page_title: Water organ
section_title: Hydraulis
hierarchical_section_title: Water organ / Hydraulis
caption_attribution_description: An ancient precursor of the organ, found at Dion. It's now at the site museum.
context_page_description: The water organ or hydraulic organ is a type of pipe organ blown by air, where the power source pushing the air is derived by water from a natural source or by a manual pump. Consequently, the water organ lacks a bellows, blower, or compressor.
  The hydraulic organ is often confused with the hydraulis. The hydraulis is the name of a Greek instrument created by Ctesibius of Alexandria. The hydraulis has a reservoir of air which is inserted into a cistern of water. The air is pushed into the reservoir with hand pumps, and exits the reservoir as pressurized air to blow through the pipes. The reservoir is open on the bottom, allowing water to maintain the pressure on the air as the air supply fluctuates from either the pumps pushing more air in, or the pipes letting air out.
  On the water organ, since the 15th century, the water is also used as a source of power to drive a mechanism similar to that of the barrel organ, which has a pinned barrel that contains a specific song to be played. The hydraulis in ancient Greek is often imagined as an automatic organ, but there is no source evidence for it.
context_section_description: A hydraulis is an early type of pipe organ that operated by converting the dynamic energy of water (Ancient Greek: ὕδωρ, romanized: húdōr) into air pressure to drive the pipes (Ancient Greek: αὐλός, romanized: aulós). Hence its name hydraulis, literally "water (driven) pipe (instrument)."  It is attributed to the Hellenistic scientist Ctesibius of Alexandria, an engineer of the 3rd century BC. The hydraulis was the world's first keyboard instrument and was the predecessor of the modern church organ. Unlike the instrument of the Renaissance period, which is the main subject of the article on the pipe organ, the ancient hydraulis was played by hand, not automatically by the water-flow;  the keys were balanced and could be played with a light touch, as is clear from the reference in a Latin poem by Claudian (late 4th century), who uses this very phrase (magna levi detrudens murmura tactu . . . intonet, “let him thunder forth as he presses out mighty roarings with a light touch”) (Paneg. Manlio Theodoro, 320–22).
caption: Hydraulis, 1st century BC, Archaeological Museum of Dion, Greece
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-LZ3", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.0", "Image DateTime": "2007:04:18 15:55:43", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Tag 0x5012": "1", "Image ExifOffset": "286", "Image CustomRendered": "Normal", "Image ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "Image WhiteBalance": "Auto", "Image DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "Image FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "37", "Image SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "Image GainControl": "None", "Image Contrast": "Normal", "Image Saturation": "Normal", "Image Sharpness": "Normal", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "626", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "1627", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/50", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:04:18 15:55:43", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:04:18 15:55:43", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "61/10", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1920", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2560", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area"}