Groaning Wheels of Hama
Hama, Syria
October 25, 2008
Hama, Syria
October 25, 2008
The city of Hama lies conveniently on the way from Aleppo to Damascus and makes a good base to explore the nearby Crusader castles. However Hama is not without it’s own sites of interest the most engaging being it’s dozen or more ancient ‘noria’ – huge wooden water wheels originally built to aid in irrigation. These days the wheels still turn and as the wet wooden axles rotate they let out a magnificent, pained groan that reverberates around town. Despite the doleful sound they make they’re lovely works of engineering and appear to be well-maintained.
Unfortunately not all of Hama has survived so well over the years. The city’s history reads like many in the area as an endless saga of invasion and conquest by the latest ursupers of power in the region. Sadly Hama has the unfortunate distinction of having been ravaged as recently as the 1980′s when the Syrian government put down a political revolt and in the process killed thousands of civilians and destroyed much of the old city.
