1000 Inventions and Discoveries

smithsonian

INVENTIONS

AND DISCOVERIES

Written by

Roger Bridgman

A Dorling Kindersley Book

Contents

introduction .................. 4

LONDON, NEW YORK, MUNICH, learning btch–e50b0abscic..s........... 6
MELBOURNE, and DELHI
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NEW EDITION
Senior Editor Carron Brown the age 1o40f0a..u..t.h..o..r..i.t..y...... 40

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Category Publisher Andrew Macintyre 1r7e5v1o–l1u8t5i0o.n..a..r.y...c..h..a..n..g..e.s. 104
Production Controller Gemma Sharpe
Production Editor Ben Marcus s18c5i1en–c19e0t0a..k.e..s...c.o...n..t.r..o..l.. 138
Picture Library Martin Copeland
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Sophia MTT
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HARDBACK EDITION
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inventions Hardback edition first published in
for –ev19e5r0yo..n..e................. the United States in 2002
172
1901 This updated edition first published in
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Picture credits &

256acknowledgments
.............. Smithsonian
Institution

Introduction

Three million years of creativity and curiosity have produced
tens of thousands of inventions and discoveries. Those that
successfully met basic human needs – from the need to survive to
the need to know – have played a big part in shaping our world.

Our world is very principle that already existed, needing only
different from the to be found. But it is often difficult to tell
world of our ancestors. where invention ends and discovery
Tens of thousands of begins. Whatever they are, few inventions
inventions and or discoveries are made overnight. There is
discoveries have usually a period of preparation before they
transformed the way we do things and the emerge. Even then, they take time to act.
way we think. An invention is something An invention may take years to displace
new, created by arranging things in some existing methods. A discovery may take
novel way. A discovery is a thing or generations to change habits of thought.

It is often difficult to When did it happen?

tell where invention This is not a book of “firsts”. I have listed
most inventions and discoveries under the
ends and discovery date when they were first made public.
But some dates relate to the beginning of
begins, and neither something that only later became well
known, or to a later stage of something
happens overnight. that took time to influence people. It can
also be difficult to say exactly who
invented or discovered something. Often,
when the time is right, many people come
up with the same idea. And making an
idea work can be more important than
simply thinking of it. At the top of each
invention or discovery, I have named the
people who I think contributed most to it.

4

Below, where possible, I have

We may soon know enoughmentioned others who helped
or attempted something similar.
Some stories are too interesting to control the machinery
to squeeze into a small space.

I have given these either a of life itself, making the
separate box or two whole
pages. These longer stories

show how complicated future less certain.
inventing or discovering can
be, and how it can change

people’s lives. Other aspects of

these lives appear at the foot of

most pages in a timeline, which

records events in the wider world. and discoveries have had a lasting effect.

Faster and Faster Some, such as windmills or the theory of
continental drift, vanished for a while but

Over the centuries, inventions and were born again. Others, such as pottery,

discoveries followed two main trends. have never been replaced. Inventions and

Ancient ideas became modern science as discoveries like these were used or

measurement and mathematics improved remembered because they met basic human

on observation and argument, and the way needs. Until recently, these needs have not

things were made changed radically as changed. But we may soon know enough to

scientific techniques displaced traditional control the machinery of life itself, changing

crafts. These trends continue at an ever our basic needs and making the future less

greater rate today. You may notice that while certain. I hope that this book will help you

the first section of the book covers nearly to understand how we got where we are

three million years, the last covers only fifty. now, and maybe even help you to guess

Despite this rapid change, many inventions where we are going next.

5

lebaarnsinigctshe
By making tools that either
change their environment or
help them to cope with it,
human beings can survive
where other animals cannot.
It took hundreds of thousands
of years for people to make
the basic inventions and
discoveries that underpin
what we now call technology.

6

Stone tools Use of fire drill The bow drill
(right) is Egyptian. The
c 3,000,000 bc c1,400,000 bc drill (left) is a recent
pump drill from New
The main difference between People discovered the value Guinea, which was used
ourselves and most other of fire long before they to drill holes in wood.
animals is that we use tools. found out how to make it.
The oldest known tools, found Fires can be started naturally Drill was kept
in Africa, were made more than by friction, lightning, or upright by a
two million years ago. They are sunlight striking piece of wood
simply lumps of stone that through a drop or stone held
have been shattered with of water. The on top of it
another stone to make a sharp first people
edge for chopping meat or to use
wood. The people who made
them would also have made Cord attached to
tools from wood, but none the ends of the
have survived. crosspiece is also
fixed to, and
wrapped around,
the shaft

Hand axe fire simply kept these Wooden
The best stone for natural flames going. crosspiece
tools was flint. They used fire for was pumped
This flint hand warmth and to cook downward to
ax, from about food. Better still, fire turn the shaft
1000–5000 bc, could be used to clear via the cord
was found in away bushes and trees Stone weight
Saint Acheul, so that the grass grew was used to
near Amiens, thicker, attracting apply more
France. animals for people to pressure to
catch and eat.
If flakes are the bit
chipped off, flint Mining

naturally forms c 40,000bc
sharp edges

Hand axe Early people Drill shaft, Drill
made full use of the end of
c 1,800,000 bc everything around them, which was c 35,000bc
including rocks, which equipped
Over a period of more than they used to make tools and to with a cast- The earliest drills were
one million years, the first extract minerals. After a time, iron bit probably pointed stones
crude stone tools evolved into the good rocks on the surface that people spun between
beautifully shaped blades. were all used up, and people the palms of their hands.
Their makers flaked away the had to start digging to find Later, sticks were spun like this
surfaces of a large flint pebble what they wanted. The first to make fire (✷ see page 11).
until its sides were sharp, for mines were just shallow pits, People also discovered that
cutting or scraping, and one but miners were eventually they could spin the drill faster
end was pointed, for piercing. forced underground. One of by wrapping a cord around it,
The remaining blunt end fitted the minerals they wanted was tying the ends of the cord to a
snugly into the hand, which is red ochre, which was used as a wooden bow, and pushing this
why the blades are called pigment for ritual purposes back and forth. This bow drill
hand axes. and for cave paintings. The was used in some parts of the
oldest known underground world until recent times.
mine was used for collecting
red ochre. It is at Bomvu Ridge
in Swaziland, Africa.

c1,600,000bc northern Europe and North c50,000bc is now Arizona, The rock weighs
America. Most of it will have about 440,000 tons and forms a
Earth enters its most recent ice gone by 10,000 bc, leaving A huge meteorite, the size of a huge crater 0.75 miles (1.2 km)
age. Ice will eventually cover behind a changed landscape. building, falls on Earth in what wide and 490 ft (150 m) deep.

7

Learning the basics in bone or wood. This impact and increasing the Bow and arrow
allowed people to create length of their swing. Hand
Fishing line is more precise tools, such axes (✷ see page 7) could be c 30,000 bc
made from as needles, and to used to clear away bushes, but
engrave decoration on axes with hafts could be used Bows and arrows were
natural plant larger objects. to chop down trees. depicted in cave paintings
creeper from 30,000 bc onward, but
Fish hook Spear thrower no actual examples survive
Fish hook This today. By 18,000 bc, arrows
modern fish hook c 35,000 bc c 35,000 bc were equipped with flint
from Hawaii was points, making them deadly
made in much the The earliest method of By creeping along quietly, to animals. Later, the bow
same way as the catching a fish was with a early hunters could often came into use as a major
first fish hooks. piece of stone, pointed at both get close enough to an animal military weapon and became
ends, baited, and tied to a line. to throw a spear at it and kill it. deadly to people, too.
Barb This gorge, as it is called, But sometimes the animal
prevents the simply jammed in the fish’s would run away. What the Cave painting
throat. The first real fish hooks hunters needed was a way of
fish from were developed by the earliest throwing spears from farther c 30,000 bc
escaping, “modern” humans, the Cro- away. The spear thrower was a
once caught Magnons. They caught their piece of wood or antler with a Dramatic paintings made by
Hook made fish using a barbed bone hook, notch at one end to hold the people living more than
from ivory one of the many small, spear. It enabled hunters to 30,000 years ago lay forgotten
specialized tools they made hurl their weapons farther and until 1879, when a little girl,
Engraving tool using the versatile burin that increased their chances of Maria de Sautuola, visited the
they had perfected. killing their prey.
c 35,000 bc
Handles Bricks are molded from Roof structure built from
As long as 40,000 years ago, for tools mud and baked in the sun branches and reeds
people were making
delicate objects and works of c 35,000 bc
art using stone engraving tools
called burins. Made by forming Attaching a wooden handle
a sharp edge on a flake of flint, to a blade may not sound
a burin could be used to like a breakthrough, but it
scratch lines and cut grooves was. People could not hit
things very hard with a tool
held in their hands because
it hurt. Nor could they
swing the tool very quickly
because their arms were too
short. A handle, or haft,
helped them to overcome
both these limitations,
protecting their arms from

house After 20,000
years of development,
houses began to be
made of brick. This
is a model of a
house from the
6th century
bc.

c35,000bc between Siberia and Alaska, c27,000bc Venus of Willendorf, one of the
which is exposed by the low earliest known sculptures of a
The first people to enter the sea level. The bridge will later In what will become Germany, an human. It has exaggerated female
Americas travel over a land bridge disappear as ice melts worldwide. unknown sculptor carves the proportions and is painted red.

8

caves at Altamira in Spain with been a twig chewed at one end House c 3,000,000 bc – 500 bc
her father. She noticed the huge to separate the fibres, but the
paintings of animals high above world’s first interior decorators c 28,000 bc heavy stick thrown at an
her head. Since then, even may also have used bunches of animal to injure it and make
earlier paintings have been feathers or bristles. People started to build it easier to catch. Over the
discovered at Chauvet in houses about 30,000 years centuries, the stick was
France. The artists of these Rope ago, but most people lived in reshaped so that it would fly
early paintings had to invent shelters or caves. They also farther and faster, and even
paint, brushes, scaffolding, and c 30,000 bc built simple huts, in which return to its thrower. The first
even artificial lighting before they probably lived for some known boomerang was found
they could begin painting. It is difficult to say exactly time before moving on to find in a cave in southern Poland,
when people first started to food. At Dolnì Vestonice in the and it is probably about
Paintbrush make rope because few early Czech Republic, archaeologists 21,000 years old. The
examples have survived, except have found the remains of Australian boomerang was in
c 30,000 bc in bogs, where the acid water houses built from stone, wood, use by 8000 bc.
has stopped it from rotting. But and mammoth bones, dating
The artists who created the some early drawings and from about 25,000 bc. Pottery
cave paintings at Altamira sculptures show it in use. It has
in Spain, Lascaux in France, also sometimes been preserved Boomerang c 13,000 bc
and in other places, probably as an impression in clay, as in
put colour on to the walls in the caves of Lascaux, where c 19,000 bc Having harnessed the power
several different ways, archaeologists found evidence of fire, people were able to
including spitting it out. Some of a rope braided from three Used by hunters in Africa, make pottery. The first potters
of the effects they produced plant fibres. One early use of India, and Australia, the only needed to find some soft
must have needed a paintbrush. rope was for making nets and boomerang was originally just a clay, shape it, and then heat it
At its simplest, this could have snares for catching food. in a fire. Because an ordinary
fire did not heat the clay very
Doorway supported Roof and walls plastered with mud evenly, the resulting pots were
by a large branch fragile and not completely
waterproof, but they still
proved extremely useful.

Pottery from about 15,000
years ago has been
found in Japan.

c23,000bc more water is locked up in c18,000bc engraved designs. They also
glaciers, the sea level continues create images in color. For red,
Ice tightens its grip on Earth as to fall. By this time, it is 300 ft People in Australia cover rocks they use a rock called red ochre,
the ice age reaches its peak. As (90 m) below its level today. with thousands of elaborate or sometimes human blood.

9

Learning the basics Other skulls show that people examples more than 12,000 Oven
survived it: bone around the years old. People in China were
Cutting holes hole has grown, proving that using whistles with more than c 9000 bc
in the skull the patient lived. one note at least 9,000 years
ago. We don’t know exactly The earliest method of
c 10,000 bc Whistle how the whistle was invented, cooking was to put food
but it is likely that the first step over an open fire and turn it
People once thought that c 10,000 bc was when someone blew across occasionally. But this wasted
disease was caused by the end of a natural tube, such fuel and someone had to do the
demons getting inside a The whistle could be the as bamboo or bone. turning. It was more efficient to
person’s head or gods stealing earliest musical instrument. put the fire inside a stone or
their soul. Their answer was to Archaeologists have found Agriculture clay chamber – an oven. Once
cut a hole in the head to let the the oven was hot, the cook
demons out or the soul back Skull shows four circular c 9000 bc could rake out the fire, put the
in. Trephining probably took holes, or trephinings food in, and seal it up until the
place as early as 10,000 bc, and See pages 12–13 for the food was ready. The first known
a skull from about 5000 bc, story of how hunters ovens were found in the city of
found at Ensisheim in became farmers. Jericho in ancient Palestine,
France, shows clear where people have been living
evidence of the for more than 10,000 years.
operation.

Flint mining This
prehistoric pick is made
from a deer’s antler.

Bone shows Flint mining
signs of healing,
indicating that this c 8000 bc
individual survived the
process of trephining For hundreds of thousands
of years, people made tools
cutting holes in from the stones that they found
the skull This around them. As the need for
skull was trephined tools grew, toolmakers began
in 2200–2000 bc. to dig for suitable stones like
flints. Fortunately, flints are
found in soft chalk, which
miners could cut away with
picks made from antlers. Early
flint miners in Britain and
France sank complex mining
shafts and galleries that went
as deep as 40 ft (13 m).

