the dawn of discovery

7/29/2019 The Dawn of Discovery

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The dawn of discovery

A long slow sequence of invention and discovery has made possible the familiar details of our everyday lives. Mankind's

programme of improvements has been erratic and unpredictable. But good ideas are rarely forgotten. They are borrowed andcopied and spread more widely, in an accelerating process which makes the luxuries of one age the necessities of the next.

The story is a disjointed one, since inventions and discoveries occur in a random fashion. They are described here in an

approximately chronological sequence.

Two million years ofstone technologyrepresent the first long era of discovery at the start of human history. The use offire,more than 500,000 years ago, is also a discovery. And some Stone Age artefacts (such as winged arrow-heads to stick in theflesh of the prey, or hooks carved in bone) have almost the quality of inventions. But these are developments of such an

extended nature that they seem different in kind from the discoveries and inventions of more recent history.

Perhaps the first two ideas worthy of the name of 'invention', even though invented many times in many different places, arethe eye of a needle and the string of a bow.

Needle and thread: from 15,000 years ago

In districts where warm clothing is necessary, Stone Age people stitch skins together with threads of tendon or leather thongs.For each stitch they bore a hole and then hook the thread through it.

The development of a bone or ivory needle, with an eye, speeds up the process immeasurably. The hole is now created by thesame implement which then pulls the thread through, in an almost continuous movement. Needles of this kind have been foundin caves in Europe from the latepalaeolithic period, about 15,000 years ago. Several are so thin as to imply the use of materialssuch as horsehair for the thread.

The bow and arrow: from 15,000 years ago

The sudden release of stored energy, when a forcibly bent strip of wood is allowed to snap back into its natural shape, is more

rapid and therefore more powerful than any impulse of which human muscles are capable - yet human muscles, at a slower rate,have the strength to bend the strip of wood.

The principle of the bow is discovered about 15,000 years ago. Bows and arrows feature from that time, no doubt both in hunting

and warfare, in the regions of north Africa and southern Europe. The wood is usually ewe or elm.Stone Age technologyiscapable of producing sharp flint points for the arrows, often with barbs to secure them in the victim's flesh.

Making fire: more than 10,000 years ago

At some unknown time, before the beginning of settled life in theNeolithic Revolution, humans learn how to make fire. No

doubt the discovery happens at many different times in many different places over a very long period. The knowledge of how tocreate a spark, and to nurture it until it develops into a flame, is an intrinsic skill of human society.

Almost without exception Stone Age tribes, surviving into modern times, have evolved in isolation their own methods of making

fire. It is likely that the same was true when all humanity lived in the Stone Age.
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The most common way of making fire is by friction, using a fire drill. This consists of a stick of hard wood, pointed at one end,

and a slab of softer wood with a hole in it. If the point is placed in the cavity and rapidly twirled (by rubbing between the palms,or by means of a bow string looped round and pulled back and forth), the softer wood begins to smoulder. Shreds of dry tinder,

placed in the smouldering cavity, can be carefully blown into a flame.

Another more sophisticated technique involves flint and pyrite. Evidence of both methods is found in neolithic tombs.

The useful quality of the naturally occurring mineral pyrite, or iron pyrites, is that it makes a spark if struck with a flint. If thespark is aimed into dry tinder, blowing can achieve a flame.

With the introduction of iron, it is discovered that the same principle applies between flint and steel. This eventually becomes the

standard method of making fire. The European tinderbox of the 16th century is a portable fire-making kit, consisting of flint,steel, tinder to catch the spark and a match (like the wick of a lamp) to hold the fire in a steady and lasting glow. Not until the19th century is this equipment replaced by matches in the modern sense.

However ingenious such methods of creating spark and flame, the process is laborious and in certain weather conditionsimpossible. Conserving fire, rather than making it, remains until modern times the practical approach to this most useful anddangerous of mankind's allies.

This important priority of domestic life is reflected in Rome'sVestal virgins, priestesses of great prestige and sanctity whose onlyritual task is tending a flame.

Felt rugs and rush matting: 25,000 to 6000 years ago

Whether living in caves or temporary shelters, hunter-gatherers of the distant past make the ground more pleasant by strewing itwith rushes or similar material. The first rugs, of a kind which can be lifted and used elsewhere, are probably offelt, made fromthe bark of trees. Felt rugs of this kind may have been used in the late Palaeolithicperiod, about 25,000 years ago.

The development ofweaving, in the form of basketry, allows for the plaiting of rushes as a floor covering. This too may wellbegin in Palaeolithic times. But the first archaeological traces of plaited rushes on the floor date from no earlier than about 4000BC, in Mesopotamia.

Felt garments: from 8000 BC

It is arguable that the invention of textiles is the single most liberating step in human history. Previously people have had a choiceonly of going naked in warm regions or wearing rough and clumsy furs in colder climates. The most elementary of fabrics - felt -

is probably the first to be developed for garments.

