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Hello,
I started a thread in 2012 abourt Roman windmills. I would like to start a new thread about the same topic. I am aware of Heron's description, but my questions go beyond that. Below I have gathered quotations from different internet sources. My questions to you:
1. How reliable is it that the ancient Greeks and Romans had some kind of windmills, if only in low numbers?
2. Do you have any other sources or quotations to support the existence of windmills in the Greek civilization and/or Roman Empire?
Some scholars believe windmills were used in Ancient Greece and Rome, though definitive proof has been hard to find. One very early windmill is described by Hero of Alexandria (who lived around A.D. 60). This machine was designed to drive the bellows for an organ, but was probably meant as a novelty. http://www.ehow.com/facts_7403115_origin-windmill_.html
The power supply for the wind-driven organ relies on the transfer of motion from the “broad arms like the sails of a wind-mill” to the piston mechanism. http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/greekautomata.htm
Windmills and waterwheels were not new technologies – both machines appeared already in Antiquity and the ones used in the early Middle Ages were technically no different from those. However, ancient civilisations like the Greeks and the Romans hardly used them, possibly because of religious reasons and because of a large enough reservoir of human slave labour. http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/10/history-of-industrial-windmills.html
/…/without any real industry or much agricultural machinery to work the land —Roman land-owners [in the 3rd century] did know about water wheels and windmills but archaeologists have found evidence of very few being used in this period—the aristocrats of late Rome apparently watched the collapse of their economy and disdained practical matters such as retooling their farms to ensure their viability. http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320hist&Civ/chapters/08ROMFAL.htm