11,000c bcPeople by glaciers. Using stone-tipped c 8300bc A period sharply and the great ice sheet
now spears, they hunt mastodons and of change covering Europe starts to shrink,
occupy most of the Americas, mammoths (both similar to known as the Middle Stone Age opening up huge areas of land
except the northern parts covered elephants) and even camels. begins. World temperatures rise for people to occupy.

10

c 3,000,000 bc – 500 bc

Sheep

c 8000 bc

About 10,000 years ago,
sheep lived wild in
western Asia and around the
Mediterranean. They are now
found in more countries than
any other domestic animal.
The first farmers may have
favoured sheep because they
tended to follow a leader,
which made them easy to
herd. They were also small and
hardy, and produced valuable
wool as well as meat and milk.

Wheat and
barley

c 7500 bc

Wheat and barley are
basically just types of
grass. Modern varieties are the
result of a continuous process
of selection, which started
when the first farmers chose
to cultivate the plants with
the most plentiful and largest
seeds. The first crops were
probably cultivated somewhere

in the Middle East, perhaps chisel, a blade sharpened at the produced sparks that could be Sheep Images of farmers with
near Jericho, which had a large end, not the side. It gave better used to start a fire. The other sheep and cows made 4,500 years
population to feed. Traces of control for carving objects from method was to spin a stick ago in the city of Ur, Mesopotamia.
wheat and barley seeds have wood or other soft materials. called a fire drill against a piece and cloth. The first plant to be
been found buried under the of wood until sparks flew. cultivated for this reason was
modern town. Making fire Archaeologists have found the flax, a tall plant with blue
equipment used for both flowers. Fibers extracted from
Chisel c 7000 bc methods throughout Europe. its stems were spun into a
thread called linen, which we
c 7000 bc People have used fire for Flax still use today because it is
more than a million years, much stronger than cotton.
About 9,000 years ago, but only discovered how to c 7000 bc Archaeologists have found early
people began to grind make it about 9,000 years ago. flax plants and linen fishing
stones to form a sharp edge, Two main methods were used. By about 9,000 years ago, nets and fabrics in Switzerland.
instead of flaking them. This One was to hit a rock called people were growing plants The ancient Egyptians also
meant they could use tough pyrites with a flint, which to make their fibres into rope used linen to wrap mummies.
stones to make longer-lasting
tools. One such tool was the

c 8300bc The saber- Well equipped to hunt and kill c 8000bc After to disappear. By this time they
toothed large animals such as the occupying have become extinct in North
tiger, a large ferocious cat with mastodon, it cannot survive as many parts of the world for more America. In another 8,000 years
fangs, finally becomes extinct. this and many other prey die out. than a million years, lions begin there will be none left in Europe.

11

Learning the basics

GOING FOR GROWTH

No going back as hunters become farmers

Some time after 10,000 bc, people made
the first real attempt to control the
world they lived in, through agriculture.

Over thousands of years, they began to

Flint blade depend less on what they could hunt
(c 4000 –
2300 bc) in or gather from the wild, and more on
a modern
handle animals they had tamed and crops they

Ears of had sown. The abundant food that
einkorn wheat
agriculture provided allowed small
Early harvEst
The first farmers villages to grow into great cities.
grew einkorn, a type
of wheat, and other It is not clear why people changed their
crops. They harvested
the wheat with a sickle, Carbonized wheat, barley, fig lifestyle like this. We can only guess at what
made by attaching a flint blade seeds, and grape seeds from an inspired them to try herding sheep or
to a wooden handle. The sickle archaeological site in Jordan
made it easy to cut down
the tall, strong stems. planting wheat. Whatever the reasons,

thrEshing and winnowing there was no going back. Farming produced more food per
Large-scale growing demanded
efficient ways of processing the person than hunting and gathering, so people were able to
harvest. Wheat or barley was
first threshed – beaten with raise more children. And, as more children were
flails to separate the grains
from the husks. Then it was born, more food was needed. Agriculture
winnowed – thrown into the
air so that the wind blew the gave people their first experience
husks away while the valuable
grains fell to the ground. of the power of technology

to change lives.

Some of the first people

to become farmers lived

in a huge, sunny, well

watered area in the

Middle East called the

Fertile Crescent (now

Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan,

Syria, and Turkey), where the

conditions were ideal for

crops and livestock. But the

story of the dawn of

agriculture was repeated over

and over again throughout the

world. People invented

agriculture independently in

12

c 3,000,000 bc – 500 bc

places as far apart as China and South America. They Harvesting today
may have started because people noticed that the Cereals are still harvested in
grains they gathered sometimes sprouted, or that sheep the “Fertile Crescent” today.
liked to stick together and were easy to control. The principles of harvesting
grain have not changed over
By about 6000 bc, people had discovered that the
best cereals to grow were wheat and barley, and that the centuries, but in many
pigs, cows, and sheep returned the effort involved in areas the farmers now use
rearing them by providing meat, milk, leather, and wool. machines like this combine
Later, they used oxen for pulling plows. People learned to harvester in Syria. This huge
work with the seasons, planting at the right time and, in machine cuts, threshes, and
dry areas, making use of annual floods to irrigate their
fields. They also invented granaries where the harvest could be stored. winnows the crop.

This style of farming lasted for another 8,000 years. Then, with the rise
of science, changes began. New methods meant that fewer people were
needed in farming. In the last century or so, these changes have
accelerated. New power machinery, artificial fertilizers, and pesticides have
now totally transformed a way of life that started in the Stone Age.

As well as changing people’s lives,
agriculture gradually changed the
landscape as farmers began to plow
fields and channel water to their crops.

13

Learning the basics TRADERS AND THEIR TRADES

Mortise and severaL earLy settlements, such as Çatal Hüyük in Turkey
tenon joint
(6500–5400 bc), and San Lorenzo in South America
c 7000 bc
(1150–900 bc), owed their growth to trade. Çatal Hüyük’s
Having learned how to
make good tools, people population grew to about 5,000 at its height because it had
could start to do precise
woodwork. But first they had access to the valuable material obsidian. Trading was also
to solve the problem of how
they could join together two important for island dwellers, who could rarely find
pieces of wood. One method
was with the mortise and everything they needed locally but were able to produce
tenon joint, in which one
piece of wood has a tongue specialized crops such as spices. Cinnamon
shape at the end, which fits
into a matching hole in the ObSidian
other piece of wood. This A natural glass formed by volcanoes, obsidian could be used to make
joining method was also used much sharper cutting tools than flint or other stones. People living in
for stone structures like what is now Turkey had plenty of this material but lacked precious
Stonehenge, and is still the metals, so they traded one for the other. Obsidian from this area has
most widely used wood joint. been found in ancient Palestine, 550 miles (900 km) away.

Sickle SpiceS Ginger
Trading in spices such as cinnamon,
c 7000 bc cloves, ginger, and pepper goes back Peppercorns
to 2000 bc or earlier. The spices
Soon after people began to originated in the East, and traders
grow crops, they developed who knew where to get them made
special tools for harvesting large profits by bringing them
them. The first was a short, westward. The traders kept their
straight blade known as a sources – places like the Spice Islands
sickle. Dating from about (now part of the Moluccas group of
7000 bc onward, flint sickles islands in Indonesia) – strictly secret.
were one of the inventions
that made agriculture possible Copper in about 6500 bc in Turkey. bOat This boat from
(✷ see pages 12–13). A later Unlike copper, lead is rarely Lake Titicaca in the
development was a curved c 6500 bc found as a pure metal, and has Andes mountains is
blade, which could cut several to be extracted from its ore by made of reeds. The
stems at once. The curved The person who discovered roasting it in a hot fire to Egyptians were
sickle is still in use today in copper, the first widely release the metal. The earliest making boats
some places, but with a steel used metal, must have been known objects made of lead are from reeds
blade instead of a stone one. thrilled. It is one of the few beads, suggesting that at first by about
metals found in metallic form. people considered lead a 4000 bc.
cOpper This copper is pure People in Turkey were using it precious material and used
enough to be used almost as it is. for small, precious objects by it only for display. Ropes and
6500 bc. By 3000 bc, with the sail made
development of ways to extract Painted pottery from reeds
the metal from its ore, copper
c 6500 bc washed over
was in use all over the Middle with a thin
East and the Mediterranean. Although early methods of layer of cream
firing were not very clay called slip, and
Lead effective, even the earliest decorated with the
potters tried to make their natural pigment red ochre.
c 6500 bc wares look beautiful. Pots
found in the ancient city of
Lead is one of the most Çatal Hüyük, Anatolia (now
ancient metals. As with Çumra in Turkey), dating from
copper, people started to use it about 6500 bc, had been

c 6800bc Methods of crops and use land more c 6000bc Britain England and France is finally
of farming efficiently. They domesticate what becomes broken. Melting of the great
improve in villages in the Middle will become one of the most cut off from Europe as the land glaciers has caused the sea to
East. Farmers grow a wider range important farm animals – the pig. link between what are now rise by hundreds of feet.

14

Trading Drum This Sumerian vase from c 3,000,000 bc – 500 bc
the end of the 4th century bc
c 6500 bc shows a musician playing a Boat
drum made from animal skin
Few communities are able to c 6000 bc
produce everything they stretched across a wooden frame.
need. Trading allows people to
exchange things they have too each other’s knowledge and
much of for things they lack, customs. (✷ See also Traders
and probably make a profit at and their trades.)
the same time. Trading became
common when the first cities Ax
were established, and the
profits from trading helped c 6000 bc
many cities to grow. As
transportation improved, From about 6000 bc, stone
ax heads with a straight
trading spread more edge and heavy base began to
widely, exposing appear, the earliest of which
previously have been found in Sweden.
isolated groups Another basic tool, the adze,
of people to developed at about the same

time. It was like an ax, but Drum
with the blade turned
around to strike c 6000 bc
across, not along,
the direction of
swing. It was
used to shape
heavy
timbers.

High, domed shape The remains of drums have The first “boat” was probably
keeps the sailor out been found dating from just a dead tree on which
6000 bc onward. Drums have someone hitched a ride
of the water always had religious, political, downstream. But once tool
or military significance, and the makers had perfected stone
urge to influence a crowd with axes, people used them to
noise and rhythm has led shape and hollow tree-trunks
to make real boats – dugout
people to develop the drum canoes. Boat builders also
into many forms. The covered wooden frames with
first drums were skins animal skins to make lighter
stretched over anything boats like the coracle, which is
still used today. Later, people
hollow, but now there are in ancient Egypt made boats
hundreds of varieties, such as by lashing reeds together.
African talking drums, classical
kettle drums, and tambourines.

Bundles of
reeds held
by twine

c 6000bc The city settlements of the Near East, after c 6000bc Chinese and inorganic materials to create
of Çatal about 500 years of occupation. painters new colors. They make these
Hüyük, in what is now Turkey, Its mud-brick buildings will extend their range of pigments into paint with gum, egg white,
becomes one of the largest survive for another 500 years. by heating mixtures of organic gelatine, or beeswax.

15

Learning the basics Leather Loom Plow

Basket weaving c 5000 bc c 5000 bc c 5000 bc

c 5500 bc

Basket weaving and cloth Early hunters knew that To weave cloth, a thread Seeds grow best in soil that
making were both common animal skins would be called the weft is passed has been broken up and
by 5000 bc. Baskets probably useful if they could stop them under and over alternate turned over. Early farmers used
came first because weaving a from decomposing. By about threads called the warp. The sticks to prepare the soil. The
basket was easier than weaving 5000 bc, they had worked out earliest weavers may have used plow, developed later, did the
cloth. No loom was needed, various ways of turning skin a needle, but by 5000 bc, most job better, although early plows
and weavers could use whole into leather. They started by looms allowed the weaver to did not turn the soil over. The
plant stems instead of having to drying the skin, then applied a avoid going under-and-over by first plows were pulled or
spin plant fibers into thread. range of substances, including lifting half the warp threads for pushed by people, but by
Baskets were made using split urine. By about 800 bc, people the weft to pass straight 4000 bc oxen were doing the
bamboo in China, flax and in the ancient state of Assyria through, then lifting the other pulling and the farmer had
straw in the Middle East, and in northern Mesopotamia (Iraq) half for the weft to pass back. only to steer.
willow in Europe. People in had developed a better process.
these areas also used the same They soaked the skin in a Seal
materials to weave matting. solution containing the
chemical alum and vegetable c 4500 bc
Grindstone This quern was extracts that were rich in the
used to make flour by grinding chemical tannin. The seal was the first
grain between the two stones. security device used to
Irrigation protect goods and sign
Grindstone documents. In 4500 bc, people
c 5000 bc in Mesopotamia sealed
c 5000 bc packages by tying them with
Irrigation is a means of getting string, putting clay around the
Cereal grains are difficult to water to plants so that they knot, and squashing the clay
digest unless they are can grow, even when the land with a stone carrying their
cracked open. At first, people is dry. From about 5000 bc, the mark. A thousand years later,
did this by pounding them ancient Egyptians practised
with rocks. Then they used two irrigation on a grand scale. when people started
stones, one on the ground and Every year, the Nile River writing on clay tablets,
one in the hands. The flour flooded, and the Egyptians they signed their
produced was more nutritious used sluices and ponds to trap documents in a
than whole grains and could be the water and its valuable similar way.
made into bread. This type of nutrients, and
grindstone is sometimes called send it to Plow This
a saddle quern because the where it model plow was
lower stone gets ground into a was found in an
saddle shape with use. needed. Egyptian tomb
of 2000 bc.
Farmer steers
the plow Plowshare
digs into
the soil

c 5500bc Chinese eastern China. Within five c 5000bc The fertile of many occupants of the area
people centuries, this small beginning land to that will become Sumer. They
begin to grow rice in the Huang will develop into a fully the north of the Persian Gulf is develop a rich culture that
He (Yellow River) valley in agricultural way of life. settled by the Ubaidians, the first includes pottery and sculpture.