Felt is a fabric in which fibres of any kind are made to intermesh not by spinning and weaving, but by processes of heat, dampand pressure. Wool, hair and fur are the conventional ingredients of felt. It can also be made from strips of bark, to produce floor

coverings of the kind which Palaeolithic man may have used.

Woollen felt is probably in use for garments at least 10,000 years ago, well before the first weavingof textiles. But felt has little

lasting strength. Its fibres pull gradually apart.

For a fabric with greater resilience, a woven material is required. The yarn for this can be acquired from the wool of sheep orgoat, from the fluff surrounding the seeds of cotton, from the fibre in the stems of flax, or from the thin threads excreted by the

silk worm. Any of these substances can be twisted by hand to form a strong thread. But greater efficiency requires the spindle.

The crafts of settled life: from 8000 BC

With the beginning of theNeolithic Revolution, about 10,000 years ago, several of mankind's basic crafts emerge over a

relatively short span of time.
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Sun-dried bricks make possible the beginning of architecture. In textiles, the spindle evolves to transform the spinning of thread.Weaving is perhaps first practised in the making of baskets, but soon the loom is developed for weaving cloth. Pottery provides

greatly improved facilities for the storing and cooking of food.

Bricks: from 8000 BC

An innovation in the neolithic period is the use of bricks. In their simplest form (still familiar today in many hot regions), bricksare shaped by pressing mud or clay into a mould. The damp blocks are then left to bake hard in the sun. Bricks of this kind are

known inJericho from about 8000 BC.

The more durable type of brick, baked in a kiln, is an offshoot of thepotter's technology. Kiln bricks are widely used in the twoearliest civilizations, in Mesopotamia and Egypt, often to provide the outer surface of walls on an inner core of sun-dried brick.

Spinning: from 8000 BC

The spindle develops naturally from the process of twisting fibres into a thread by hand. The spun thread must be stored, and theeasiest way is to wind it onto a stick. This means that the stick is also attached to the unfinished thread (the fibres which are still

being twisted). The stick must therefore twist with the fibres.

Instead of being an encumbrance, this can be turned to advantage. If the stick is given greater weight, by attaching to it a lump of

clay or a stone, its momentum will help in spinning the thread.

The thread can be turned into fabric in either of two ways. One of them links a continuous length of thread in rows ofinterconnected loops. This is knitting, which can create garments of any shape.

The other method, going back to at least 5800 BC, uses the thread in a rectangular criss-cross pattern to produce flat cloth. Thevertical threads are stretched taut to form a grille; the horizontal threads are then interwoven between them. This is the processfor all textiles of cotton, linen, silk or wool. It also produces tapestry. It makes the cloth which is decorated in embroidery. When

loops are inserted, it gives the soft pile of rugs and carpets. All these involve the basic craft of weaving.

So the spindle acquires its two characteristics. It is a bobbin, on to which the spun thread is wound; and it is a flywheel,

prolonging the spinning motion which creates the thread.

The spinner uses one hand to draw out the fibres from the bundle of wool, cotton or flax, thus extending the half-spun thread towhich the spindle is attached. The other hand gives a rotating flick to the spindle whenever it begins to lose impetus. Hand-

spinning of this sort becomes a basic cottage industry throughout the world.

Basketry: from 7000 BC

The development of basketry can be seen also as the first step towards weaving. The interweaving of strands of reed or osier, to

make a simple container, is an elementary process which rapidly provides an extremely useful object.

The impermanence of the materials means that the earliest surviving fragments of baskets (from a cave in Utah) date only fromabout 7000 BC, but the craft is almost certainly practised considerably earlier. From around 5800 BC we have scraps of woven

textiles, preserved because carbonized in the fire which destroys one of the levels ofCatal Huyuk.

Loom: from 6000 BC

Weaving of cloth requires a loom - a structure which will hold taut the vertical threads (the warp), while the weaver snakes eachhorizontal thread in and out to form the weft. When the threads of the weft are pressed down tight, to form a solid mesh with thewarp, a section of the cloth at the bottom of the loom is complete. A pattern is achieved by varying the colour of the threads in

warp and weft.

The earliest known evidence of a loom comes from Egypt in about 4400 BC, but some method of supporting the warp exists fromthe beginning of weaving. The threads must either be suspended (and held taut by a weight at the bottom) or else must be

stretched in the rigid frame of a conventional loom.
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Weaving: from 6000 BC

Until recently the earliest known scraps of cloth are woven from wool; dating from about 5800 BC, they come from Catal Huyuk

in Anatolia. Similarly the first known example of linen has been from about 5000 BC inEgypt, where flax (an indigenous wildplant in the Mediterranean region) is cultivated. But a small woven fragment discovered in 1993 near the upper reaches of the

Tigris probably pushes back the available evidence. It appears to be linen and has been dated to about 7000 BC.Cotton is grown in both Eurasia and America; woven cotton survives from about 2500 BC in theIndus valleyand slightly later in

Peru. The most precisely localized source of any major fabric is China, where pieces of woven silkare known from about 2850BC.

