Windmill

The first windmills were built in western Asia, probably in Syria, in the seventh century AD. In this part of the world, there are strong winds that almost always blow in the same direction. So these early mills were built facing the prevailing wind. They did not look like the windmills seen today, but had upright shafts, with the sails arranged vertically, in an arrangement similar to the horses on a roundabout.

The first windmills appeared in western Europe at the end of the twelfth century. Some people think that soldiers returning home from the Crusades in Palestine brought back news of windmills. But Western mills are designed so differently from those in Syria that they may have been invented independently.

Western windmills look different because the sails move around in a vertical plane. Because winds are more variable in Europe than in western Asia, they also have a mechanism to turn the sails into the wind.