16

c 3,000,000 bc – 500 bc

Scales Weight could be Beam made brick Made in
moved along to of bronze Mesopotamia in
c 4000 bc adjust the beam about 2500 bc, this
mud brick was Edges
The simplest device for partly fired. formed by
weighing things is the the wooden
beam balance, a length of mold
wood or metal hung from its
center with a pan hung from Pans suspended
each end. The object to from cords (the
be weighed, in one pan, chains are modern
is balanced against replacements)
weights in the other.
It was developed ScaleS These ancient Roman scales use
in about 4000 bc in the same principle as Mesopotamian scales.
Mesopotamia.By 1500 bc, They are simple and very accurate. Similar
the ancient Egyptians had ones remained in use until modern times.
improved the accuracy of these
early scales by passing the buried in tombs dating from It was used as money, and Brick
cords for the pans over the 4000 bc. By 2500 bc, silver this remained its main use
ends of the beam instead mines were in full production until recent times, when c 3500 bc
of through holes in it. in the area now called Turkey. it became the essential
From the beginning, silver was ingredient of People made the first
Silver valued for its rarity and beauty. photographic film. bricks from mud. They
mixed the mud with straw
c 4000 bc to reinforce it, then
shaped the bricks in
Silver is often found naturally wooden molds and
with copper and lead, but dried them in the
it is more difficult sun. Builders
to extract so it were using
came into use bricks of
rather later this kind
Archaeologists 7,000 years ago,
have found but they were not
silver ornaments very good because
heavy rain could turn them
Oxen back into mud. More practical
provide bricks began to be made in the
the power Middle East in about 3500 bc.
They were made of clay and
fired by heating them in a kiln,
which made them as hard and
as waterproof as pottery.

c 4500bc Farmers Germany, mixing with people c 3900bc The simple farming, and later
from still only hunting for food. They Yangshao discover the secret of silkworms.
southwest Asia migrate up the settle here, build large wooden culture emerges in eastern China. Their other specialty is pottery
valley of the Danube River in houses, and trade for tools. Its people keep animals, practise painted in red, white, and black.

17

Learning the basics Memphis as oil and as a food by about discovered by German chemist
city On the floor of the imagined in the 3500 bc. More than 5,000 years F. W. A. Sertürner in 1806,
church of St John in Kirbet 7th century later, olives are still Crete’s most which is still one of the most
El-Samra, in important crop, and olive potent painkillers available.
Jordan, is this growing has spread throughout
somewhat the Mediterranean region and Donkey
fanciful image to other parts of the world with
of Memphis in a similar climate. c 3500 bc
ancient Egypt.
Opium Wheels are not always the
best way to move things
c 3500 bc from place to place. In certain
conditions, goods may travel
Opium is a more safely strapped to an
substance made animal. The first beast of
from the unripe seed burden was the donkey,
heads of poppies. It domesticated from the African
has been in use for wild ass. In Sudan, in north-
more than 5,000 west Africa, people were using
years to relieve pain pack animals, as they are often
and help people called, as early as 4000 bc, long
sleep. Some of the before wheeled vehicles were
earliest known writings – clay invented. They probably chose
tablets of about 3000 bc from the donkey because it is easy to
Assyria – refer to its medical tame, stands up well to harsh
properties. Since then, it has treatment, and can carry a load
been used to make several of up to 132 lb (60 kg).
other drugs, notably morphine,
City an easy discovery to make,
once people had learned to Bronze
c 3500 bc melt metals, because any blade
metal they spilled taken
Because farming (✷ see would have been from the
pages 12–13) meant shaped by what mould
that fewer members of each it fell on. The
community were needed to first known Stone
produce food, other members castings are mold of
were free to develop cities. ax heads a sword
They were places where people made of copper blade
gathered for security and to from the Balkan
exchange goods and ideas, region of south- Bronze melted
and were the foundations of east Europe. in a furnace
civilization. The earliest large They were made
settlement was Jericho in the between 4000 bc Metal casting
Middle East, which dates from and 3000 bc. Later, Metalworkers discovered
about 7000 bc, but the first real copper was replaced that bronze was easy to
cities, with streets and public by bronze (✷ see melt and cast into objects.
buildings, were Thebes and page 20), which is
Memphis in Egypt, both of easier to cast and
which existed by 3500 bc. is much harder.

Metal casting Olive

c 3500 bc c 3500 bc

Casting is a way of making People on the island of
objects by letting molten Crete in the Mediterranean
metal solidify in a mold. It was Sea were growing olive trees
and harvesting olives for their

c 3500bc People in typically 230 ft (70 m) long and c 3500bc Sculptors goddess’s head in white limestone
Europe point east-west. An entire high- in the inlaid with other materials. They
begin to bury their dead in long status family would be buried Mesopotamian city of Uruk make also carve vases from alabaster,
barrows. These earth mounds are in a chamber at the east end. outstanding items, such as a a translucent stone.

18

Potter’s wheel stretched for 1785 miles Sail c 3,000,000 bc – 500 bc
(2857 km) between the
c 3500 bc Persian Gulf and the Aegean c 3500bc Whatever they were made of,
Sea. By 1050 bc, the Chinese early sails worked only when
People made the first pots were traveling on the Silk Early boat users, noticing the wind was behind them.
with their bare hands. Later, Road, which remained the that the wind sometimes Sails that could catch wind
they built up pots from a world’s longest road for 2000 helped their progress, stretched from the side, making sailors
“worm” of clay. Neither method years. Great roads were also skins or matting between poles less dependent on the weather,
produced perfectly round pots. built by the Incas in South to make the most of it. Sails were not invented for another
By about 3500 bc, potters were America and by the ancient made of cloth came later. They 1500 years.
molding clay on a turntable, Egyptians, who needed to first appear in ancient Egyptian
possibly made from a round transport building materials art from about 3300 bc. Wheel
stone, which helped them to for their pyramids.
shape their pots more c 3500 bc
uniformly. Before
long, they were using Wheels
a heavy stone on an were first
axle, which they spun used to move
with their feet. This left things around
their hands free to work in Mesopotamia.
the clay on a smaller It seems unlikely
turntable above, and the that the idea came
potter’s wheel was born. from logs used as
rollers, because the
Kiln-fired earliest wheels don’t
pottery look anything like
logs. People made them
c 3500 bc from planks, even in
countries with trees that
Clay heated in a fire does were large enough to
not get hot enough to slice into wheels. The
change into really strong wheel is more likely to
pottery. By about 3500 bc, have started life as an
potters had developed kilns, aid to potters in their
often fueled with charcoal, quest to make perfectly
in which hot gases rushed rounded pots.
up through a stack of
pots. Clay placed in such Wheeled
a kiln produced better vehicle
pottery. Because kilns
were expensive to run, c 3500 bc
potters who used them
needed plenty of The first record of
customers and usually anything with
operated in cities. wheels is a pictograph
(picture-writing) found
Road in Sumeria, an ancient
civilization in southern
c 3500 bc Mesopotamia. It dates
from about 3500 bc. The
Early roads were not Kiln- same pictograph shows that
surfaced like modern earlier vehicles had runners
roads, but they could fired like a sled. Within 500 years,
be just as long. The wheeled vehicles were almost
Persian Royal pottery everywhere. They have been
Road, built in found in tombs and bogs and
about 3500 bc, This beaker appear in wall-paintings and
was made carvings. In China, vehicles
between 2500 have been found dating from
and 1800 bc. 2600 bc onwards.

c 3500bc The first spreads northward as new crops, c 3500bc Corn, or scale, displacing a more
pottery such as beans, demand better maize, a established cereal, millet. Beans
in the Americas is made in storage. Pottery making will basic Central American crop, and hot chilli peppers are already
Ecuador and Colombia. The idea reach Mexico by 2300 BC. begins to be grown on a large being grown in many places.

19

Learning the basics LunisoLar caLendars
These calendars were based on the lunar
KINDS OF CALENDAR month, during which the Moon goes
from new to full and back. This has no
a caLendar is like a clock that tells you what connection with the solar year, the time
time of year it is, instead of what time of day. All Earth takes to go exactly once around the
calendars have to allow for the fact that a year
does not contain a whole number of days or Sun. So people using lunisolar calendars
lunar months. Early calendars had to throw in an extra month every
tended to run fast or now and then to keep their
slow, because their months in step with the years.
year was shorter
or longer than Sun god surrounded by the
the actual 20 days of a month
time it
takes The egypTian
for Earth
to go caLendar
around
the Sun. The Egyptians
ignored the Moon
This is and used 12
an Aztec months of exactly
calendar 30 days each,
stone. The plus 5 days at the
Aztecs ruled end of the year,
most of Mexico which didn’t
in the 15th belong to any
century. The month. It was a
calendar was based simple method, but
partly on a ritual cycle because this calendar
of 260 days. gave a year of exactly
365 days, one-quarter
of a day shorter than the
true solar year, it gained
25 days in every 100 years.

Writing Bronze Writing candLe
numbers in tens Candles were
c 3300 bc c 3100 bc originally
c 3400 bc formed from
People began to use metal See pages 22–23 for the wax made
People were counting their instead of stone for the story of how Middle Eastern by bees.
possessions long before they production of their tools in traders created the first
began writing words. One way about 3500 bc. This happened permanent records. Ripples in
they did this was by cutting when they discovered that wax caused
notches in a stick. Early copper could be extracted from Candle
counting methods like this certain rocks. Bronze, a harder because
gradually evolved into writing metal, which was made by c 3000 bc candle was
numbers. At first, people wrote mixing copper with tin, was hand-dipped
24 marks to represent the discovered several hundred Cave painters were using Tapered shape
number 24. By about 3400 bc, years later. Easily shaped by burning torches and crude
the Egyptians had a more casting (melting and pouring oil lamps 30,000 years ago. produced
efficient system, with different into a mold), and tougher than Candles were better than these by dipping
symbols for 1, 10, 100, and so any stone, the discovery of because their fuel did not spill,
on. Using this system, they bronze had a huge impact on making them easy to carry the wick
could write 24 using just six human development. around, and their wick gave a repeatedly in
marks: two 10s and four 1s. controlled flame. Candlesticks
molten wax

c 3200bc In this stage it does not have much c 3200bc New speak a different language
England, stone, but is simply a “henge” people from the people already there,
work starts on a monument that – a sacred place surrounded by begin to arrive in the area to the but together they form the
will be known as Stonehenge. At a bank and a ditch. north of the Persian Gulf. They Sumerian civilization.

20

dating from 3000 bc have been kept getting out of line with the Cotton fibres c 3,000,000 bc – 500 bc
found in both Crete and Egypt. seasons. The Egyptians, who grow from a
The candles they once held had to know when to expect seed Strong fibers
were made by dipping thin the annual flooding of the Nile, consist of
cords into molten wax. were the first to make a
calendar based only on the Sun. 94 percent
Lubricants (✷ See also Kinds of calendar.) cellulose

c 3000 bc

The first wheeled Ripe Fibres begin
vehicles needed cotton to grow after
lubrication because pod is the flower has
a wooden wheel called a
rubbing on a wooden boll fallen off
axle created a lot of heat.
Any sort of oil or fat eased Cosmetics Fibers must be
the problem for a while, but removed from the
quickly burned away. The c 3000 bc seed before being
Egyptians, in about 1500 bc, woven into fabric
were perhaps the first people People often feel the need
to mix fat with lime and to make themselves look Plants grow to
other substances, making more attractive or more about 5.25 ft
lubricants that lasted. frightening, and cosmetics have (1.6m) high
been used for these purposes
Boat built since the earliest times. The Seeds can
from planks oldest known cosmetics be cooked
were found in ancient and pressed
c 3000 bc Egyptian tombs dating from for their oil
about 3000 bc. They include
The first boats built perfume, skin cream (used by cotton The textile fibre
from planks are thought men as well as women), eye comes from various species of
to have come from ancient shadow, and mascara. Different the plant Gossypium.
Egypt. At Abydos, south of minerals were ground to make
Cairo, archaeologists found 14 different colors, such as iron Cotton about 5000 years ago by people
large boats, which had been oxide for red and malachite for in the valley of the Indus River,
made, almost 5000 years ago, green. About 1000 years later, c 3000 bc in what is now called Pakistan.
by “sewing” planks together Britons daubed themselves with They discovered that the cotton
with ropes. The buried fleet a blue dye called woad to Cotton fabric starts out as seed fibres could be woven into
was probably intended for use frighten their enemies. a mass of silky fibers much finer fabrics than flax
in the afterlife by a pharaoh. attached to the seeds of a plant fibers could (✷ see page 11).
The boats’ construction shows belonging to the mallow family. News of the discovery soon
that the Egyptians still had a lot It was probably discovered spread west into Mesopotamia,
to learn – the boats had no where the Assyrians welcomed
frame and kept out water with cotton fabric as a substitute for
reeds put between the planks. rough wool. It then spread
eastward into China.
Calendar

c 3000 bc

The first calendars appeared
in Babylonia, an ancient
state in southern Mesopotamia.
They were not very accurate
because they were based on the
Moon as well as the Sun, and

c 3000bc On a Although based on seafaring and c 3000bc The first Iraq). His name is Urlugaledinna.
group metalworking, the culture will be known He treats all kinds of animals,
of islands in the Aegean Sea, remembered for its simplified vet begins practising in the state and in many cases he uses herbal
the Cycladic culture emerges. marble sculptures of females. of Mesopotamia (now mainly medicines to cure them.

