Learning

Water and well’s go hand in hand in history.
There is many types of well and they have come from a simple hole in the ground to a very deep narrow drilled hole in the ground with a plastic lining.

The earliest wells date back to the Neolithic period and were simple holes in the ground dug with hands. These were very shallow and would only be good where there was plenty of water. These simple wells were called water holes.

There has been a Neolithic well found that was wood lined and dated around 5000 BC. This was an amazing find for historians and showed just how significant water was to them.

There is old wells located in India that date from 400 AD which are very large holes in the ground which have steps going down into the earth which pickup on the water table. These are known as stepwells and can have 2 or 3 steps to anything around 20,000 steps. This shows the depth and also the significance of prayer and symbolism of the water within the well. They were usually all architecturally finished and had roofs. Over 400 of these types of wells have been found so far within India.

A very common type of well is known as a Qanat and was introduced by the Persians. A qanat is a series of holes dug into the ground and then all the wells are connected together by tunnels, These tunnels allow the flowing aquifer to be channeled to the local population via streams. Theses water wells date back to the first millennium and are still being used and dug by locals today.