A shadoof or shaduf (from the

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

word , ''šādūf'') is an

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been devel ...

tool. It is highly efficient, and has been known since 3000 BCE.

Names

It is also called a lift, well pole, well sweep, or simply a sweep in the US.Knight, Edward Henry. ''Knight's American mechanical dictionary''. Vol. 3. New York, Hurd and Houghton: Riverside Press, 1877. 2,468. Print. A less common English translation is swape. Picotah (or Picota) is a

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

loan word. It is also called a ''jiégāo'' (桔槹) in

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

. The

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

name is ''thulla'' (துலா) while Telugu name is ''ethaamu'' (ఏతాము) or ''ethamu'' (ఏతము).

History

The ''shaduf'', or sweep, is an early crane-like tool with a

lever A lever is a simple machine consisting of a beam or rigid rod pivoted at a fixed hinge, or '' fulcrum''. A lever is a rigid body capable of rotating on a point on itself. On the basis of the locations of fulcrum, load and effort, the lever is d ...

mechanism, used in

since around 3000 BCE by the

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

ns, 2000 BCE by the ancient Egyptians, and later by the Minoans,

(c 1600 BCE), and others. It is generally used in a crop irrigation system using basins, dikes, ditches, walls, canals, and similar waterways. The sweep is used to lift water from a water source onto land or into another waterway or basin. The mechanism comprises a long counterbalanced pole on a pivot, with a bucket attached to the end of it. It is still used in many areas of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

and very common in rural areas of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

such as in the Bhojpuri belt of the

Ganges The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...

plain where it is named "''dhenki''". They remain common in Hungary's Great Plain, where they are known as ''"gémeskút"'' (literally, " heron wells") and are considered a symbol of the region.Hortobágy National Park
/ref> It was also known by the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

name ''kēlōn'' () or ''kēlōneion'' (); this term (קילון) is also borrowed in

Mishnaic Hebrew Mishnaic Hebrew is the Hebrew of Talmudic texts. Mishnaic Hebrew can be sub-divided into Mishnaic Hebrew proper (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which was a spoken language, and Amoraic Hebrew (also c ...

.wiktionary.org/wiki/קילון

Construction

The sweep is easy to construct and is highly efficient in use It consists of an upright frame on which is suspended a long pole or branch, at a distance of about one-fifth of its length from one end. At the long end of this pole hangs a

bucket A bucket is typically a watertight, vertical cylinder or truncated cone or square, with an open top and a flat bottom, attached to a semicircular carrying handle called the ''bail''. A bucket is usually an open-top container. In contrast, a ...

skin Skin is the layer of usually soft, flexible outer tissue covering the body of a vertebrate animal, with three main functions: protection, regulation, and sensation. Other animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton, have different de ...

bag, or bitumen-coated

reed Reed or Reeds may refer to: Science, technology, biology, and medicine * Reed bird (disambiguation) * Reed pen, writing implement in use since ancient times * Reed (plant), one of several tall, grass-like wetland plants of the order Poales * ...

basket A basket is a container that is traditionally constructed from stiff fibers and can be made from a range of materials, including wood splints, runners, and cane. While most baskets are made from plant materials, other materials such as horsehai ...

. The bucket can be made in many different styles, sometimes having an uneven base or a part at the top of the skin that can be untied. This allows the water to be immediately distributed rather than manually emptied. The short end carries a weight (clay, stone, or similar) which serves as the counterpoise of a lever: The bucket can be lowered by the operator using their own weight to push it down; the counterweight then raises the full bucket without effort. With an almost effortless swinging and lifting motion, the waterproof vessel can be used to scoop up and carry water from a body of water (typically, a river or pond) onto land or to another body of water. At the end of each movement, the water is emptied out into runnels that convey the water along irrigation ditches in the required direction. The sweep has a lifting range of 1 to 6 meters. A study of efficiency in various sites in Chad has shown that one man can lift 10-34 gallons per minute over heights of 5.9-20 feet, and its efficiency has been calculated at 60%.

References

External links

{{commons category, Shadoofs
The Shaduf Project: A European Commission Report on Mediterranean Shaduf Use and History
Irrigation Water wells Ancient Egyptian technology