Pottery: from 6500 BC

One of the most useful of all human discoveries ispottery. Indeed a standard distinction made by archaeologists, when describingsuccessive cultures in an area, is between groups which are 'aceramic' (without pottery) and others which have mastered thetechnology of clay and kiln.

In western Asia, where theNeolithic Revolutionis most advanced, the first pottery at sites such asCatal Huyukdates from about6500 BC.The earliest wares at Catal Huyukare made by one of the standard methods of primitive potters. Rings or coils of clay are built

up from a circular base. The walls of the pot are then smoothed and thinned (by simultaneous pressure on the inner and outer

surfaces) before being fired in a bread oven or in the most elementary of kilns - a hole in the ground, above which a bonfire is lit.

Early neolithic pottery is usually undecorated. Where there is decoration, it takes the form of patterns cut or pressed into the

damp clay.

Alcohol: from the 4th millennium BC

Humans must frequently have discovered, in a series of happy accidents, the pleasant side-effects of drinking the fermented juice

of grape or grain. The earliest evidence of the systematic production of alcohol comes fromMesopotamia, where by the 4thmillennium BC beer is brewed on a regular basis. Barley is indigenous in the region.

Beer subsequently becomes the national drink of ancient Egypt. From there the secrets of brewing spread round the

Mediterranean. A standard way of achieving the necessary mix of barley and yeast is to allow mashed barley bread to ferment. Sobrewing becomes, in these early times, part of the baker's trade.

The potter's wheel: 3000 BC

When a pot is built up from the base by hand, it is impossible that it should be perfectly round. The solution to this problemia the potter's wheel, which has been a crucial factor in the history of ceramics. It is not known when or where the potter'swheel is introduced. Indeed it is likely that it develops very gradually, from a platform on which the potter turns the pot

before shaping another side (thus avoiding having to walk around it).

By about 3000 BC a simple revolving wheel is a part of the potter's equipment inMesopotamia, the cradle of so manyinnovations.

The wheel: 3000 BC

The wheel is often quoted as the single most important advance in early technology. It is sometimes said to have evolvedfrom thepotter's wheel. Both are first known at approximately the same period, around 3000 BC. But they share no

geographical origin and it is intrinsically unlikely that either form would suggest the other. Each is a natural solution to avery different problem.

In early technology awagon wheelcan only be made from wood. Several of the earliest known wheels have been found in

the heavily forested regions of Europe.
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The Egyptian papyrus: 3000 BC

The discovery of an easily portable substance to write on is almost as old as writing itself. Around 3000 BC, in Egypt,

people begin making a flexible smooth surface, which will accept and retain ink without blur or smudge.

It is known by the name of the aquatic plant which provides the structure - papyrus. It will remain in regular use longer than

any other material in the history of written documents.

The plough and draught animals: from 3000 BC

The plough is almost certainly the first implement for which humans use a source of power than their own muscles.

When planting seeds, it is essential to break up the ground. In the early stages of agriculture this is achieved by hacking andscraping with a suitably pointed implement - the antler of a deer, or a hooked and pointed branch of a tree. But a useful

furrow can more easily be achieved by dragging a point along the surface of the ground. The first ploughs consist of a sharppoint of timber, sometimes hardened in a flame or tipped with flint, projecting downwards at the end of a long handle.

In the light soil of Egypt and Mesopotamia, where ploughing is first undertaken, a simple pointed implement of this kind is

sufficient to break up the earth and form a shallow trench. Such a plough can be dragged by a couple of men. But the use ofdraught animals, from at least 3000 BC, greatly speeds up the process.

In northern Europe, with heavier soil, this type of plough is ineffective. A more elaborate machine is developed, probably by

the Celts in the 1st century BC, in which a sharb blade cuts into the earth and an angled board turns it over to form a furrow.

Silk: c.2850 BC

People in China find a use for the cocoons spun by the caterpillars of certain moths. If moistened, the thread of a cocoon can

be carefully unwound. Twisted with the thread of other cocoons, it will make a filament strong enough forweaving. Theresult is silk.

The earliest known silk consists of some threads and woven fragments assigned by carbon-dating to about 2850 BC. The

thread of the earliest examples is from wild silk moths, indigenous toChina. But soon one species of the moth,bombyxmori, is domesticated. The manufacture of silk becomes one of the most jealously guarded secrets of early Chinese

civilization.

Glass: c.1500 BC

In Phoenicia, in about 1500 BC, the making of glass becomes a practical craft. Glass beads are known in Egypt 1000 years

earlier, but they are probably shaped from glass which has been formed accidentally where the necessary materials and heatcoincide.

