Roman watermills

[Kosmo]

I always thought that romans did not use water mills. I was wrong.

The greeks used them and romans had a more efficient type around I century AD.

They were used to great effect with aquaducts.

They did not used the most efficient model, the overshot watermill.

An article about watermills in Rome on an aquaduct:

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~corp0057/JaniculumMills.html

[Lost_Warrior]

I read about this in Ancient Rome; People and Places.

 

There are a few of the Roman watermills around still, and one of them is even still functioning!

[Pertinax]

Nice little link here for Londinium, the download is a little slow so be patient:

 

http://www.kentarchaeology.ac/authors/rspain.html

[Ludovicus]

I seem to remember that the Romans floated mills on the Tiber and that these lasted until the 19th century. What would these have looked like?

[Kosmo]

Very interesting the article you linked Pertinax. Tidal water mill it's quite complex technology and shows that they had good understanding of tidal movements unfamilliar along the mediterranean.

My mistake about their use of watermills comes, maybe, from the fact that they did not have windmills.

[Kosmo]

They also had overshot water mill. Hmmm !