Water Fountains with Special Effects

Although they were likely invented just to deliver water, fountains became much more than reservoirs early in human history

Computer Physics Sociology History Of Civilization

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September-October 2005

Volume 93, Number 5
Page 444

DOI: 10.1511/2005.55.444

Water may be the most fundamental of human needs. It's no surprise, then, that it figures strongly in the earliest recorded stories—those of the Sumerians, who built a thriving civilization in Mesopotamia beginning around 3500 B.C. You may be surprised, however, to learn that the earliest known fountain predates the emergence of Sumerian cities by about 500 years.

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