21

Learning the basics

PUTTING IT IN WRITING

Middle Eastern traders create the first
permanent records

Clay siGnaturE Writing, like so many
Clay was used to carry inventions, came about
information long before by accident, and this one
real writing began. happened on the back of an
People in Mesopotamia envelope. About 6,000 years
sealed packages with ago in Mesopotamia, a group of people known as the Sumerians
clay, then used a stone invented a new way of keeping track of trade. They made clay
seal to impress their tokens shaped like animals, jars, and other goods, and
personal mark on it. recorded deals by wrapping the tokens up in clay
writinG with a rEEd envelopes. Once they’d sealed an envelope, they could no
The first “pencil and paper” longer see what was inside it. So, using a pointed stick, they
was a stiff piece of reed and marked the soft clay with signs that showed its contents.
a soft piece of clay. The It didn’t take them long to realize that, once they’d done this,
end of the reed was they didn’t need the tokens any more: just the marked envelope
cut and used to would do. So by about 3100 bc, the envelopes had turned into
make marks in simple squares of clay recording trade deals
the clay. in symbols. Writing had begun.
At first, the Sumerians used marks that
CunEiform were simplified pictures. To speed things up,
they started jabbing the clay with the end of
writinG a reed instead of drawing with a stick. The
pictures stopped looking like real things and
Writing in Sumeria became true writing. Archaeologists call it
speeded up as curved cuneiform. It was used for 3,000 years.
There are some problems with writing in
lines gradually this way. Every time a new word is invented,
developed into wedges someone has to invent a new mark. Some
or triangles with short,

straight sides. Later,
signs were written from
left to right, without any

spaces between words.
Early GrEEk writinG
About 3,000 years ago,
people on the island of
Crete used three
different kinds of
writing. In the 1950s,
British architect Michael
Ventris discovered how
to read the kind seen
here, called Linear B. The
other two remain a mystery.

22

c 3,000,000 bc – 500 bc

Wooden The invention of writing allowed
slip used merchants to keep track of

to keep deals by recording what was
records agreed upon. Cuneiform
about 2000 writing was later used
years ago to set down laws made
by the Babylonian
words, like “in” or “at,” are hard to turn into pictures. And king Hammurabi.
how do people write their names? The Sumerians coped
with this problem to some extent by using words they could Animal bone
picture to represent words they could not: “in,” for example, bearing predictions
sounded like “water” in Sumerian, so they used the mark
for water to represent “in” too. A diviner
interpreted
Today, people in China still use a similar system, but cracks made
they developed it independently, perhaps about 3,500 years in the bone
ago, and use completely different symbols. It has survived to foretell
because people in different parts of China pronounce the the future
same words very differently, so alphabetic writing, which
records pronunciation, would not work as well. Chinese writing
The first Chinese writing,
Although the Sumerians never used an alphabet, they which appeared about
were the first people to write. Without writing, there would 3,500 years ago, was
be no history, and those ancient traders have certainly engraved on wood,
earned their place in it. bones, or shells. The old
characters are different
from today’s characters,
but Chinese people can
read them without too
much difficulty.

23

Learning the basics almost as complicated as a are stretched between two arms Stone buildings
piano, it is still played in its attached to a box or bowl.
Ramp simplest form in parts of Africa People were playing lyres in c 3000 bc
and Afghanistan. Sumeria by 2800 bc. The
c 3000 bc instrument remained a favorite In 2600 bc, the Egyptian
Lever with the ancient Greeks, who pharaoh Djoser and his
By about 3000 bc, people linked it to the god Apollo, a architect Imhotep created the
were using the basic c 3000 bc handsome and gifted musician. step pyramid at Sakkara – the
elements of machines: wheels, Unlike the harp, the lyre did first pyramid to be made
levers, and inclined planes, Asimple lever is a rod or bar not make it into the modern entirely of stone. It was
known as ramps. The inclined that turns over a pivot orchestra. designed to be Djoser’s tomb
plane makes it easier to raise a point called a fulcrum. It and rose in six steps to a height
heavy object by allowing it to changes the force exerted on Papyrus of 200 ft (60 m). At that time,
be pushed or pulled gradually one end into a greater force, nearly all buildings were made
up a slope, instead of lifting it but with smaller movement, at c 3000 bc of bricks or wood. Small stone
straight up. The 2-ton stone the other end. People were buildings did exist, but Djoser’s
blocks of Egypt’s Great Pyramid using levers by 3000 bc, and The ancient Egyptians used gigantic pile of square-cut stone
of Giza were put into place in probably long before that. They papyrus much like we use blocks must have seemed truly
about 2500 bc by workers may have discovered that a paper. They made it by
pulling them up ramps. rock that was impossible to lift squashing and drying a mat of
directly could be levered up reed fibres until they stuck
Lathe with a tree branch resting on a together, then polishing them
smaller stone, which acted as with a stone to form a smooth
c 3000 bc the fulcrum. It wasn’t until sheet. Papyrus was too stiff to
about 250 bc that Archimedes fold, so the Egyptians joined
The lathe, perhaps 5,000 came up with a full explanation the sheets together to make
years old, allows its user to of how levers worked. long scrolls. It was on these
form a piece of material into a scrolls that they wrote and
circular shape by spinning it Lyre drew much of what we now
against a cutting edge. The know about ancient Egypt from
mechanism of the earliest lathes c 3000 bc about 2600 bc onwards.
was like that of early drills
(✷ see page 7). A cord was The lyre is a musical Painting
wrapped around the piece to be instrument that is closely with wax
shaped and pulled back and related to the harp. The strings
forth by a bow to make it c 3000 bc
rotate. Marble vases turned on Decorated base
a lathe, dating from before strengthens The ancient
2000 bc, have been found on the sound Egyptians
some islands in the Aegean Sea. liked art. By about
Harp A harpist 3000 bc, they had
Harp of c 2500 bc is developed a new
shown here in a technique of
c 3000 bc picture from Ur painting on walls,
using a mixture
The harp is one of the in Mesopotamia.
oldest musical of pigments and
instruments. It first melted beeswax.
appeared in Sumeria When the painting
and Egypt about 5,000 was complete, they
years ago. Early harps heated it to make it melt
resembled bows used into the surface of the wall.
to fire arrows, but had This method is called encaustic
several strings painting. The result was rich
stretched across instead and colorful, and many of
of one. These were the paintings can still be seen
plucked to sound notes. today. The technique was
Although the harp has revived by US artist Jasper
developed over the Johns in the 1960s.
centuries into something

c 3000bc The distance between the elbow and c 3000bc Merchants They take out a loan to equip a
Egyptians the end of the middle finger, in the ship. The interest rate is steep,
establish the first widely used usually about 18 in (450 mm), state of Babylonia begin to use but if the ship sinks they don’t
unit of length, the cubit. It is the but sometimes longer. bottomry, a form of insurance. have to pay the money back.

24

c 3,000,000 bc – 500 bc

amazing. The pyramids of evening or morning sky. So it is PaPyrus Artists working on Clay tablet book
Egypt are still some of the not surprising that it was one papyrus could include fine detail.
world’s most impressive stone of the first heavenly bodies to In this ancient Egyptian c 2800 bc
buildings. The tallest one is be studied. It features in the illustration, the heart of a dead
the Great Pyramid of Khufu ancient astronomical records of person is being weighed to see if The first books were not
at Giza. It is made from about China, Egypt, Greece, and he is worthy of eternal life. made of paper. Instead,
two million huge blocks of South America, and the mound raised beside the Nile their writers, working in
limestone and stands 482 ft Babylonians made records of its River in Egypt in about 2900 Mesopotamia in about 2800 bc,
(147 m) high. movements as early as 3000 bc bc. It was built to protect the used rectangles of soft clay
city of Memphis from flooding. called tablets. One tablet could
Venus Dam The remains of another dam contain quite a lot of
almost as old can still be seen information, but not enough to
c 3000 bc c 2900 bc today at Wadi Gerrawi in be called a book. To write
Egypt. Instead of providing something longer, people did
Since Venus is close to the Dams are among the largest protection from floods, this exactly what we do today. They
Sun, it is never visible in the constructions that ancient one was built in 2500 bc to used several tablets and
middle of the night, but it is people built. Probably the catch the seasonal flood in a numbered them to keep them
often the brightest object in the earliest was a 49 ft (15 m) dry river bed feeding the Nile. in the right order.
It is 295 ft (90 m) thick.

c 2800bc People in to graves that hold only one c 2800bc Tree-lined designers get started. Working for
northern person. Not just anyone gets a walks and wealthy clients, they use a system
Europe start to switch from mass grave to themselves. They are ponds with water birds appear in of rectangular walled enclosures,
burials in “houses for the dead” confined to high-ranking men. ancient Egypt as the first garden and include small pavilions.

25

Learning the basics beneath a camellia tree in about now been replaced by stainless animals. The Egyptians also
Acupuncture This set of eight 2700 bc when a leaf fell in, steel. Acupuncture is based on used folding stools of a design
acupuncture needles and their creating the first cup of tea. the idea that the life force, or that can still be bought today.
protective case are from The new drink, however, was chi, of the body flows in certain
19th-century China. channels, which can become Leavened bread
not mentioned in a book blocked. Twirling a needle in
Needles until about ad 800, and the right place is thought to c 2600 bc
made of it took another 800 make the chi start flowing
years for tea to reach smoothly again. The first bread was rather
steel Europe. By 1657, the hard to chew because it
Protective case first “cuppa” had been Chair wasn’t made lighter, or
made of leavened, with yeast or other
mahogany sold in London, and tea c 2600 bc agents. The ancient Egyptians
became wildly were the first people to
Lost-wax fashionable. People were probably sitting produce leavened bread. They
casting on chairs well before kept a stock of “sour
Acupuncture 2600 bc, but the first chairs we
c 2800 bc actually know about were
c 2700 bc found in the tombs of ancient
Egyptian kings. Placed there
Sticking needles into certain for their owner’s comfort in
places in the body can the afterlife, these chairs had
relieve pain and may restore soft, padded seats and legs
health. Acupuncture was carved in the shapes of
developed in China before
2500 bc, and has changed little,
except that stone
needles have

Gilded bust of a
woman on each
side of the seat

Lost-wax casting is a way of The goddess Taweret
making hollow objects. A flanked by two
lump of clay is covered with
wax, which is then modelled representations of
and covered with plaster. When the god Bes
the mold is heated, the wax Chair made of
runs out, leaving a gap between reddish wood,
the clay and plaster. Molten covered with
metal is poured into the gap silver and gold
and left to cool. This process is
thought to have been invented Feet take the chAir This ancient Low, silver-covered
by the Sumerians. The ancient shape of a Egyptian chair is known as supports may have
Egyptians, who probably cat’s paws the chair of Sitamun, who been designed to lift
learned the technique from was the daughter of the up the elaborately
them, were using it by 2200 bc, pharaoh Amenhotep III. carved legs, away from
and it is still used today.
possible damage
Tea

c 2700 bc

Shen Nong

Tradition says that the
Chinese emperor Shen
Nong was boiling water

c 2800bc Cannabis, source of fibres for cloth and c 2700bc Egyptian placed in tombs. Their dances are
or hemp, ropes, rather than as a drug. farmers intended to bring the community
begins to be grown in China. It is Centuries pass before it is grown dance to make the rains come, not only rain, but also health and
valued for its oily seeds and as a in the Western world. and are recorded in paintings plenty of children.

26

dough”, in which fermenting tribes in eastern countries, such Mirror was c 3,000,000 bc – 500 bc
organisms were at work, and as Turkestan, soon became the shaped in
mixed in some of this greatest carpet makers. One a mold Silver handle
whenever they made fresh carpet found preserved by the was made
dough. As the organisms from cold in Siberia had been buried Hercules’ lion separately
the sour dough multiplied, they with a nomad chieftain 2,500 skin
produced bubbles of carbon years previously, showing that Mirror The
dioxide gas, making the carpets were highly prized. Mirror reflecting surface
finished bread much lighter. Carpets have often been of this ancient
associated with magic and c 2500 bc Roman mirror is
Silk romance. In 48 bc, the polished silver.
Egyptian queen Cleopatra Humans look at themselves The handle is in
c 2600 bc introduced herself to the in the mirror every day. the form of the
Roman emperor Julius This began four or five club and lion skin
Silk is still considered to be Caesar by jumping out thousand years ago using discs of the ancient
the most desirable of fabrics. of a rolled-up carpet. of polished copper or bronze. Greek mythical
It was first made in China A hand mirror was an essential hero Hercules.
about 46 centuries ago, and its Glass fashion accessory in ancient
origin was a closely guarded Egypt, and the Romans gazed
secret. The silkworm and the c 2500 bc at themselves in mirrors made
luxurious, fibrous covering of of silver. The first glass mirrors,
its cocoon are said to have been Glass had humble requiring a reflective material
discovered by a 14-year-old girl beginnings. It was on one side such as silver, were
called Xilingshi, who was the probably discovered by made by Venetian craftsmen in
wife of the emperor Huang Di. accident. Made by about ad 1300
Nearly 3,000 years passed heating sand with
before the secret was revealed, limestone and wood ash, it
spreading to India, Japan, and first appeared in the form of
eventually Europe. small ornamental beads in
about 2500 bc. The basic
Arch formula may have been
discovered in Mesopotamia, but
c 2500 bc it was the ancient Egyptians
who began to develop it into
Without arches, the only the material we know today. By
way to hold up 1450 bc, they were making
doorways and roofs is with glass bottles in molds, and over
straight beams. An arch can the next 1000 years their
span a greater distance than a techniques spread to Europe
straight beam, allowing wall and the East.
openings to be larger. The first
arches, built in India and Ink
Mesopotamia in about 2500 bc,
were produced simply by c 2500bc
building the top of the walls
out toward each other until The first ink came in the
they met. By 100 bc, Roman form of a solid block made
builders were using semi- from soot mixed with glue, and
circular arches in almost all had to be wetted before it
their buildings. could be used for writing. The
ancient Egyptians wrote on
Carpet papyrus with ink and a pen
made from a reed, using a
c 2500 bc flowing style of writing called
hieratic. In China, scribes wrote
The ancient Egyptians were their characters with a brush.
weaving carpets of a sort by You can still buy blocks of
about 2500 bc, but nomadic Chinese ink exactly like those
made 4500 years ago.

c 2700bc A Chinese taken as the powdered root of the c 2500bc A colossal know the Great Pyramid of Giza,
book of plant. Rhubarb will not be pyramid near Cairo, as one of the most
herbal medicine describes one of cultivated for this purpose in the is built in Egypt by the pharaoh amazing structures in the history
the first laxatives – rhubarb. It is West until the 18th century ad. Khufu. Future generations will of architecture around the world.

