Inventions & Discoveries · Farming and food

Shadoof

c. 2200 BCE · 23rd century BCE · Also known as shaduf, well sweep, well pole, swape

The shadoof is a tool for lifting water from a well, river or pond onto land or into a channel: a long pole pivoted on an upright frame, with a bucket at one end and a counterweight of clay or stone at the other. The earliest evidence of it is a cylinder seal from Mesopotamia of about 2200 BCE; it appeared in Upper Egypt sometime after 2000 BCE and reached China around the same time. One man can lift 39 to 130 litres a minute with it, and it is still used for irrigation in Africa, Asia and parts of Europe.

Shadoof
Image: Noumenon · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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First known
c. 2200 BCE
Where
Mesopotamia

NoteSome historians hold that it began on the Nile, citing tomb drawings at Thebes from 1250 BCE; another theory, with little evidence, places its origin in India.

Built onIrrigationc. 6000 BCE
Led toCranelate 6th century BCE

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See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Shadoof. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/shaduf
MLA
“Shadoof.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/shaduf. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Shadoof.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/shaduf.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Shadoof’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/shaduf (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