Horse Mill

A horse mill is a mill powered by a horse or other draft animal walking in a circle to turn machinery, most often used to grind grain or pump water; in Britain the device is also known as a horse gin. The technology appears to have originated in the fourth century BC in Carthage, possibly in Carthaginian Sardinia, and archaeological evidence includes millstones recovered from a shipwreck near Mallorca dated to between 375 and 350 BC; it had spread to Sicily and Italy by the third century BC. By harnessing an animal's greater endurance in place of human labor, the horse mill freed the miller from much of the physical burden of grinding and significantly increased output.