27

Learning the basics

Potato SkiS There is plenty of snow in metal for a stronger weld. Used before this alleged incident,
Scandinavia, so it was an obvious today for making cars and ships, and ancient Egyptians had been
c 2500 bc place for skis to develop. Both the it was first used with jewelry. writing on something very
Vikings and Lapps used them. Queen Pu-abi of Sumeria was similar since 2400 bc.
Farmers in Peru, South buried about 4,500 years ago
America, were cultivating learn to cope with deep snow. with all her finery. This included Horse
potatoes in the high Andes Skis started out as something some exquisite necklaces, the
mountains more than 4,000 more like snow shoes: short, pieces of which, unlike earlier c 2300 bc
years before Spanish invaders wide, wooden frames covered jewelry, were welded together.
discovered the strange new in leather. In time, they became They are still in one piece today. Horses, more wild and
vegetable and took it back to the longer, more rigid devices willful than sheep or pigs,
Europe. Potatoes ceased to be we know today. The oldest Parchment took time to tame. The first
important in Peru, but became known skis, found in the bogs people to get them under
a major crop elsewhere. By the of Finland and Sweden, date c 2400 bc control lived in eastern Europe,
middle of the 19th century, from about 2500 bc, and a around the area that is now
Ireland was so dependent on Norwegian rock carving from Parchment is a smooth, white called Ukraine. We don’t know
the potato that a series of crop about the same date clearly leather on which people exactly when horses were
failures led to famine. shows people using skis. write. It is supposed to have domesticated, but by 2000 bc
been invented in 200 bc, when they were being used in
Skis Welding King Ptolemy of Egypt banned Babylonia. Three hundred years
exports of papyrus, forcing the later, they were also being used
c 2500 bc c 2500 bc ruler of a rival kingdom, in Syria and ancient Palestine.
Eumenes of Pergamum, to find They arrived in Egypt when a
As people in the northern Welding is the process of a substitute. Although the word tribe of nomads, the Hyksos,
hemisphere spread north joining metal parts “parchment” is derived from used horse-drawn chariots to
toward the Arctic, they had to together using pressure or heat, “Pergamum,” parchment books capture the city of Memphis
and sometimes using a filler are known to have existed well and eventually most of Egypt.

c 2500bc People in nothing of pottery, but weave c 2500bc Flower bouquets are offered at funerals.
northern baskets for containers. They also arranging Special vases are used to hold up
Peru build downward and live in grow gourds (hollow fruits) and thrives in Egypt. Bowls of flowers the heavy heads of the most
stone-lined pits. They know store things in these. decorate banqueting tables, and widely used flower, the lotus.

28

Barrel vault Bathroom Bell chime c 3,000,000 bc – 500 bc

c 2000 bc c 2000 bc c 2000 bc Chariot

c 2000 bc

Once builders had Abathroom was considered Clocks that chime use an Four-wheeled battle wagons
discovered how to make essential by some builders idea that started in China were in use in Mesopotamia
arches, they were soon using as long as 4,000 years ago. before 2000 bc. Bells or blocks by 3000 bc. They developed
them to hold up the most Even relatively humble houses of stone tuned to musical notes from lumbering oxcarts, and
crucial and awkward part of excavated at Mohenjo-Daro in were hung from a frame. They although clumsy, they gave the
any building – the roof. By the Indus valley (in what is were hit with hammers to add Mesopotamian armies an
building a row of arches one now Pakistan), and dating from music to religious ceremonies advantage over their enemies.
behind the other, they created about 2000 bc, had bathrooms or simply to play tunes. The With the introduction of horses,
a strong, tunnel-shaped with drains. Some even had idea spread to Japan, India, and and a switch to two wheels
structure. Because of its shape, toilets, of a sort, with seats to the West, where monks were instead of four, the chariot,
this is called a barrel vault. It sit on. Further west, in about playing rows of bells by about with its high-speed mobility,
was in use soon after the arch 1700 bc, the wealthier Minoans ad 850. Five hundred years was born in about 2000 bc.
was invented, and remained a of ancient Crete had more later, the idea was adapted for (✷ See also Wheels of war.)
favorite feature with builders lavish bathrooms to which they public timekeeping, with the
until modern times. could sneak off for a quiet soak. monks replaced by clockwork.

WHEELS OF WAR

as with many inventions, Chariots were used
military commanders were for sports as well as
pioneers in the development war. Here, Assyrian
of wheeled transportation. Large king Ashurnasirpal II
vehicles were probably first used for hunts lions.
royal funerals, but soldiers soon saw
that wheels could deliver men
and materials to the battle
front more quickly than
feet or pack-animals.
It was only later that
chariots were used for fighting.
Eventually, as soldiers became more skilful
at riding horses, chariots went out of use.

Wheel with Pole for chariots as transportation
separate attaching The first chariots had heavy bodies made of
rim, spokes, wood and leather, and four solid wooden wheels.
and hub horses The front axle pivoted for mobility, and was attached
to a long pole, to which two oxen were attached by a
wooden yoke. The charioteer rode in a raised section at the front
that pivoted with the axle.

Fast, maneuverable the fighting chariot
Roman chariots The introduction of horses and a lighter construction,
were highly including spoked wheels (✷ see page 31), made the chariot
developed fighting into a formidable fighting platform for one or two soldiers. It
and racing vehicles. had only two wheels, allowing it to take sharp turns, but
could be pulled by as many as four horses. These lightweight
chariots helped win many battles.

c 2400bc On the shared tombs cut into the rock c 2300bc The invader, Sargon I. He founds a
island of near Xagra and Zurrieq, and ends Sumerian new city, Agade. It becomes the
Malta, a complex “cult of the with an amazing underground empire, weakened by internal wealthiest in the world, and the
dead” develops. It starts with burial chamber near Rahal Gdid. strife, is taken over by an Sumerians become the Akkadians.

29

Learning the basics dice were given their spots in that dropped into holes in Saw
about 2000 bc, they existed in it. Only a key shaped to
Iron many other forms. People push all the pins out of the c 2000 bc
originally threw dice to try to way would free the bolt.
c 2000 bc predict the future, using objects Modern Yale locks and keys Unlike an ax or knife,
such as bones or teeth. Perhaps work in much the same a saw can cut cleanly
When iron was first it was inevitable that prediction way (✷ see page 144). through any thickness of
discovered in southeast soon led to gambling.
Asia, about 4,000 years ago, it Today, people still place
was considered more valuable bets on the roll of a dice.
than gold. As ways of
extracting it and working it Lock
improved, people were able
to make better use of its c 2000 bc
strength and flexibility. By
about 1200 bc, the Iron Age Most locks today are based
had begun, pushing humanity on an idea from about
faster than ever towards the 2000 bc. The ancient Egyptians
modern world. Because iron is invented a wooden lock in
hard to melt, early users had to which a bolt was held by pins
invent new techniques, such as
shaping it by hammering rather
than casting.

Blades operated
by a spring action

Paved road iron Suitably treated Square sail Mast and sail on the
iron is springy and Men pull the model were missing
c 2000 bc takes a sharp edge rope to adjust upon discovery, but
– ideal for making the position were replaced by
The first road known to have shears like these replicas based on other
been surfaced and drained from ancient of the sail ships of the same time
so that it was usable in all Rome.
weather was built by the
Minoans on the Mediterranean Sailor at the bow
island of Crete in about with a plumbline
2000 bc. It was paved with to test the depth
stone and made higher in the of the water
centre so that water would
drain to the edges, Ship Ancient Egyptian ships, like
which had gutters in this model found in a tomb of c 2000 bc,
some places. One needed paddles to help the sails propel the craft
feature of this road through the water. It was a common custom to place
seems odd today: the
pedestrian walkway was in the models of boats in the tombs of kings and nobles,
middle, not at the sides. for their transportation in the afterlife.

Dice

c 2000 bc

It is thought that the ancient
Egyptians were the first
people to play with dice like
the ones we use now. Before

c 2000bc People of houses, constructed from rough c 2000bc The Sumerians, now the Akkadians,
the Celtic stone blocks, are circular in world’s switch to the language of their
race build “beehive” houses in shape and rise to a point in the first written language, Sumerian, conquerors. Sumerian will live on
Scotland and Ireland. The centre like a straw beehive. ceases to be spoken because the in written form for 2,000 years.

30

wood. Its angled teeth cut in 10, so a 1 in the first position c 3,000,000 bc – 500 bc
easy stages and create a gap meant 1, but in the second Sling The young Israelite David
wide enough for the blade to position it meant 1 × 60, or 60, challenges the Philistine giant
pass right through. The and in the third position it Goliath with his trusty sling.
invention of the saw was made meant 1 × 60 × 60, or 3,600.
possible by the discovery of
copper and, by 1500 bc, the Male and
ancient Egyptians were sawing female plants
planks. Western saws cut on
the push stroke, but to stop c 2000 bc
them from buckling, early saws
worked the other way around. The Babylonians were ancient Egyptians built the first whirls the sling around with
expert farmers and ships well suited to the sea the cords, then releases one
Sexagesimal gardeners. They found out about 4,000 years ago. They cord to launch the stone. It
number system early on that some kinds of had already discovered how to was with a sling that David
plant can, like people, be arrange their sails to cope with famously killed Goliath in the
c 2000 bc either male or female. The winds coming from the side. To Old Testament Bible story. The
female plant produces fruit, deal with winds coming from Old Testament was written in
Our 60-minute hour and but only when fertilized by in front of them, they kept about 1000 bc, so the sling
60-second minute come pollen from a male plant. paddles on board, too. must date back to before then.
from a system devised about Illustrations on Babylonian It was used by the ancient
4,000 years ago by the seals show fertilization being Tongs Egyptian army in about 750 bc,
Babylonians. It was the done artificially, and by and can still be seen today.
first to use a basic feature c 2000 bc
of the decimal system we 1800 bc, people were buying Spoked wheel
use today: the value of and selling male date-palm
each digit depended on c 2000 bc
where it was placed. The flowers for this purpose.
Babylonians based their The first wheels were solid
system on 60 instead of Tongs were probably first and heavy, but it didn’t take
made for handling hot vehicle builders long to work
Passengers seated Support for metal. They could have out that the important parts
at the stern steering oar appeared at any time after were the rim and the hub.
people started melting metals, They made the rest of the
The Egyptians Ship from about 3000 bc onwards. wheel lighter by cutting holes
used planks of The earliest evidence is an in it, forming crude spokes.
cedar wood for c 2000 bc ancient Egyptian wall-painting Stronger spokes, usually four,
the best real ships from about 1450 bc. It made from separate pieces of
shows a metalworker wood, were being used in
blowing through a Mesopotamia by 2000 bc, but
tube to make a fire it was another 1000 years
hot while he holds before this type of wheel
an object over reached northern Europe.
Large oar it with an
used for
steering
unmistakable
pair of
tongs.

Sling

c 2000 bc

It is hard to say when a boat Asling is a weapon made
becomes a ship, but a ship from a piece of leather with
needs to be large enough to two cords attached. Its user
cross open water safely. The puts a stone onto the leather,

c 2000bc The the mainland. They build villages c 2000bc An event but with a chariot wheel, not a
Aleutian on the seashore near fresh water, similar to hammer. Celtic hero Chulainn
Islands, off the coast of Alaska, travel in skin boats, and hunt throwing the hammer starts at grabs the wheel by the axle and
are colonized by people from seals and bears. the Tailteann Games in Ireland, hurls it as far as he can.

31

Learning the basics

Corset it. Pipes and drains ran objects. Its early history is Gloves
throughout the great palace of difficult to trace because it was
c 1900 bc King Minos at Knossos, making often confused with bronze. As c 1500 bc
bath time more of a pleasure late as the 18th century, many
People have never been than a chore. people used brass that was Although the weather does
satisfied with the shape of made by a method dating back sometimes get cold in
their bodies. Four thousand Child’s swing to its discovery. In this process, Egypt, the fine linen gloves
years ago, Minoan women copper and zinc ore were found in the tomb of the boy
living on the island of Crete in c 1600 bc heated together, producing king Tutankhamun were
the Mediterranean Sea were brass. Because the zinc ore that probably more ceremonial than
wearing corsets to pinch in Nobody really knows when they used was called calamine, practical. They show, however,
their waists. And it may not the swing was invented or, the product was known as that even in this generally hot
just have been the women who more probably, developed from calamine brass. country, some people were
wanted to accentuate their a dangling creeper. But a swing wearing gloves by 1350 bc.
curves: wall-paintings from was found in excavations of Flag People in colder places must
about 1500 bc, excavated at the Minoan Crete dating back to have worn them too, but we do
palace of King Minos, also 1600 bc. The swing is just one c 1500 bc not have any evidence of this
show Minoan men looking of the ancient amusements, before about ad 700.
suspiciously wasp-waisted. like jacks (fivestones) or blind We don’t treat flags with
man’s buff, that have kept such great respect today, Secret writing
Running water children happy for countless but when they were invented in
generations. China they had life-or-death c 1500 bc
c 1700 bc significance and played a vital
Brass part in battles. If a leader’s flag As soon as people began to
The ancient bathrooms of was captured by the enemy, it write, they started to worry
Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus c 1500 bc was all over. Strangely enough, that the wrong people would
valley had everything but the first important flag we read what they had written.
running water. This wasn’t Brass is an alloy, or mixture, know about, which belonged to Secret writing, or encryption,
good enough for wealthy of copper and zinc. Its the first ruler of the Zhou has a long history. The first
Minoans on Crete. They strength, bright color, and dynasty in about 1100 bc, was known example is in ancient
wanted their water on tap, and resistance to corrosion make it white – a color that people in Egyptian hieroglyphs of about
excavations show that they got a good material for many the West now associate with 1500 bc. It may have been
surrender and defeat.

c 1900bc Interior patterns on plaster, hang textured c 1750bc The best- his laws on tablets. The “Code
decorators matting screens, add red, white, known of Hammurabi” is probably
are hard at work for wealthy and black striped dados, and ruler of the 1st dynasty of the first promulgation of laws
people in Egypt. They paint install painted wooden ceilings. Babylon, Hammurabi, records in human history.

