Persian wheel
A water-lifting wheel turned by bullocks walking in a circle, raising pots of water from a well.
Also: rahat, saqiya, sakia
The Persian wheel, called rahat in Punjab and saqiya in Egypt and the Arab world, lifts water from a well or channel for irrigation. A pair of bullocks, or a camel, walks round and round turning a horizontal wheel, which drives a vertical wheel through wooden gears; a chain of pots on the vertical wheel dips into the water and empties into a channel at the top. Its creaking was once a familiar sound of the Punjab countryside. The device was widely used from the Middle East to India from medieval times until diesel and electric pumps replaced most of them in the twentieth century.