The Phoenicians discover how to make glass on a predictable basis (from sand, limestone and sodium carbonate) and they

invent ways of shaping this difficult but magically appealing substance into small vessels. The basic method, known as core-forming, consists of applying the molten glass to the outside of a solid core of soft clay. When the glass has cooled and
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hardened, the core can be scraped out.

These Phoenician skills are carried south to Egypt during the 15th century BC, after the shores of the eastern Mediterranean

are conquered by the Egyptian pharaohThutmose. Small bottles, to hold precious oils for cosmetic purposes, becometreasured items in rich Egyptian households. The body of the vessel is usually a transparent blue, sometimes decorated with

thread-like rings of white, yellow or green applied to the surface.

Glass is an expensive rarity, and remains so in Egypt and elsewhere (Mesopotamia, Greece, Persia) until Roman times. Thechange to a more widely available household material results from another breakthrough in glass technology - again inPhoenicia, now transformed into Roman Syria.

Sundial and water clock: from the 2nd millennium BC

The movement of the sun through the sky makes possible a simple estimate of time, from the length and position of a

shadow cast by a vertical stick. (It also makes possible more elaborate calculations, as in the attempt of Erathosthenes tomeasure the world - see Erathosthenes and the camels). If marks are made where the sun's shadow falls, the time of day can

be recorded in a consistent manner.

The result is the sundial. An Egyptian example survives from about 800 BC, but the principle is certainly familiar toastronomers very much earlier. However it is difficult to measure time precisely on a sundial, because the sun's path througthe sky changes with the seasons. Early attempts at precision in time-keeping rely on a different principle.

The water clock, known from a Greek word as the clepsydra, attempts to measure time by the amount of water which dripsfrom a tank. This would be a reliable form of clock if the flow of water could be perfectly controlled. In practice it cannot.

The clepsydra has an honourable history from perhaps 1400 BC in Egypt, through Greece and Rome and the Arabcivlizations and China, and even up to the 16th century in Europe. But it is more of a toy than a timepiece.

The hourglass, using sand on the same principle, has an even longer career. It is a standard feature on 18th-century pulpits in

Britain, ensuring a sermon of sufficient length. In a reduced form it can still be found timing an egg.

Navigation by Polaris: from c.1100 BC

The use of Polaris, the pole star, as a navigational aid is credited to the Phoenicians (the position of the pole star in the sky isso close to the northern end of the axis on which the earth rotates that it appears static throughout each night and is a reliable

indication of due north). The Phoenicians also build up a store of information about winds and currents, which they guardjealously as valuable trade secrets.

One extraordinary indication of their skills is an expedition of about 600 BC. Sponsored by an Egyptian pharaoh, Phoenician

ships make a complete voyage round the coast of Africa (see theFirst sea voyage round Africa).

Glazed ceramics: 9th - 1st century BC

In all the early civilizations, from Mesopotamia and Egypt onwards, pottery is a highly developed craft.An outstanding achievement is the Greek ceramictradition of the 6th and 5th century BC. But technically all these potssuffer from a major disadvantage. Fired earthenware is tough but it is porous. Liquid will soak into it and eventually leakthrough it. This has some advantages with water (where evaporation from the surface cools the contents of the jug) but is

less appropriate for storing wine or milk.
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The solution is the addition of a glaze. This technological breakthrough is made in Mesopotamia in the 9th century BC fordecorative tiles. It is not adapted for practical everyday purposes until many centuries later.

A glaze is a substance, applied to the inner or outer surface of an unfired pot, which vitrifies in the kiln - meaning that it

forms a glassy skin, which fuses with the earthenware and makes it impermeable to liquids.

But glazes, which can be of any colour, also have a highly decorative quality. It is for this purpose that they are firstdeveloped, as a facing for ceramic tiles, in Mesopotamia from the 9th century BC. The most famous examples are from the

6th century palace ofNebuchadnezzarin Babylon.

Glazed pots make their appearance in the Middle East in about the 1st century BC, possibly being developed first in Egypt.The characteristic colour is green, from copper in the glaze. Pottery of this kind is common in imperial Romea century later.

By this time glazed pottery is also being manufactured in Han dynastyChina. It may be that the development occursindependently in the Middle East and in China, but by now there could also be a direct influence in either direction. Romeand China are already linked by theSilk Road, and glazed ceramics are attractive commodities.

Lock and key: c.710 BC

In Assyria, at Khorsabad, an expensive wooden bolt is installed in the new palace of Sargon II. It is the world's earliestsurviving lock.

Within the bolt are several holes. When the bolt is pushed home, wooden pins fall down into these holes from within the

frame of the door, holding the bolt fast. The only way of releasing it is to insert a key, shaped like a tooth brush, into ahollow cavity in the bolt below the pin holes. The key has projecting pins in the necessary pattern. When pressed upwardsthey will raise the other pins, allowing the bolt to be withdrawn.