32

CorseT Elegant women appear c 3,000,000 bc – 500 bc
to be wearing corsets in this wall-
painting of about 1800 bc. The years before the trumpet really
painting is in the Minoan palace began to develop into the
at Knossos on the island of Crete. musical instrument that is
played today.
Trumpet
Armor
c 1500 bC
c 1100 bC

Atrumpet is any kind of tube Body armor was worn in
that you sound by battle until the 17th century,
squeezing air into it through when improved weapons made
your lips. The Australian it useless. It developed little by
didgeridoo is technically a little – helmets, belts, reinforced
trumpet, as is the shofar, made shirts – over thousands of
from a ram’s horn, which is still years. In about 1100 bc,
used in Jewish rituals. The Chinese soldiers were wearing
earliest existing silver trumpet armor made from layers of
dates from about 1500 bc and rhinoceros hide. By 800 bc,
comes from ancient Egypt. It Greek warriors were wearing
was probably used for ritual substantial bronze helmets,
purposes. The Romans metal shin guards, and bronze
developed trumpets for use in items called cuirasses, which
battle, but it was another 1,000 totally covered their chest.

TrumpeT The Australian Clepsydra Marks show the
didgeridoo, made from a eucalyptus approximate
branch, produces a deep droning c 1500 bC time
sound. It is usually about 5 ft
(1.5 m) long. The Egyptians usually Ankh symbol
told the time from was the
intended to amuse rather than the Sun, but were also Egyptian
conceal. But some writers of using a clock called a sign of life
books in the Old Testament in clepsydra by about alphabet they will develop
the Bible did try to hide the 1500 bc. The basic later. In 3,350 years’ time, a
meaning of their text by model was just a pot cryptographer will decipher it,
reversing the entire alphabet. of water with a hole and it will be called Linear B.
near the bottom and
Shoes marks down the side. 33
As the water ran out, its
c 1500 bC level showed the time.
The flow slowed as the pot
The earliest shoes were emptied, so the marks had to
sandals, but by about be closer together near the
1500 bc, in Mesopotamia, bottom, making them hard to
people were wearing shoes that read. An improved model,
completely enclosed their feet. invented in about 270 bc,
They were similar to what we worked the other way around:
would now call moccasins – water ran into the pot, moving
single pieces of soft leather a pointer to show the time.
drawn up around the ankles
with a rawhide thong. At about Clepsydra This is a cast of a clepsydra found
the same time, the Minoans of at the ancient Egyptian temple at Karnak. The
Crete were stepping into calf- clepsydra dates from 1415–1380 bc.
length boots for winter wear.

c 1600bc A scribe papyrus scroll gives instructions c 1400bc Greek
in Egypt for examining patients with a people
prepares a new edition of a 1500- range of conditions, and details begin to write their language,
year-old medical manual. The the treatment for each case. using a script quite unlike the

Learning the basics

Ice skates This skate is made
from a leg bone of a horse.
Dating from about ad 1200, it
was inexpensive and did not rust.

Oars about 3,000 years ago. Metals Magnet north/south. Chinese explorers
were a luxury there, so the discovered this some 300 years
c 1100 bc first ice skates were made from c 1000 bc later (✷ see page 37). The
bones of animals such as place where it was first found,
Oars of various kinds are as reindeer and horses. Developed Some time before 800 bc, the
old as boats, but were as a practical necessity, skating Greeks discovered a curious Magnesia, gave its name
probably perfected by the eventually became a sport, with black rock in the to the mineral
Phoenicians, seafarers who the canals of the Netherlands plains of (magnetite) and to
came from an area that is now providing ideal ice rinks from northern anything with the
mainly Lebanon. By 1100 bc, medieval times. Greece. Thales same property
they were the greatest traders of Miletus may (a magnet).
in the eastern Mediterranean, Knitting later have
and by 700 bc they had written about
developed the bireme, a ship c 1000 bc the rock’s
with an extra deck to allow for strange
twice as many oars. Later, the Adisadvantage of woven attraction to
Greeks developed this into the fabrics is that people need iron, but the
formidable trireme, a fighting a loom to make them. Greeks do not
ship with oars on three levels. Although early looms were seem to have
portable, clothes that could be discovered its
Camel made using nothing but a pair ability to
of needles had obvious appeal indioate
c 1000 bc to nomadic people. So it is
likely that knitting originated Oars This is
The ancient Egyptians knew among the nomads of the a model of a
about camels as early as deserts of north Africa in about Phoenician bireme
3000 bc, but they do not seem 1000 bc. It seems to have of c 700 bc.
to have used them to carry reached Europe by way of
anything. The idea of loading Egypt, where archaeologists
this unfriendly but almost have found knitted items
desert-proof beast with up to dating from about 450 bc.
1100 lb of goods came from
Mesopotamia about 2000 years Hull probably Upper deck Square-rigged
later. The people here also bred made in one piece set above the sail adds
the camel into a lighter, faster from a tree-trunk heads of the speed
animal for riding. inner oarsmen

Ice skates

c 1000 bc

You would expect ice
skates to come from
somewhere with plenty of
ice, and it does seem likely
that skating began in
Scandinavia

Bow shaped to form a ram

c 1100bc The circle shape of a much longer entrance c 1000bc A new actual year is longer than this, so
of stones avenue, stretching 1.7 miles Hindu one extra month is added in
now known as Stonehenge is still (2.8 km) east and then southeast calendar is adopted in India. Its every 30. The calendar will still
in use. It gets a facelift in the to the Avon River. year is 12 Moon months. An be in use 3,000 years later.

34

Iron-tipped An alphabet with symbols for Oil lamp c 3,000,000 bc – 500 bc
plowshare consonants appeared in Syria itself, came much later. Simple
or ancient Palestine in about c 700 bc lamps, with a spike or channel
c 900 bc 1600 bc. By about 900 bc, the to hold a wick, existed in
Greeks had adapted this to People have been making ancient China and Egypt, but
The part of a plow that lifts their own language by adding artificial light by burning oil the first really practical lamps –
and turns the soil, the vowels. This was the first sucked up by plant fibres for at they even had handles –
plowshare, wore away quickly alphabet that recorded speech least 30,000 years. But true oil appeared in ancient Greece in
when it was made of wood or accurately, and it became the lamps, with a reservoir that about 700 bc. They usually ran
bronze. Iron is harder than ancestor of several others, could be refilled and a fibrous on olive or nut oil. None of
bronze, but was an expensive including the alphabet used wick that gave a controlled these early lamps gave out
material in ancient times. The for English. flame without burning away enough light for detailed work
answer was to continue to use a after dark. (✷ See also New
wooden plowshare but use iron Socks lamps for old.)
to protect the tip. Plows of this
type were probably being used c 800 bc NEW LAMPS FOR OLD
in ancient Palestine by 900 bc.
Once they started wearing To make a successful lamp, three
Alphabet shoes, people must things have to be just right: the
have felt the need for fuel, the fuel reservoir, and the
c 900 bc socks. We don’t know when
they first started wearing wick. Oil burns with less smoke
An alphabet contains them, but the earliest than fat. The reservoir should be
symbols for individual mention of socks was in a easy to fill and convenient to carry.
speech sounds. Early poem by the Greek poet The wick is needed to spread the
writers did not use an Hesiod, who was
alphabet: their working in about oil into a thin film so that it
symbols stood for 700 bc. These early will vaporize
whole words or, socks were probably and burn.
later, syllables. made of felt rather A good wick
than knitted,
so they will feed the flame
wouldn’t have without burning away
been very rapidly itself.
comfortable.

Stays hold Steering This ornate bronze oil lamp
up the oars was used by rich people in the
late ad 900s in the Afghan
heavy mast empire of central Asia.
Shields
protect the The firsT lamps
oarsmen The first cave painters may have worked by the light of
burning branches. It is possible that while they were
cooking they noticed that a branch burned for longer if
it was soaked in fat. From there, it would have been a
short step to the first lamp – a container of moss or twigs
dipped in fat or oil. Moss or twigs spread the oil but they
tended to burn away.

laTer oil lamps
Improving on the fat-soaked bunch of twigs, called a

lampas, the ancient Greeks developed oil lamps shaped
like a teapot with a fibrous wick in the spout. No great
improvements were made until 1784 when Swiss
inventor Aimé Argand produced a lamp with a
cylindrical wick and a glass chimney.

c 1000bc A big, mountain dog reaches Europe 800 bc The population 800 years, it will increase more
white, from Asia. It is used to guard of China reaches than fourfold to 60 million, and
shaggy breed of dog known as sheep from wolves and bears, 14 million as the country after a further 2,000 years it will
the great Pyrenees or Pyrenean which are common in the region. continues to grow. Over the next be about one billion.

35

Learning the basics Farmer Water Archimedean pulled into wood. Archimedes
uses a flows screw did not invent the screw
Shadow clock handle to out of himself, but he wrote about it,
turn the the c 600 bc probably after seeing one being
c 700 bc screw cylinder used in Egypt in about 260 bc.
The Archimedean screw is a The date of the screw’s actual
People knew at least 3,500 kind of pump that is still invention is uncertain.
years ago that the shadow used today for irrigating the
cast by a vertical pole could be land (✷ see page 16). A Rotary quern
used to indicate the time. By cylinder with a large screw
700 bc, at the latest, the ancient inside has its bottom end c 600 bc
Egyptians had developed the
shadow clock. It had a straight dipping into water. As the After 3,000 years in which
scale of hours, probably with screw is turned, it generations of people
a raised part at one end to pushes water up laboriously ground corn by
cast a shadow on the scale, the cylinder in hand between two stones, an
and it had to be turned to the same way improvement, known as the
point the opposite way after that a wood rotary quern, was developed. It
half a day. Astronomers, screw is had a heavy, circular top stone
including Berosus from that fit snugly into a hole in a
Babylonia, made curved stone base. Grain was fed
sundials several hundred through a hole in the center of
years later.
the top stone, which was
turned around and around
with a wooden handle.
The two stones
crushed the grain
between them,

Irrigation
channel

Cobalt blue cobalt to give a Screw lifts Wooden
blue color is part of water up cylinder (cut
c 650 bc one of their glass recipes. They away) prevents
knew nothing, of course, about through the
The deep blue color known the chemical element cobalt, cylinder water from
as cobalt blue, still widely which was not discovered until escaping
used on pottery, seems to have 1742. Although cobalt blue is
been discovered by the used to decorate Chinese
Assyrians in about 650 bc. The porcelain today, Chinese potters
use of minerals containing did not begin to use it until
ad 800 at the earliest.

c 700bc People in hunting are popular with royalty. c 650bc After a focusing solely on warfare. Over
Assyria (now The Assyrian king Ashurbanipal humiliating the next century, Sparta’s warriors
mainly northern Iraq) hunt with has himself portrayed in stone defeat by Argos, Sparta’s new will conquer surrounding territory
hawks and falcons. All kinds of with the words, “I killed the lion.” ruler, Lycurgus, rebuilds the city and most of southwest Greece.

36

grinding it into flour. The flour Store c 3,000,000 bc – 500 bc
came out of the narrow gap
around the edge of the top c 600 bc Magnetic
stone. This useful device was compass
probably invented before According to the Greek
500 bc, but nobody really historian Herodotus, who c 500 bc
knows where. lived in about 450 bc, the
people who invented coins also When and where the
Metal coins invented stores. The Lydians compass was invented
certainly had a talent for depends on what is meant by
c 600 bc making money. Their capital compass. The properties of the
city, Sardis, was known for its magnetic rock called lodestone
Before about 600 bc, people magnificence, and one of their (or magnetite) were used
often exchanged pieces of kings gave his name to the hundreds of years before a
precious metal in return for expression “rich as Croesus”, magnetized needle was pivoted
goods. It was easy to cheat by which means very rich indeed.
handing over impure metal or in a case to make a compass.
too small a quantity, so traders Attraction of The earliest records are
wasted time checking the objects to amber from China in about
quality and weight of all the
different pieces. The Lydians, c 600 bc mAgnetic
from what is now western compAss This
Turkey, had an idea. They Thales of Miletus Chinese sundial includes
standardized the quality and a built-in compass.
weight of the pieces, and The history of electricity
stamped them with the king’s starts with a yellow fossil
mark as proof of their value. resin called amber. In about
They had invented coins. 600 bc, the Greek philosopher

Thales observed that writing brush Used in 19th- 500 bc, where pieces of
amber rubbed on century Japan, this writing brush is lodestone were used to guide
cloth attracted small, made of hair set in a bamboo shaft. mineral prospectors. The first
light objects. What he real compass did not appear
saw was the result of Pythagoras’ until ad 1100 or later.
static electricity, but it theorem
was more than 2000 Writing brush
years before an English c 520 bc
doctor, William c 500 bc
Gilbert, investigated Pythagoras
this thoroughly (✷ see Before the invention of the
page 85). He coined Pythagoras’ theorem states writing brush, in about
the term “electric”, for that in a right-angled 500 bc, people in China wrote
the attracting effect, triangle, the square of the on bamboo with a stiff stylus.
from the Greek word longest side is equal to the sum The writing brush, with its
“elektron” meaning “amber”. of the squares of the other two pencil-sized bamboo shaft and
sides. Pythagoras may not have pointed tip, could be used on
Fixing Musical ratios thought of it himself: it could silk. A brush is well suited to
post holds have been any member of the the complexities of Chinese
the screw c 520 bc group he founded in Italy in script. It came into its own two
in place about 530 bc (✷ see pages or three hundred years later,
Pythagoras 38–39). But no matter who when it was used for li-shu, the
ArchimedeAn screw invented it, the theorem often first writing to make full use of
The cylinder is cut away See pages 38–39 for the crops up in the mathematics of the elegant brush strokes we
story of how Pythagoras and the modern world, and we now associate with Chinese
in this model of an his followers discovered the couldn’t get by without it. calligraphy (✷ see page 50).
Archimedean screw to show how harmony of the universe.
the screw lifts water as it turns.

c 600bc Seafarers (6,000 km) journey to Britain to c 500bc The last Irish known. The Irish elk’s antlers
from collect tin from Cornwall. To do elk, a type of measured up to 13 ft (4 m)
Phoenicia (now Lebanon) so, they have to work out ways of deer similar to a moose, dies out. across, and had sharp points
regularly make the 3,750 mile navigating the open ocean. With it go the largest antlers ever all around the edge.

