# Dzsava, vízirondella



## pussimiao

I'm trying to translate to Italian a text about architecture in Hungary and I found these place names:

DZSAVA (an ancient village in Jordania)
VÍZIRONDELLA (a place in Budai Vár)

how can I translate them?


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## Orreaga

Just to clarify: do these names come from a text written in Hungarian? And by Jordania do you mean present-day Jordan?

*Dzsava *looks to me like the Hungarian transliteration of Java, but I can't find any place in Jordan with a similar name.

*Vízirondella *would seem to be a kind of water tower, although the more common term for this today is víztorony. I found a reference to something called vízirondella which exists (existed?) between the Buda Castle and the banks of the Danube, but can't ascertain exactly what it is. Perhaps some mechanism for transporting water from the Danube up the steep slopes to the Castle.


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## pussimiao

yes, I found them in this book:

"A magyar építőmesterség történetének kisenciklopédiája" (something like "Encyclopaedia about Hungarian architecture history"), Építésügyi tájékoztatási központ, Budapest 1992, page 84

the text focuses on irrigation systems in Mesopotamia, in particular on tanks and catchement basins, which were in "Dzsava" (in the north-east of Jordania), and in Tabka (Syria)

vízirondella: I found something about it, but I'm searching for the Italian proper word... maybe I'll ask to somebody who works in the Buda Castle info point!

thank you very much!!!


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## Zsanna

I tried to find information but the result is very meagre.
Nothing about Dzsava - though it is sure that it has nothing to do with Java, that is written Jáva (in H) so the pronunciation is different concernant the first letter(s).
Maybe what could help you is that in Italian the same pronunciation would give: "Giava" in the written form, so if we are lucky, you could find the town looking for Giava in Italian. 

The other word is a tricky one because apparently it exists (in one way or another) even in my own hometown (Szeged)! However, I could not really find a definition of it and even its whereabouts is not obvious... On the internet whenever it's mentioned, it's mostly connected to tenders (so no explanation about what it is really).
However.
There is a "_rondella_" (not the same as the Italian word) on the riverside (in Szeged, near the old town castle/fort from about the 14th century), and here is what I can say after the crumbs I could pick up from different references (plus what I know): it was probably a round based brick tower (now only its base can be seen beside the road running along the riverbank). 
I found some figures for what was called the _vízirondella_ in Szeged: its "base is of 562 m2 and a volume of 2800 m3". 
They don't fit the rondella I know which is more like 5,62 m2! (And I can't imagine how they could evaluate its volume...). Otherwise it really could be that thing on the riverside that nobody really knows what it was for... (I have special books about the town/country I had to study for a guide's exam and even those books don't mention it.) 
What is sure is that it was a round based building (from about the 14th-15th century) that probably had the shape of a tower - this is why it is called "rondella"; and as it was built next to the water and because the name water figures in its name (vízi), too it was surely connected to it. 
At first I thought (just after the name) that it contained/provided water (to the castle?) but somewhere else I read that it was supposed to protect the castle.


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## Orreaga

I think I just found the key to what this _Vízirondella_ is by looking in my nice book, _An illustrated history of Budapest_ (by Géza BUZINKAY. Budapest: Corvina, 1998). 

On p. 20 it says this (speaking of early 15th century Buda):

_(...) __In addition, in the bastion that stood on the site of the present Ybl Miklós Square, and in the adjacent castle wall that runs up to the Palace, an engineer from Nuremberg built a water pump that siphoned filtered water from the river up into the Castle. Over two hundred years later the Turks admired the invention, as testified in this account: "It is in a large tower on the shore of the Danube. In the tower a variety of wheels revolve and their bails dive successfully into the Danube water and the Danube, through this force, spills into jugs and is driven even higher like a fountain, until it reaches a spout in the middle castle, where the filtered water pours out. (...)"
_


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## Zsanna

Congratulations, again, Orreaga! (You beat me on it again! )

However, I would not know the Italian translation for that: torre dell' o di acqua?


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## pussimiao

Hello Zsanna and Orreaga!

I found Dzsava: I asked to a professor, who teaches Ancient History in my home university, and he gave me this text about Dzsava and a map (I can't show you it, because I don't know, how I can attach it!!!)
*MICHÈLE DAVIAU*, Wilfrid Laurier University 

_Ammonites in the Madaba Plains: 1989 Excavations at Tell Jawa and Tell el-'Umeiri_ 

Concerning Vízirondella... thanks for your suggestions! for the moment I translate it as torre dell'acqua; maybe this weekend I'll go to Buda Castle info point and I'll ask somebody, how it was translated in Italian (if somebody has translated it!)


thank you very much!!!


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