A chum of mine recently emailed me a video explaining how the Ancient Egyptians were able to sculpt identical statues of Rameses the Great using geometry based on the Pythagorean triangle. It brought to mind the many wonderful technologies that the ancients used, some of which cannot be replicated in these technological times.
The building of the pyramids is one such example. They are a marvel of technology and craftsmanship, especially in the way that the outer casings were fitted so closely together that a knife cannot be inserted between the joints. The same can be said of some of the ancient buildings in other places such as in Macchu Picchu where stone blocks seem to have been almost ‘moulded’ to precisely fit with their neighbours.
The Egyptians were notable for the invention of paper and the decimal system and the development of a phonetic writing system, astronomy, mathematics, glassmaking, mapmaking and many others including advances in medicine. They had, for example, a form of penicillin which they used to treat infections, and their doctors may even have used stethoscopes to listen to the chests of patients (see a photo I took in in the Great Temple of Kom Ombo -www.flickr.com/photos/cruisemac/983687661/). There are those who believe that the Egyptians also had a knowledge of electricity which they used for an early form of electroplating.
Some of the Egyptians’ knowledge of medicine may have been passed down from the prehistoric past. I once visited the small museum of a Turkish archaeological site and was amazed to see the skull of a prehistoric man who had undergone a trepanning operation. Such operations are very delicate and this particular skull clearly showed that the man had survived the operation. Later I learned that such operations have been found in remains from Neolithic times onward. How, I wonder, did very ancient peoples learn to master such things?
When you look around at the wealth and sheer variety of ancient technology, you cannot but wonder at it all.
To quote but a few examples: In China, papermaking, printing, iron-casting, gunpowder and the compass were invented and great strides made in medicine and astronomy. They also invented the suspension bridge and seismometers. Mathematics were arguably developed in India where perfume was perfected along with textile-dying. The Greeks invented differential gears (enabling the construction of analogue computers like the Antikythera Mechanism), the water clock and water organ and Roman technology is famous for its civil engineering, the invention of concrete, the arch and an efficient system of water-management and public bathing (something which, itself is said to have originated in the Indus Valley). The wheel originated from Mesopotamia whose people also perfected metalworking, flood control and water storage. To the Assyrians we owe the invention of the pump and the ‘Baghdad Battery’ which reconstructions demonstrate was a working electrical battery (giving some credence to the theory that the Egyptians had access to electricity in some form).
There are many more examples of ancient technology and skills that could be quoted here, but my main thought - prompted by the emailed video sent to me the other day - was amazement at the number of things that were invented thousands of years ago.
When you consider the inventions made in just the last fifty years, you have to wonder where the world and its technology will be in fifty years time.
I, alas, will not be around to comment upon it.
.
The building of the pyramids is one such example. They are a marvel of technology and craftsmanship, especially in the way that the outer casings were fitted so closely together that a knife cannot be inserted between the joints. The same can be said of some of the ancient buildings in other places such as in Macchu Picchu where stone blocks seem to have been almost ‘moulded’ to precisely fit with their neighbours.
The Egyptians were notable for the invention of paper and the decimal system and the development of a phonetic writing system, astronomy, mathematics, glassmaking, mapmaking and many others including advances in medicine. They had, for example, a form of penicillin which they used to treat infections, and their doctors may even have used stethoscopes to listen to the chests of patients (see a photo I took in in the Great Temple of Kom Ombo -www.flickr.com/photos/cruisemac/983687661/). There are those who believe that the Egyptians also had a knowledge of electricity which they used for an early form of electroplating.
Some of the Egyptians’ knowledge of medicine may have been passed down from the prehistoric past. I once visited the small museum of a Turkish archaeological site and was amazed to see the skull of a prehistoric man who had undergone a trepanning operation. Such operations are very delicate and this particular skull clearly showed that the man had survived the operation. Later I learned that such operations have been found in remains from Neolithic times onward. How, I wonder, did very ancient peoples learn to master such things?
When you look around at the wealth and sheer variety of ancient technology, you cannot but wonder at it all.
To quote but a few examples: In China, papermaking, printing, iron-casting, gunpowder and the compass were invented and great strides made in medicine and astronomy. They also invented the suspension bridge and seismometers. Mathematics were arguably developed in India where perfume was perfected along with textile-dying. The Greeks invented differential gears (enabling the construction of analogue computers like the Antikythera Mechanism), the water clock and water organ and Roman technology is famous for its civil engineering, the invention of concrete, the arch and an efficient system of water-management and public bathing (something which, itself is said to have originated in the Indus Valley). The wheel originated from Mesopotamia whose people also perfected metalworking, flood control and water storage. To the Assyrians we owe the invention of the pump and the ‘Baghdad Battery’ which reconstructions demonstrate was a working electrical battery (giving some credence to the theory that the Egyptians had access to electricity in some form).
There are many more examples of ancient technology and skills that could be quoted here, but my main thought - prompted by the emailed video sent to me the other day - was amazement at the number of things that were invented thousands of years ago.
When you consider the inventions made in just the last fifty years, you have to wonder where the world and its technology will be in fifty years time.
I, alas, will not be around to comment upon it.
.
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