37

Learning the basics

THE MUSIC OF NUMBERS

Pythagoras and his followers search for
the harmony of the universe

ancient journey Two and a half thousand years ago, a small town in Italy
Pythagoras was born on the was home to an extraordinary group of thinkers. They
island of Samos in the Aegean discovered facts about music and mathematics that we still use
Sea. In about 530 bc he sailed today, but more important, they came to believe that the world
westward to Crotona, in the around us is based on mathematical rules
south of what is now Italy.
The Greek philosopher Pythagoras
Faulty science was about 50 years old when he
The study of music was often crossed the Ionian Sea to settle in
confused by dependence on Crotona (now Crotone) and gather
Pythagoras’ rules. This 1490 his students around him. Bound by vows of loyalty
woodcut is meant to show his and secrecy, the Pythagoreans held beliefs that amounted
principles, but it wouldn’t have to a mathematical religion – but they also believed in some things,
worked! He only experimented like reincarnation, that had nothing to do with mathematics.
with strings and never thought Pythagoras is best known for the theorem that bears his name,
about music made with more but this was just one of many relationships that his group
than one instrument.
secretive philosopher found between numbers. The Pythagoreans were
This bust portrays Pythagoras fascinated by the fact that 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10,
as a great mathematician and and that these numbers can be arranged into
philosopher, but neither he a triangle, which they called the tetraktys.
nor most of his followers Their belief that the whole universe was based
published their work. on a mystic order, or kosmos, was strengthened
when they discovered what appeared to be a
link between the tetraktys and music.
Starting with a musical string that had a
length of one unit, they found that dividing it into
two, three, or four parts produced new notes
that all harmonized perfectly with each
other. This doesn’t explain how complex
music works, but for the simple
instruments that the Pythagoreans used
it worked. This discovery not only laid
the foundations of the science of music,
but also encouraged the Pythagoreans’
belief that mathematics was the key to
understanding the universe.

38

The Pythagoreans were among the first thinkers to c 3,000,000 bc – 500 bc
contemplate an Earth not at the centre of everything.
They speculated that the planets revolved around a The debaTer
“central fire” – although they probably didn’t think of This detail from a frieze at the
Earth as one of the planets. Some of Pythagoras’ followers University of Athens probably
speculated on a mystical “music of the spheres” created shows an accurate view of how
by movements of mathematically spaced planets. But this the Pythagoreans tested their
beautiful theory was based on speculation, not facts. theories, basing them on belief
and argument, not experiment.
We have moved on since Pythagoras’ time. We have Their mathematics was limited
learned that mathematics is a powerful tool to describe to what we now call geometry
The tetraktys was a triangle figure
made of ten dots. It included the
numbers 4, 3, 2, and 1, like their
theory of music. The Pythagoreans
tried to describe everything in the
world with just a few ideas.

how the world works, but that simple explanations not based on facts often The maThemaTician
lead us into mistakes. Pythagoras assumed that there was a mathematical We don’t know what
order in the universe – a single “theory” that could explain everything. Pythagoras looked like, but
While scientists have made progress in exploring and describing the physical many artists through the ages
universe, such a philosophical understanding has not yet been reached have used their imagination
to portray him as a man
fascinated by his mystic
symbols and books.

39

autthehaogeroifty

Many new discoveries
and inventions were made

between 500 bc and
ad 1400, a period that also
saw the flowering of ancient
Greece and Rome and of
the world’s great religions.
But most people’s thought

remained bound by
tradition, by accepted
belief, and by the authority

of those in power.

40

c 499 bc – 1400

iron in building This is the Ancient Greek
Temple of Concord, one of about 20 buildings may
temples in Agrigento dating from the have been
5th and 6th centuries bc. inspired by
earlier buildings
Sturdy column whose roofs were
with a flat top, or supported by
capital, known as tree-trunks
the Doric style

Iron in building colored panels, which formed a Cause of solar “hypocaust” is actually a Greek
background for the actors. For eclipses word meaning “burning below”.
c 470 bc the first performance of his The ruined Greek city of
trilogy of plays the Oresteia, c 450 bc Phaselis, now in Turkey, has
The Victorians are usually Aeschylus created an even buildings with hollow floors,
thought of as being the first better background. He had the Anaxagoras just like a Roman hypocaust.
people to use iron as a plain panels painted with This suggests that the Greeks
structural material. But 2,300 colorful pictures to create what Even the sophisticated were using central heating as
years before Queen Victoria, we now call scenery. people of Athens regarded early as 450 bc.
ancient Greek builders in central heating The Greeks eclipses of the Sun with fear,
Agrigentum (now Agrigento, may have circulated hot air around until the Greek philosopher Earth, air, fire,
Sicily) installed a huge iron these pillars in the ruined city of Anaxagoras explained them. and water
beam 16 ft (5 m) long in one of Phaselis to heat the room above. Anaxagoras came to Athens
the city’s many temples. The from what is now Turkey. He c 450 bc
ancient Greeks were also using said that a solar eclipse was just
other, smaller beams and all the Moon getting in the way of Empedocles
kinds of iron fixtures to hold the Sun. This was true, but he
their blocks of stone together. also thought that the Sun was a Ancient Greek philosophers
white-hot rock less than half spent centuries wondering
Theatre scenery the size of Greece. what the universe was made of.
By about 350 bc, most of them
458 bc Central heating had accepted a theory put
forward by the statesman and
Aeschylus c 450 bc poet Empedocles about 100
years earlier. He said that
The word “scenery” comes Most people think the everything was made of earth,
from the dressing room, or Romans were the first air, fire, and water mixed in
“skene”, once used by actors in builders of central heating various proportions. His theory
ancient Greece. It was in a systems, but the Greeks may may seem funny to us, but it
building at the back of the have built them first. The was the first one that suggested
stage and, by the time of the Romans called their under-floor the existence of chemical
playwright Aeschylus, it was hot air system a hypocaust, and elements, and it eventually led
also being used to support to modern chemistry.

490bc The first ever to Athens to bring news of a 450bc Responding to down and publishing their laws.
marathon is run victory over the Persians. A race popular demand, Before this, the laws were known
in Greece when a soldier staggers of this distance will become a the Romans move towards more only to a select few, so justice
26 miles (42 km) from Marathon sports event 2,386 years later. open government by writing was rarely carried out.

41

The age of auThoriTy the air with a crane. The same Knitting is ideal for making a horse with a donkey to get
device, called a mechane, was snugly shaped garments like the best of both, or whether
Signs of the also useful for comic effects: gloves and socks, and allows it occurred naturally, but it
zodiac a character in one play by them to be made in one piece probably happened in or
Aristophanes flies up to instead of being stitched around Turkey. The result was
c 450 bc heaven on a dung beetle. together from separate pieces the tough, strong mule, an
of cloth. Some wealthy ancient animal that was first recorded
It was probably the Planned city Egyptians were buried in their by the ancient Greek historian
Babylonians who devised knitted socks in about 450 bc, Herodotus in about 450 bc.
the signs of the zodiac. These c 450 bc and 800 years later, people in
represent the 12 groupings of Saudi Arabia wore knitted
stars through which the Sun Hippodamus of Miletus socks with their sandals.
seems to travel during the
year. A cuneiform tablet dated Many ancient cities have Mule
419 bc carries a horoscope some kind of regular
using the signs. It was the grid plan, but Hippodamus of c 450 bc
ancient Greeks, however, who Miletus was the first real town
named the band of sky that planner. He was a colorful Horses are not well
contains the Ram, the Bull, and and influential character who suited to hot, dry
the other constellations. They believed that buildings should climates. Donkeys are
called it “zodiakos kyklos,” or be grouped according to their better suited, but are
“circle of animals.” function. He put his thoughts often too small and
slow. We don’t
into practice when he know who came
became involved in the up with the
rebuilding of the Greek idea of
port of Piraeus and the crossing
construction of a new
Greek settlement in
southern Italy.

Knitted
socks

c 450 bc

SignS of the zodiac After enduring Throwing
This 16th-century woodcut gives scratchy felt socks arm has a
one of many theories that developed for centuries, feet cup at the
linking the zodiac with the body. finally got some end to hold
loving care in the missile
the shape of Skein of twisted
knitted socks. sinews provides
pulling power

Flying actor

c 450 bc

Sophocles

When an ancient Greek
playwright got into an
impossible tangle with a plot,
the usual way out was to have
a god descend from heaven
and fix the mess. The god was
played by an actor hoisted into

c 450bc Chinese organize intelligence and 443 bc Censorship count people, but it soon gets
military counterintelligence systems with begins in Rome extended to looking after public
expert Sunzi writes the first book secret agents, including double with the appointment of the first morality and suppressing
on spying. It shows how to agents who spy for both sides. censor. At first, his job is just to unwanted publications.

42

c 499 bc – 1400

University when wrapped around an crossbow By the
identical scytale, it revealed 15th century, the crossbow
c 450 bc what had been written. had developed into a
It was thanks to a scytale long-range weapon that
If we take a university to be message that Lysander of was aimed like a rifle.
any centre of learning, then Sparta avoided defeat by
the world’s first university was the Persians in 404 bc. – a stiff bow of ancient Improved
probably Nalanda in the north Greece. The “gastro” Babylonian
of India’s Bihar state. This Catapult part of its name means
Buddhist monastic institution “stomach”, because the calendar
may have been in existence c 400 bc soldier had to rest one
while Gautama the Buddha, end of the bow in the pit of c 380 bc
founder of the Buddhist Long before gunpowder was his stomach. He rested the
religion, was still alive. It invented, huge wooden other end on the ground and The early Babylonian
survived until after 1100, catapults were used to hurl bent the bow into the firing calendar started a new
when invaders from Turkey missiles, such as iron-tipped position, ready to be released month with every new moon
destroyed it. darts or boulders. The first by a trigger. It was a deadly (✷ see page 21). To keep it in
examples may have been used weapon, as long as there step with the seasons, extra
Coded in 399 bc in the war between was time to load it. months had to be added now
correspondence Rome and the ancient empire and then. Confusingly, different
of Carthage in north Africa. A Rope to winch down the arm cities added months at different
c 410 bc pair of arms were swung back times. Some might even add
to hold the missile, twisting Heavy base two months in the same year.
The first secret messages and tightening cords made to keep the In 541 bc, everyone was
were exchanged by the of animal sinews. When the catapult on ordered to add months at the
Spartan army chiefs of ancient tension in the cords was the ground same times, but it was not until
released, the arms sprang about 380 bc that astronomers
Greece, using a tapered rod forward, launching the missile worked out a cycle of extra
called a scytale. They up to 1,640 ft (500 m) away, months that really kept the
wound a strip of leather but not very accurately. calendar on track. Then, for a
around the rod, then while, the Babylonian calendar
wrote on the leather. Crossbow became the best in the world.
When unwrapped,
the strip displayed c 400 bc
a meaningless
jumble, but Asoldier could shoot an
arrow farther with a
catapult crossbow than with an
The catapult ordinary bow. The first
was still used as a crossbow was the gastrophetes
weapon in the Middle
Ages. It was useful if there
was time to get it into place
and the target was easy to hit.

c 430bc A giant high, it shows Zeus on a throne 390 bc The Gauls, a valley of the Po River and
statue of the encrusted with gold and precious Celtic race living overwhelm Rome. The city is
Greek god Zeus is completed by stones. It becomes one of the in what is now northern Italy ransacked, but after a payoff
Phidias. Nearly 40 ft (12 m) Seven Wonders of the World. and France, sweep down the of gold the invaders depart.

