I have no idea where this photo was taken. It appears to be a girl and a cow at a well. When you enlarge the photo you can see water splashing from the jars, and the girl is wrapped in almost Bedouin like robes. She is holding a stick in her hand, I’m guessing used to drive the cow. It is an interesting photograph of some sort of rural situation. Makes you wonder.
UPDATE: Iggy found out what kind of well this is:
A noria (Arabic: ناعورة, nā‘ūra, from Syriac: ܢܥܘܪܐ, nā‘urā) is a machine for lifting water into a small aqueduct, either for the purpose of irrigation or, in at least one known instance, to feed seawater into a saltern. The most common examples consist of a vertical wheel which is slung with a chain of buckets. The buckets hang down into a well which may be up to 8 m (26 ft) deep. The most primitive norias of this type are driven by donkeys, mules, or oxen. The animal turns another wheel, which is engaged with the noria and so causes it to turn. This causes the buckets to circulate.
Click here for the wiki article. These types of wells date back hundreds of years. Wow!
Who Were They? 
Ah. Here it is. I remember seeing this earlier and not feeling up to commenting. This well with its earthern jars for buckets appears to be from northern africa to me. I meant to see if i could identify the type of water wheel (pump) – but haven’t so far.
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“A noria (Arabic: ناعورة, nā‘ūra, from Syriac: ܢܥܘܪܐ, nā‘urā) is a machine for lifting water into a small aqueduct, either for the purpose of irrigation or, in at least one known instance, to feed seawater into a saltern.
The most common examples consist of a vertical wheel which is slung with a chain of buckets. The buckets hang down into a well which may be up to 8 m (26 ft) deep. The most primitive norias of this type are driven by donkeys, mules, or oxen. The animal turns another wheel, which is engaged with the noria and so causes it to turn. This causes the buckets to circulate.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noria
Their invention dates way back – and were adopted in the Arab world duing c.750 AD – c.1258 AD.
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That is truly fascinating. So the cow may be turning the wheel to draw up the water?
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That cow has horns – I think it is an Ox but yes, either way, the beast is turning a geared shaft horizonally and running the vertical “water pump” wheel.
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