Persian carpets: 6th century BC

Persian emperors of the 6th century BC are among the first to make a display of lavish floor coverings. Carpets becomes one of

the characteristic art forms of people living on the high plateau of west Asia, from Turkey through Iran, where winters can be

extremely cold.

They are a particularly important form of wealth and comfort for the nomadic tribes which live in these regions and in the steppes

to the north. One of the earliest true carpets to survive (woven with a knotted pile, and Persian in origin) belongs to a tribal ruler

in about 500 BC. It is discovered in his frozen tomb at Pazyryk.

Lacquer: c.500 BC

The Chinese discover that the sap of a tree,Rhus vernicifera, has unusual qualities. It can be applied in

successive layers to wooden objects, such as dishes and boxes, and each layer can be hardened by exposure to moisture.

The resulting surface, so hard that it is not corroded by acid, can be brought to a very smooth polish, or decorated with gold and
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silver dust, or delicately carved to reveal the successive layers beneath. This technique of lacquer, adopted also in Japan by the

6th century AD, provides one of the most highly valued commodities of the orient.

Electricity and magnetism: 5th century BC

Two natural phenomena, central to the study of physics, are observed and speculated upon by Greek natural scientists - probablyin the 5th century BC, though Aristotle gives credit for the first observation of each to the shadowy figure ofThales.

One such phenomenon is the strange property of amber. If rubbed with fur it will attract feathers or bits of straw. Modernscience, in its terms for the forces involved, acknowledges this Greek experiment with amber (electron in Greek). The

behaviour of the amber is caused by what we call electricity, resulting from the transfer of what are now known as electrons.

The other natural phenomenon, observed in lodestone rather than amber, also derives its scientific name from Greekexperiments. Lodestone is a naturally occurring mineral (formed of iron oxide), and it will surprisingly attract small pieces ofiron. .

TheGreeks find this mineral in a region of Thessaly called Magnesia. They call it lithos magnetis, the 'stone of Magnesia'. Thusthe magnet is identified and named, though like rubbed amber it will only be a source of interest and amusement for the next1000 years and more - until a practical purpose is found for it in the form of thecompass.

Distillation: 4th century BC

The principle of distillation is probably in use long before it is applied to the production of alcohol. Greek sailors of the 4thcentury BC know how to derive fresh water from the sea, by boiling salt water and suspending a sponge in the steam (purewater condenses in the sponge).

The distillation of alcohol is possible because it boils at a lower temperature than water. In the simplest form of still, the alcoholvapour condenses on a cold surface held in the steam. Subsequent improvements, achieved at various places and different times,

involve channelling the steam into a separate condenser and cooling it in such a way as to separate any intrusive water vapourfrom the alcohol.

Pulley: 4th century BC

An important adaptation of the wheel in technology is the pulley - a wheel round which a rope is run to exert force on an objectat the other end. Such a machine is first mentioned in a Greek text of the 4th century BC, but it is likely to have been known

much earlier.

In the simplest pulley a single wheel is used (as in hauling a flag up a flagpole), but major mechanical advantages can beachieved with two or more wheels - making it possible to lift a heavier object, albeit more slowly. The effect of two pulleys isthat a force capable of pulling the rope two yards at one end will exert twice that force over a distance of only one yard at theother. The effect increases dramatically with more pulleys.

Mechanical organ: 3rd century BC

Pipes of varying sorts are among the earliest of musical instruments, and pipers must often have imagined a pipe too large forhuman lungs. A scientist in Alexandria, by the name of Ctesibius, is credited with being the first to invent an organ - with a

hand-operated pump sending air through a set of largePipes. Each pipe is played by pressing a note on a board. This is thebeginning ofkeyboard instruments.

By the time of the Roman empire, a few centuries later, the organ is a familiar and popular instrument - playing a prominent part
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in public games and circuses as well as private banquets. The emperorNero, an enthusiastic performer, is proud of his talents on

the organ.

Archimedes: water and specific gravity, c.250 BC

Archimedes, working in Syracuse in the 3rd century BC, features in popular tradition as one of the most practical of Greekmathematicians. His study of spirals is reflected in the simple irrigation machine known as the Screw ofArchimedes.

The legend is that the king ofSyracuse, Hiero II, is troubled by the problem of how to get water out of the hold of a large ship.He turns to the local genius, who devises a spiral watertight tube, inclined at an angle with its lower end in the water. When it is

turned, the effect of the spiral is to raise the water. As if by magic, it pours out at the top end.

Another problem confronting the king proves equally stimulating to the scientist's inventive faculties. Hiero suspects that hemay have been cheated by his goldsmiths. He has ordered a crown of pure gold. How can he be certain, when it is delivered,

that it has not been adulterated with some cheaper silver?

He asks Archimedes, who - the story goes - is nonplussed until he steps into his bath.