43

The age of auThoriTy writers eventually switched to Reed cut and
using the more flexible quill split at the end
Pen tip pens, which were made from to hold the ink
long feathers.
c 380 bc

Scribes in ancient
Egypt wrote on
papyrus (✷ see page
24) with a pen made
from a reed. This had a
soft point, rather like
a modern felt-tip.
The first pens with
a hard tip, split at
the end to channel
the ink, came from
ancient Greece.
They were still made
from reeds, but
scribes could produce
finer writing with them. With
the introduction of parchment
(✷ see page 28), which was
smoother than papyrus, most

Pen tiP mathematics of mechanical
Early Greek devices, which may explain
documents were written why he designed the pigeon.
with pens made from stiff
reeds. Scribes often kept Celestial
their pens in a wooden spheres
case. This one has a space
for ink at one end. c 360 bc

Automaton Eudoxus of Cnidus

c 370 bc Planets and other celestial
bodies seem to move
Archytas of Tarentum irregularly against a smoothly
revolving background of stars.
An automaton is a The ancient Greek astronomer
machine that Eudoxus offered the first
imitates the actions of explanation for this. He said
a living creature. The that everything astronomers
earliest known was a saw was carried around Earth
pigeon built in about on 27 spheres. The outermost
370 bc by the Greek sphere held the stars, while the
philosopher Archytas of Sun, the Moon, and the planets
Tarentum. It “flew” had several spheres each. Their
around on an arm combined steady motions
driven by steam or created the observed irregular
air. Influenced by motion. Despite numerous
Pythagoras, much of flaws, Eudoxus’ theory was,
Archytas’ work involved with some refinements, the best
music. But he was also on offer for 2,000 years.
interested in the

celestial sPheres In
this 16th-century view of
the universe, Atlas holds
up Earth surrounded by the
planets on their spheres.

c 350bc Greek His reasoning is generally 330 bc As the final act Great burns down the palace in
philosopher accepted, putting an end to of his conquest the city of Persepolis. From now
Aristotle puts forward six centuries of speculation about of the Persian empire, the on, Greek culture will begin to
arguments for a spherical Earth. the shape of the world. Macedonian king Alexander the influence the Middle East.

44

Atomic theory Coal Mercury c 499 bc – 1400

c 350 bc c 350 bc c 350 bc Euclidean
geometry
Democritus Archaeologists believe that Mercury, the only metal
coal may have been burned that is liquid at room c 300 bc
The ancient Greek in Wales as long as 4000 years temperature,was used by the
philosopher Democritus ago. But the first written record Chinese in attempts to achieve Euclid of Alexandria
held views that have influenced of coal is a mention by the immortality. Probably known to
the whole of modern science. ancient Greek philosopher the ancient Egyptians, it was Euclid was possibly the
He was probably the first Aristotle in a book he wrote on definitely being mined and greatest maths teacher ever.
person to put forward the idea geology in about 350 bc. His refined by about 350 bc. Its His way of explaining geometry
that the world is made of interest in coal came from his seemingly magical properties in about 300 bc was still being
atoms, the smallest things that theories about Earth. Later made it a key ingredient in used in the 20th century. He
can exist. He said that there people, from the Romans alchemy, in which people tried collected earlier texts and
were countless numbers of onward, were more interested to make gold out of cheaper rearranged them with his own
them, all made of the same stuff, in coal as a source of heat or metals. It was also used in early work so that they made more
but with different shapes. They for use in smelting metals. In medicine, although people sense. His book, The Elements,
could be arranged in different about 1200, a monk called knew it could be poisonous. takes readers on a journey from
ways to produce everything in Reinier of Liège wrote about basic ideas to surprising
the world. This theory is close metalworkers using a black Formal logic outcomes. Its clarity is still hard
to what we now believe, and earth similar to charcoal. to beat. Many of Euclid’s ideas
not bad for someone who lived c 350 bc are in math books used today.
about 2,400 years ago. Iced dessert
Aristotle Lead pipe
Cookbook c 350 bc
Everyone needs to know c 300 bc
c 350 bc The ancient Romans enjoyed how to argue logically. The
their food, especially ancient Greek philosopher Plumbers get their name
Archestratus anything cold and sweet. Sugar Aristotle was the first to set out from “plumbum, ” which
was a rarity and refrigeration clear rules for argument. He was the Roman word for lead.
Throughout history, people unknown, but from the 4th pointed out, for example, that Roman engineers brought water
have tried to improve the century onward, they used an argument like “Fish can swim; from the surrounding hills into
ways of preparing food. As natural ice and honey. This was I can swim, so I am a fish” is their cities, then sent it to
long ago as 350 bc, the ancient false. (A true statement would where it was needed through
Greek writer Archestratus pipes. They sometimes made

Lead pipe In ancient Rome, city a problem in summer, so the be “Fish can swim; I am a fish, these from wood, but more
dwellers often had their name put emperor Nero had snow so I can swim.”) He also pointed often used lead because it
on their own lead water pipes. brought from the mountains out that all knowledge depends lasted longer and was soft
produced a book about the joy and served with sweetened fruit on a set of principles that can and easy to roll up into tubes.
of food called Pleasant Living. juice. Meanwhile, people in be accepted as true without Lead pipes were still in use in
About 200 years later, an China were eating ice cream, proof. His rules were so good the early 20th century, but
enthusiast called Athenaeus invented there in about that, for centuries, people most have now been replaced
produced a book containing, 2000 bc. This reached Europe believed he had said all there because unfortunately, as the
among other things, several in about 1300, when the Italian was to say on the subject. Many Roman engineer Vitruvius
recipes for cheesecake. traveller Marco Polo returned of his ideas are still essential to pointed out, too much lead is
with recipes from the Far East. science and philosophy. poisonous.

320bc Cities continue passed preventing people from c 304bc In Rome, which legal business can be
to grow, and throwing their garbage into the Gnaeus conducted. Before this, the days
with them the problem of waste streets. The first waste collection Flavius erects a permanent were just read out each month,
disposal. In Athens, a law is systems are also organized. calendar showing the days on making justice uncertain.

45

The age of auThoriTy Mosaic A tessera mosaic made aim for at night, and were
between 250 and 50 bc shows how simply placed on hilltops. The
Mosaic well this seemingly rigid technique first real lighthouse was created
could show detail and movement. in Egypt, on the island of
c 300 bc Pharos, off Alexandria. When
stirrups. They sat on some kind its Greek engineer Sostratus of
Mosaics are pictures made of blanket or cloth, and this Cnidus finished it in about 280
up using small pieces of eventually evolved into the bc, it was probably about 410 ft
colored stone or glass cemented padded leather saddle used (125 m) high – almost as high
to walls or floors. The first today. Chinese riders were as the pyramids (✷ see page
mosaics were probably made using saddles by about 50 bc, 24). It had stairs inside and
using natural pebbles. By 300 but it is thought that saddles fuel for its fire was hoisted up
bc, the “tessera” technique had were invented at least 250 years by pulley.
been invented, in which tiny earlier than this by a group of
tiles cut from stone or glass nomads called the Scythians, Compressed air
were used to give fine detail who lived in what is now
and rich color. This beautiful, mostly Ukraine. c 270 bc
hard-wearing form of interior
decoration went down well Lighthouse Ctesibius of Alexandria
with the Romans. Many of their
mosaics still exist today. c 280 bc Ctesibius of Alexandria
discovered that air can be
Scientific Sostratus of Cnidus compressed and will then exert
botany a force. He may have done this
Ancient mariners often by plunging a pot into water
c 300 bc relied on fires to guide with its mouth downward and
them into harbor. These noticing that this required
Theophrastus showed smoke by day some force. Seeing that the
and a light to inside of the pot stayed dry, he
After thousands of years would have realized that the air
spent using and cultivating
plants, people began to wonder Greek philosopher Padded saddle
where the plants came from Theophrastus was the first made riding
and how they worked. The real botanist. Between more comfortable
scientific study of plants is about 320 and 280 bc, he
called botany, and the ancient wrote more than 200 books on saddle This model of
the subject. Only two, which a horse, complete with
deal with the origin and growth a saddle and bridle,
of plants, have survived. was made in China
Modern botanists no longer use during the Tang
his work, but without him they Dynasty (ad 618–907).
might never have gotten started.

Saddle

c 300 bc

The first horse riders rode
bareback, clinging on
without the help of saddle or

c 300 bc Geographer sailing to Land’s End in England 293 bc Hygeia, the medicine, she will watch over
Pytheas and exploring much of Britain on goddess of the well-being of Roman citizens.
becomes the first Greek to foot. On the way, he enjoys the health, reaches Rome. With her She is depicted giving her snake
describe northern Europe after local honey-based drink, mead. husband Asclepius, the god of a drink from a saucer.

46

inside was pushing the water shadow of a vertical stick about c 499 bc – 1400
out. We do know that Ctesibius 500 miles (800 km) north at different theories today,
used his discovery in several Alexandria showed that the his ideas did make
air-powered inventions. Sun was not overhead, but sense. He gave the first
angled at about seven degrees correct account of how
Bridge for from the vertical. Eratosthenes valves inside the heart
boarding ships realized that the difference was prevent blood from
caused by the curvature of flowing backward. His
c 260 bc Earth. Using the idea that name for one of the
there were 360 degrees in a valves, the tricuspid, is
Gaius Duilius circle, and knowing the still used today.
distance between Aswan and
Military leaders have always Alexandria, he was able to Diaphragm separates the
been called upon to solve calculate Earth’s circumference thorax from the abdomen
practical problems. World as the distance between Aswan
War II soldiers erected “instant” and Alexandria × 360 ÷ 7. Model shows the internal
steel bridges to help them get Eratosthenes’ calculation came organs of a female
across rivers, and the Roman up with the answer of about
commander Gaius Duilius used 25,700 miles (41,143 km). Human
wooden bridges more than The true value is about anatomy
2,000 years before. In 260 bc, 25,000 miles (40,000 km), based on
he found himself fighting a so he wasn’t too far off. dissection
battle at sea with soldiers
trained to fight on land. So he Compound c 250 bc
brought some “land” on to his pulley
ships in the form of wooden Herophilus of
bridges that hooked on to the c 250 bc Chalcedon
enemy ships. His soldiers could
then rush across and fight as Archimedes Anatomy is the study
usual. They won the battle. of the structure of
Asimple pulley is a rope bodies. Early anatomists
Archimedes’ passed around a wheel, were often forbidden
principle and it is useful for lifting things to cut open dead
vertically. One end of the rope bodies, so some of
c 250 bc is attached to the load and the their descriptions and
other end of the rope is pulled diagrams of the internal
Archimedes to lift the load. Greek inventor organs of humans were
Archimedes developed the based on guesswork.
See pages 48–49 for the compound pulley from the The ancient Greek
story of how Archimedes simple pulley by wrapping the doctor Herophilus was
solved a weighty problem and rope around several wheels one of the first scientists
discovered how things float. instead of one, which enabled to base his anatomy on
people to lift heavier loads. It real observations, and he
Size of Earth meant pulling the rope farther, accurately described the
but took less effort at any one brain, nerves, blood
c 250 bc time. Compound pulleys, using vessels, eyes, and other
chains rather than ropes, are parts of the body.
Eratosthenes of Cyrene still used for heavy lifting jobs.
Human anatomy based
The astronomer Eratosthenes Heart valves on dissection This 15th-
of Cyrene (now Shahhat in century model for teaching
Libya) was the first person to c 250 bc anatomy probably shows
figure out the size of Earth. He more detail than was known
found that on Midsummer’s Erasistratus of Ceos to Heophilus.
day, at noon, the Sun shone
straight down a well at Aswan, An ancient Greek doctor bronze statue of the Sun god
in Egypt, so the Sun there was called Erasistratus of Ceos Helios, on the island of Rhodes.
directly overhead. But at was one of the first people to An earthquake destroys it within
exactly the same time, the think about how the human 60 years and it is sold for scrap.
body works. Although we have
47
c 287bc The ordinary recognition, as plebeian Quintus 282 bc After 12 years’
people of Hortensius becomes “dictator”. work, Greek
Rome, the plebeians, gain a great He decrees that plebeian laws sculptor Chares of Lyndus
victory in their campaign for must apply to rich people too. completes a 105 ft (32 m)-high

The age of auThoriTy

Doing science in the bath

Archimedes solves a weighty problem
and discovers how things float

Why do some things float and others sink? This is an
important question for ship designers, but the ancient
Greek scientist Archimedes may have found the answer while

he was checking the quality of a king’s jewelry.

Archimedes was born in Syracuse, Sicily, in about 290 bc.

He was related to the king, Hieron II, so had plenty of time to

think and write about mathematics and mechanics. Hieron often

called upon Archimedes to help him with problems. He had a gold

wreath that he thought contained some silver, and he asked

Golden leaves Archimedes to find out exactly how much. Archimedes knew he
used to adorn a religious statue
could check the wreath if he could measure its density
Gold for Gods and kinGs
Ancient craft workers fashioned (its mass in relation to its volume) because silver is less
gold into decorations that were
not only beautiful but also dense than gold. The obvious way to find the density of something is to
indicated the importance of the
wearer. That is why Hieron measure its weight (which is proportional to its mass) and volume, but
wanted to make sure that his
wreath was made of pure gold. Archimedes didn’t know how to measure the volume of the wreath.

EurEka! One day he noticed the water rising as he got into his bath. He realized
It is said that Archimedes
was so excited by his that he could fill a bathtub to the top, lower Hieron’s wreath into it to
discovery that he leaped
out of his bath and ran make the water overflow, then take the wreath out and see how much
naked through the streets
shouting “Eureka!” water was needed to fill the bathtub again. That would be the volume of
(“I’ve found it!”).
This probably never the wreath.
happened, but people
still shout “Eureka!” Archimedes may also have
at moments of
discovery. TEsTinG ThE principlE noticed that he felt lighter in
Two identical containers filled to the his bath. Left to itself, bath
brim with water will balance exactly. water doesn’t rise or fall, so
When an apple is carefully lowered
every part of it must get
into one of them, so that the an upward push that
container stays full, the balance balances its own

is unchanged. Archimedes’ weight. The same
principle says that the force must push
floating apple will push
its own weight of on anything
water out of the placed in the
container, making water. When
the total weight
the same
as before.

Identical anything is immersed
containers in a fluid, even partly,
on an accurate it feels an upward
set of scales

48