Albolafia

[3] The name Abu al-Afiya is also attributed to "a Jewish merchant tasked to create a more efficient chain pump that would allow for easier transportation of water to Alcazar Palace Gardens by Abd al-Rahman II.

[8] In particular, the 16th-century writer Ambrosio de Morales claimed that the waterwheel existed in the early 9th century, but it's unclear what evidence he had to support this date.

[3] The Moroccan historian Ibn Idhari, writing in 1306, likewise claimed that a large noria was built here in the 10th century (presumably during the time of Abd ar-Rahman III).

Leopoldo Torres Balbás, a 20th-century Spanish scholar, supported earlier claims by Lévi-Provençal that the noria was built in 1136-37 by Tashufin, the Almoravid governor of Cordoba during the reign of Ali ibn Yusuf.

[1][2] The wheel of the noria was dismantled in 1492 on the orders of Queen Isabella, who complained of the noise it made as she lay sick inside the Christian-era Alcázar.

[1] In the 1960s, the architect and scholar Felix Hernández Giménez was tasked by the city council to conduct a restoration of the noria, including a reconstruction of its medieval waterwheel.

This uncovered the original southern facade of the noria building, though Hernández Giménez had to further expand the central arch of the structure in order to create fittings for the axis of the replica wheel.