The overflow of water from the bath gives Archimedes the solution to the problem. His body displaces a certain amount of

water. Another object, of the same weight but more dense, will displace less water. Archimedes only has to immerse an ingot ofpure gold of the same weight as the crown. If it and the crown displace the same amount, then the crown too is pure gold.

The popular legend accurately reflects an important discovery about specific gravity - and naturally dresses it up in lively detail.

The scientist is so excited that he leaps from his bath and runs naked down the street crying eureka (Greek for 'I have found it').

Cement: c.200 BC

Builders in Greek cities on the coast of Turkey (and in particular Pergamum) evolve cement in about 200 BC as a structural

material, in place of weaker mortars such as gypsum plaster (used in Egypt) or bitumen (in Mesopotamia). The secret of the newmaterial is the lime which binds sand, water and clay.

The Romans subsequently use finely ground volcanic lava in place of clay, deriving it mainly from the region of Pozzuoli. Their

cement, known for this reason as pozzolanic, is the strongest mortar in history until the development of Portland cement. Whensmall fragments of volcanic rubble are included, the result is concrete - making possible the great arches and aqueducts of

Roman architecture, and playing its part in Roman roads.

The development of the stirrup: 2nd c. BC - 7th c. AD

It is probable that early nomadic horsemen, such as the Scythians, use some form of looped fabric to support their feet. But the

first direct evidence of a stirrup is a loop for the big toe used by Indian cavalry from the 2nd century BC. Suitable only for useby barefoot warriors in warm climates, this device spreads gradually through southeast Asia.

At some time before the 5th century AD the Chinese, who need to keep their boots on, transform the toe loop into a metal

stirrup for the whole foot. From China this crucial device moves westwards, through Iran to the Muslim world in the 7thcentury, and then through the Byzantine empire to western Europe.
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Pergamum and parchment: 2nd century BC

During the 2nd century BC people in the region of the Mediterranean begin using a much more expensive alternative to

papyrus. Tradition credits its invention to Eumenes II, who rules in Pergamum on the west coast of Turkey from 197 to 159 BC.The substance is parchment (the word derives from a variation of Pergamum). It is a form of leather.

Ordinary leather has occasionally been used for these purposes since about 2500 BC, but only one side can be written on. With

parchment both sides are treated and rubbed until smooth, to form a flexible double surface.

Astrolabe: c.140 BC

The astrolabe (meaning 'star taker') is arguably the world's oldest scientific instrument. It is often credited as an invention toHipparchus, a leading Greek astronomer of the 2nd century BC.

The astrolabe measures the angle of the sun or of a star above the horizon and provides a chart (in later examples oftenbeautifully engraved in metal) showing the heavens at differing latitudes and times. The altitude of the Pole Star will reveal theobserver's latitude, in relation to which the position of sun and stars will give the time of day or night. The instrument is

therefore of great use to sailors, until eventually replaced in the 18th century by the sextant.

Glassblowing: c.50 BC

The craftsmen of Phoenicia maintain their pre-eminence inglass technologywhen they discover, in the 1st century BC, how to

produce glass vessels in large quantities. Instead of the laborious processes of building up molten glass around a core, or castingit in prepared moulds, the new method is one of startling originality. And it offers potential for very skilled work.

The Phoenicians discover that if a blob of molten glass is fixed to the end of a tube, air blown through the tube will form the

blob into a hollow vessel. By turning the tube and controlling the pressure of his breath, the glassblower can vary the shape ofthe developing vase.

The new technology comes within a few years ofPompeybringing this region of the Middle East under Roman control, as theprovince of Syria. As a result, glass spreads rapidly through the Roman empire.

As a standard household commodity, produced in fairly large quantities, this glass is often of relatively poor quality. But at the

top end of the market the skills of the glass-blowers rapidly reach extraordinary standards - making, for example, glass in whichone colour is blown within another and the outer skin is partially engraved away to provide a cameo scene. The famous Portland

Vase, dating from about 25 BC, is an outstanding example of this technique.

Greek atmospheric devices: 1st century AD

Hero, a mathematician in Alexandria in about AD 75, enjoys inventing mechanical gadgets, which he describes in his workPneumatica. Whether he has the technology to make them we do not know, but his scientific principles are correct.

One such gadget is a primitive version of a steam turbine. Hero says steam should be directed into a hollow globe with outlets

through nozzles on opposite sides of the circumference. The nozzles are directed round the rim of the globe. As the steam rushesout, like sparks from a catherine wheel, the globe spins.

Hero makes another significant use of atmospheric pressure in a magic altar, putting to work the expansion and contraction of
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air. A fire heats the air in a container, causing it to expand and force water up a tube into a bucket. The increased weight of the

bucket opens the doors of an altar. When the fire is extinguished, the air contracts, the water in the bucket is sucked out and thedoors close.

Any temple managing to work this trick is certain to attract more pilgrims, and more money, than its rivals.

