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The ship-mill at Minden, Germany.

The ship-mill grinder (German: Schiffmühle or Schiffsmühle) today is a rare type of watermill. Its first recorded use dates back to mid-6th century AD Italy.^[1]

Technology

Ship-mill (drawing 1 after H.Ernst, 1805).

The mill technologies of the drive (waterwheel) in this mill-type are built on a floating platform.^[2] Between house-boat and Wellboot, is the waterwheel, which is touched by flowing water and will be driven. There are also references to ship mills, in which a narrow waterwheel rests between two sides, similar to an old paddle steamer. The floating platform is anchored in the most intense part of the current, to the bridge piers because of easier access to the mill, or also to the shore.

Ship-mill (drawing 2 after H.Ernst, 1805).

The flotation allows the ship-mill to float with changing water levels, so the mill has the same water power available. The efficiency of a ship's mill is in the best case a water mill. Ship mills had the advantage that their energy, in contrast to watermills and windmills, was always available, so that they provided a machine-base (i.e., not particularly strong, but running 24 hours).

Ship-mills could, if necessary (due to other ship traffic, rafting, ice), pull to safe shore. The ship-mills were, like the water and windmills, in the possession of the landlords or monasteries. This was also the legal situation accordingly (Mill Law). Historic ship-mills in Central Europe have not remained; after the advent of riverboat traffic, they became a hindrance.

History

There is historical evidence that the development of this type of mill dates back to the ingenious invention of Vitruvius, a Roman engineer of the 1st Century BC. Vitruv described a ship odometer working with a waterwheel attached to the ship hull.

In the 537 siege of Rome, supplies were interrupted by the Goths from providing the population with vital flour from the surrounding water mills. Also, the aqueducts that supplied Rome with water and some cities which had water-driven mills could no longer work. The solution devised by the Eastern Roman general Belisarius was the "reverse principle of a water mill" - the ship mills, which were anchored on the Tiber river around Rome.^[1] It was a type of watermill powered by water wheels mounted on the sides of ships moored in midstream, preferably close to bridges where the current is stronger. From then on, the shipmill spread throughout medieval Europa, reaching Paris (556) Geneva (563) and Dijon (c. 575) in quick succession.^[3] They remained a common sight in much of Europe until the 19th century, with a few of them surviving up to our time.^[4]

By the 10th century, the medieval ship-mill had spread east to the Islamic world.^[3][4] It was employed along the Tigris at Mosul in 10th-century Iraq, where large shipmills made of wood and iron could produce 10 tons of flour from corn every day for the granary in Baghdad.^[5] In 1184, Ibn Jubayr described shipmills in the same region on the Khabur River.^[5] From the lack of records, it appears that they did not spread further to Iran.^[6] The German terms "Schiffsmühle" and "Schiffmühle" are not clearly defined and in the literature are typically used twice. Both names are equivalent to coexist, but in the south-German and Alps areas, the first spelling ("Schiffs-") for "ship mill" is used.

Geographical spread of ship mills

German shipmills on the Rhine at Cologne, around 1411

At almost all rivers in Europe, ship mills have been operated.

• Elbe - until 1911
• Rhine: Strasbourg and Mainz - 9-12 Century
• Danube: Regensburg - 1493 mentioned; Vienna at Kaisermühlen (Old Danube), or Orth an der Donau (in Lower Austria)
• Mur: Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary
• Weser: Minden - 1326 first mentioned
• Tiber: Rome

Tourism

There are some replicas of ship mills:

• the functional ship mill in Minden (North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany) at the Weser river; the seeds can be crushed;
• the ship's mill in Höfgen (Saxony, Germany) in the hollow, since 1992 all year on the river, the water is pumped;
• the ship's mill in Mureck in Styria (Austria);
• and (also working) in Orth an der Donau (Austria);
• the ship mill on the Mura near Sveti Martin na Muri in northern Croatia.

There are also ship-mills on land, as monuments:

• In Magdeburg (Germany), on the banks of the Elbe. There were once up to 23 pieces.
• In Bad Düben (Germany) in the castle grounds, there is the mountain ship-mill, formerly with the grain as crushed.

Gallery

Ship-mill in Magdeburg, Germany.	Mountain ship-mill in Bad Düben, Germany.
Ship-mill in Höfgen at Grimma, Germany.	Ship-mill on the Mur at Mureck, Styria, Austria (later re-salvaged).
Ship mill on the Mur, near Verzej, Slovenia.	Ship-mill replica on the Mur at Mursco Središce, Croatia.

Notes

References

[Parts of this article were translated from German Wikipedia.]

• Forbes, R. J. (1965), Studies in Ancient Technology, 2 (2nd ed.), Leiden: E. J. Brill, pp. 105f.  
• Harverson, Michael (1993), "Watermills in Iran", Iran 31: 149-177  
• "Deutsches Museum: Ship Mill", The Deutsches Museum's collections: Ship Mill (Model), 1819 (see below: External links).
• Heinrich Ernst: Anweisung zum praktischen Mühlenbau. Leipzig 1805.
• Hill, Donald (1984), "Information on Engineering in the Works of Muslim Geographers", History of Technology 9: 127–142  
• Daniela Gräf, "Boat Mills in Europe from Medieval to Modern Times". Veröffentlichungen des Landesamtes für Archäologie, Sachsen 51, 2006.
• J. Mager, G. Meißner, W. Orf: Die Kulturgeschichte der Mühlen ("The Cultural History of Mills"), Leipzig 1988.
• Adam Meltzer: Mühlenbaukunst ("Mill Architecture"), Merseburg 1805.
• "Wien - 22. Bezirk/Donaustadt", Wien.gv.at, 2008, webpage (15 subpages): Wien.gv.at-donaustadt (in German).
• Wikander, Örjan (2000), "The Water-Mill", in Wikander, Örjan, Handbook of Ancient Water Technology, Technology and Change in History, 2, Leiden: Brill, pp. 371–400, ISBN 90-04-11123-9  

External links

• Historische Schiffsmühle, Magdeburg (Sachsen-Anhalt/Germany ...Historical ship-mill, Magdeburg (Saxony-Anhalt/Germany) - photos and videos tagged with ship-mill, webpage: flickr.com-9676.
• "Deutsches Museum: Ship Mill", The Deutsches Museum's collections: Ship Mill (Model), 1819, webpage: deutsches-museum.de-ship-mill (English).

Photo galleries

• Deutsche Fotothek-Dresden - model of a ship-mill formerly in Pieschen.

German webpages

• www.schiffmuehle.de Die Schiffmühle in Minden.
• www.schiffsmuehle.at Die Murecker Schiffsmühle auf der Mur.
• www.schiffmuehle.at Die Schiffmühle in Orth.
• www.duebener-heide.de/heimatverein/schiffm.html Bergschiffmühle in Bad Düben.
• www.deutsche-muehlen.de DGM.
• www.fan-nds.de Archäologische Funde.
• Schiffmühle in Slowakia Die Schiffsmühle in Kolarovo.
• www.earthlights.de-minden Image gallery of ship-mill in Minden.