Editing Windmill (section)

== Forerunners ==

[[File:Heron's Windwheel.png|thumb|A 19th-century reconstruction of [[Hero of Alexandria|Heron's]] wind-powered [[Organ (music)|organ]]]]

[[Wind-powered]] machines have been known earlier, the [[Babylonia]]n emperor [[Hammurabi]] had used [[wind mill]] power for his irrigation project in [[Mesopotamia]] in the 17th century BC.<ref name="Sathyajith2006" /><ref>{{cite book|last=Nature|first=Springer|title=Wind Power Plants Second Edition|publisher=Springer Nature|location=Berlin Heidelberg|isbn=978-3-642-22937-4|pages=15–45|url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-22938-1_2|author-link=|editor=Robert Gasch & Jochen Twele|access-date=29 April 2025|chapter=2|year=2011|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220823011857/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-22938-1_2|archive-date=23 August 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Diyala Journal|first=of Engineering Sciences|title=NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF A MODEFID AIRFOIL FOR WIND TURBINE, DJES, vol. 7, no. 2|publisher=College of Engineering – University of Diyala|location=Iraq|isbn=978-3-642-22937-4|pages=83–79|url=https://djes.info/index.php/djes/article/view/461/423|author-link=|editor=Wisam Abd Mohammed Al-Shohani|access-date=4 May 2025|year=2014|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240909212917/https://djes.info/index.php/djes/article/view/461/423|archive-date=9 September 2024}}</ref><ref> https://www.energyencyclopedia.com/en/renewable-energy/wind-energy/the-history-of-wind-power-utilization </ref>

Later,  [[Hero of Alexandria]] (Heron) in first-century [[Roman Egypt]] described what appears to be a wind-driven wheel to power a machine.<ref name="Lohrmann 10f.">Dietrich Lohrmann, "Von der östlichen zur westlichen Windmühle", ''Archiv für Kulturgeschichte'', Vol. 77, Issue 1  (1995), pp. 1–30 (10f.)</ref><ref name="Drachmann">[[A. G. Drachmann]], "Hero's Windmill", ''Centaurus'', 7 (1961), pp. 145–151</ref> His description of a wind-powered [[Organ (music)|organ]] is not a practical windmill but was either an early wind-powered toy or a design concept for a wind-powered machine that may or may not have been a working device, as there is ambiguity in the text and issues with the design.<ref name="Shepherd">{{cite journal |last1=Shepherd |first1=Dennis G. |title=Historical development of the windmill |journal=NASA Contractor Report |date=December 1990 |issue=4337 |doi=10.2172/6342767 |bibcode= |publisher=[[Cornell University]]|hdl=2060/19910012312 |citeseerx=10.1.1.656.3199 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> Another early example of a wind-driven wheel was the [[prayer wheel]], which is believed to have been first used in [[Tibet]] and [[China]], though there is uncertainty over the date of its first appearance, which could have been either {{circa|400}}, the 7th century,<ref name="Lucas2006">{{Cite book|first=Adam |last=Lucas |year=2006 |title=Wind, Water, Work: Ancient and Medieval Milling Technology |publisher=Brill Publishers |isbn=90-04-14649-0 |page=105}}</ref> or after the 9th century.<ref name="Shepherd"/>

One of the earliest recorded working windmill designs found was invented sometime around 700&ndash;900 AD in [[Greater Iran|Persia]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Eldridge|first1=Frank|title=Wind Machines|date=1980|publisher=Litton Educational Publishing, Inc.|location=New York|isbn=0-442-26134-9|page=[https://archive.org/details/windmachines00fran/page/15 15]|edition=2nd|url=https://archive.org/details/windmachines00fran/page/15}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Shepherd|first1=William|title=Electricity Generation Using Wind Power|date=2011|publisher=World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.|location=Singapore|isbn=978-981-4304-13-9|page=4|edition=1}}</ref> This design was the panemone, with vertical lightweight wooden sails attached by horizontal struts to a central vertical shaft. It was first built to pump water and subsequently modified to grind [[grain]] as well.<ref name="ref1">{{cite web|url=http://www.telosnet.com/wind/early.html|title=Part 1 &mdash; Early History Through 1875|accessdate=2008-07-31|archive-date=2018-10-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181002082917/http://www.telosnet.com/wind/early.html|url-status=usurped}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/albie/projects/panemone.htm|title=A Panemone (Drag-Type Windmill)|accessdate=2008-07-31|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20081025025613/http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/albie/projects/panemone.htm|archivedate=2008-10-25}}</ref>