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==Early Developments==
Perhaps the earliest fountains date to the beginnings of urbanism, around 3000 BCE, and early palace and garden decoration, often associated with sacred, religious areas where gardens had important religious meaning. Fountains were developed in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq, where a series of basins were utilized that likely tapped water from irrigation networks and canals nearby. Gods, such as Ea, were associated with water, thus fountains were made to represent water flowing out from the god. In the palace of Mari, from around 1800 BCE, a fountain of a goddess has been found and, in many ways, similar to much later fountains, where she holds a vase that then has water flowing out(Figure 1). Ancient Egypt may have had similar fountains, although relatively little has been depicted of ancient fountains there.
As gardens developed with improved water technologies by the early 1st millennium BCE, more elaborate fountains and gardens were created, such as at Nineveh in northern Iraq. Aqueducts were now introduced and later Greeks began adopting this technology. However, what differed from Mesopotamia is that rather than using fountains as royal or religious architecture specifically, fountains began to have a more civic meaning. For instance, at Athens, the sixth century BCE ruler Peisistratos built <i>Enneacrounos</i>, which became a symbol for the city. The name for this fountain means nine spouts, suggesting a large fountain with nine spouts. Its place in the agora of Athens suggest it was intended to be a public feature, although to this day the feature has not been found. Most likely, the fountain utilized a nearby natural spring to feed it, thus it may have also had a practical purpose in providing water for Athenians. Thus, while fountains became adorned as public symbols of cities, they also served as potentially practically useful water springs. The Athenian fountain, along with those from Mesopotamia and others, likely used gravity flow and pressure to have water come out. It is not clear if water coming out ws always recycled or how this would have been done.
In ancient Rome, evidence from Pompeii and Rome itself indicate that houses and a variety of public fountains were provided by an elaborate water network that brought water into the cities using aqueducts, including wealthy homes that often had private fountains. Fountains provided drinking water as well as decoration for the city and wealth alike. There were at least 39 monumental fountains in Rome, which were fed by the city's nine aqueducts. Water pumps powered by wind were now utilized in many cities in the Mediterranean, including Alexandria and Rome.
[[File:Deesse au vase (Mari).jpg|thumbnail|Figure 1. One of the oldest fountain features to have preserved is from Mari, Syria.]]
==Medieval and Renaissance Developments==
