened in the Roman Empire. Even in the economic peak during the early Principate, wages stayed below what they had reached during the Classical peak in Golden Age Athens.
 
The key distinction isn't really the abundance or lack of abundance of labor (really meaningless ideas on their own), but high or low priced labor. Cheap labor can and in fact does usually lead to technological stagnation because cheap human labor usually outcompetes any comparably priced capital production goods. However, expensive labor heavily incentivizes investment in relatively expensive capital production goods, so you get technological progress.

Never said the opposite.

There are other necessary components of the process, too, but the industrial revolution saw a large amount of still relatively highly paid (and therefore highly productive) wage earners entering the labor force for several generations in a row.

That I understand. But how can a large amount of workforce be highly paid? I hope you get the point that abundant labor will always be cheap (due to the laws of price formation), unless there is a high demand. The other question then is: Where did this high demand come from? If there is high demand for workforce, there has to be a high demand for produced goods too. If I follow your argument, this demand did exist in classical Athens, but not in Rome during the Principate.

Anyway, I'm quite interested in your sources on wages during the Industrial Revolution (and the Principate), because I realize that I have some gaps on this subject.
 
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