The discovery of paper: AD 105

Chinese tradition attributes one of the most wide-reaching of inventions to a eunuch at the imperial court, by the name of CaiLun, in the year AD 105.

Cai Lun may merely have presented the emperor with a report on the new substance, but certainly paper is produced inChina inthe second century AD. Fragments of it survive, made from rags and the fibres of mulberry, laurel and Chinese grass.

Knitting: from the 3rd century AD

Knitting, as a concept, is very simple but extremely hard to imagine. It is likely, therefore, to be one of the few technologicaldevelopments in ancient history to have an actual inventor. As a challenge to the inventive mind, the problem ('Transform acontinuous thread into a piece of fabric without at any point cutting the thread') still seems difficult.

The likelihood of a single moment of invention is also made more probable by the late arrival of knitting. Even though it makesno technological demands (neolithic communities could provide a skein of wool and two long needles), civlization is 3000 yearsold before the first row is knitted.

Knitting first appears in the Roman empire, in the 3rd century AD. The earliest examples to survive are socks (found in tombs in

Egypt), and it is in footwear that the advantages of the new technology are most obvious.

Until this time feet have usually been kept warm and protected within the shoe by wrapping them in strips of cloth or leather. Inthe 2nd century AD the Romans evolve a tailored sock, made of pieces of cloth sewn together. But these lack the elasticity of a

knitted fabric. Eventually the demand for knitted stockings is so great that the first knitting machine, devised in 1589, is an earlylandmark of the Industrial Revolution.

Windmills: 7th - 15th century AD

The first practical windmills are constructed in or before the 9th century in a region spanning eastern Iran and westernAfghanistan. They are descibed in a manuscript by Estakhri, a Persian georgrapher of that period, as having horizontal sails, like

the blades of a helicopter, directly linked by a vertical shaft to the millstones turning below. The date of the first windmill is oftengiven as 644 or earlier, because a 9th-century document says that the man who in that year assassinated the caliph Omarin themosque at Medina was a Persian builder of windmills. But a first mention of this two centuries after the event makes it unlikely

to be true.

Windmills are first mentioned in Europe in the 12th century. There is a reference to one in France in 1180, and a few years laterto another in England. Since this is the time of the crusades, it is likely that the idea has been brought from the Middle East.

Greek fire: AD 674

In AD 674 a Muslim fleet enters the Bosphorus to attack Constantinople. It is greeted, and greatly deterred, by a new weaponwhich can be seen as the precursor of the modern flamethrower. It has never been discovered precisely how the Byzantine

chemists achieve the jet of flame for their 'Greek fire'. The secret of such a lethal advantage is jealously guarded.
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Contemporary accounts imply that the inflammable substance is petroleum-based, floats on water, and is almost impossible to

extinguish. It can be lobbed in a canister. But in its most devastating form it is projected, as a stream of liquid fire, from a tubemounted in the prow of a ship. Sprayed among a wooden fleet, its destructive potential is obvious.

Printed Buddhist texts in Korea and Japan: AD 750-768

The invention of printing is a striking achievement of Buddhists in east Asia. Korea takes the lead. The world's earliest known

printed document is a sutra printed on a single sheet of paper in Korea in AD 750.

This is closely followed in Japan by a bold experiment in mass circulation (precisely the area in which printed material has theadvantage over manuscript). In AD 768, in devoutly BuddhistNara, the empress commissions a huge edition of a lucky charm or

prayer. It is said that the project takes six years to complete and that the number of copies printed, for distribution to pilgrims, is amillion. Many have survived.

Gunpowder: 10th century

In about 1040 a Chinese manual on warfare is issued under the title Compendium of Military Technology. It is the first document

to describe gunpowder. This black powder, formed by pounding a mixture of saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur (a dangerous processif the pounding is overdone), seems to have been developed in the small chemical laboratories attached to the temples ofDaoistswhere research is conducted mainly on the secret of eternal life.

At this early stage in China the military use of gunpowder is limited to grenades and bombs lobbed at the enemy from catapults.

Its real destructive force will only emerge when the explosion is confined, in the development ofartillery.

Movable type: from the 11th century

Movable type (separate ready-made characters or letters which can be arranged in the correct order for a particular text and then

reused) is a necessary step beforeprinting can become an efficient medium for disseminating information.

The concept is experimented with in China as early as the 11th century. But two considerations make the experiment unpractical.One is that the Chinese script has so many characters that type-casting and type-setting become too complex. The other is that the

Chinese printers cast their characters in clay and then fire them as pottery, a substance too fragile for the purpose.

Compass: 11th century

At some time before 1100 it is discovered that a magnet, if allowed to move freely, will turn so that one end points to the north.Free movement is difficult to achieve, since the natural source of magnetism is a heavy mineral (lodestone or magnetite).

But a fine iron needle can be magnetized by contact with alodestone, and such a needle is light enough to be attached to a sliverof wood and floated on water. It will then drift into a position which identifies the north - providing invaluable information toseafarers in cloudy weather.

There has been much argument about where the compass is first developed. The earliest reference to such a device is in a Chinesemanuscript of the late 11th century; within the next 150 years it features also in Arabic and European texts. This is too short atime span to prove the priority of China, given the random nature of the surviving references.
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The crucial fact is that this instrument is available to make possible the great age ofmaritime exploration which begins in the

15th century - though as yet no-one understands why a magnetpoints to the north.

A tower clock in China: AD 1094

After six years' work, a Buddhist monk by the name of Su Song completes a great tower, some thirty feet high, which is designedto reveal the movement of the stars and the hours of the day. Figures pop out of doors and strike bells to signify the hours.

The power comes from a water wheel occupying the lower part of the tower. Su Song has designed a device which stops the

water wheel except for a brief spell, once every quarter of an hour, when the weight of the water (accumulated in vessels on therim) is sufficient to trip a mechanism. The wheel, lurching forward, drives the machinery of the tower to the next stationary pointin a continuing cycle.

This device (which in Su Sung's tower must feel like a minor earthquake every time it slams the machinery into action) is anearly example of an escapement - a concept essential to mechanicalclockwork. In any form of clock based on machinery, powermust be delivered to the mechanism in intermittent bursts which can be precisely regulated. The rationing of power is thefunction of the escapement. The real birth of mechanical clockwork awaits a reliable version, developed in Europe in the 13th

century.

Meanwhile Su Sung's tower clock, ready for inspection by the emperor in 1094, is destroyed shortly afterwards by maraudingbarbarians from the north.

Spectacles: from the 13th century AD

During the 13th century it is discovered that a crystal with a curved surface can help the elderly to read. Mounted in a holder,

such a lens is simply a small magnifying glass. The philosopher-scientist Roger Bacon refers to the use of a lens in a text of 1268.At this time it would be shaped and smoothed from a lump of quartz.

Soon (probably in Florence during the 1280s) the idea evolves of placing two lenses in a frame which can be held in front of theeyes. It is a natural next step to perch this frame on the nose. Spectacles, hinged at the centre to grip the nose, appear quitefrequently in paintings of the 15th century.

As demand increases, glass replaces quartz as the material for lenses and the trade of the lens-grinder becomes one of great skilland importance.

Early spectacles all use convex lenses to redress long sight (difficulty in seeing things which are close). By the 16th century it isdiscovered that concave lenses will compensate for short sight (difficulty in seeing distant objects). The two everyday forms of

spectacle have been achieved. Clockwork in Europe: 13th - 14th century AD

Europe at the end of the Middle Ages is busy trying to capture time. The underlying aim is as much astronomical (to reflect themovement of the heavenly bodies) as it is to do with the more mundane task of measuring everybody's day. But the attraction ofthat achievement is recognized too. A textbook on astronomy, written by 'Robert the Englishman' in 1271, says that 'clockmakersare trying to make a wheel which will make one complete revolution' in each day, but that 'they cannot quite perfect their work'.

What prevents them even beginning to perfect their work is the lack of an escapement. But a practical version of this dates from

only a few years later.

A working escapement is invented in about 1275. The process allows a toothed wheel to turn, one tooth at a time, by successiveteeth catching against knobs projecting from an upright rod which oscillates back and forth. The speed of its oscillation is

regulated by a horizontal bar (known as a foliot) attached to the top of the rod. The time taken in the foliot's swing can beregulated by moving weights in or out on each arm.

The function of the foliot is the same as that of the pendulum in modern clocks, but it is less efficient in that gravity is not helping

it to oscillate. A very heavy weight is needed to power the clock, involving massive machinery and much friction.

Artillery: 14th - 16th century AD
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The most significant development in the story of warfare is the use ofgunpowderto propel a missile. There

has been much debate as to where the first experiments are made. Inconclusive and sometimes mistranslated references fromearly documents appear to give the priority variously to the Chinese, the Hindus, the Arabs and the Turks.

It is likely that the matter can never be resolved. The earliest incontrovertible evidence of artillery is a drawing of a crude form ofcannon in a manuscript dated 1327 (now in the library of Christ Church, Oxford). There is a reference to a gun mounted on a shipin 1336, and the possibility of cannon of some kind in use at Crcy andCalais in 1346-7.

The problem confronting early makers of artillery is how to construct a tube strong enough to contain an explosion which will

propel a missile out of one end (or, in other words, how to make a gun rather than a bomb). An early solution gives us our word'barrel'. The tube is built up of metal strips welded to each other along their straight edges - just as a barrel is constructed of

similar strips of wood. This rather fragile structure is given greater strength by being encased in a series of tightly fitting metalrings.

With luck, a round stone (or later a ball of cast iron) will hurtle from the open end of this tube when gunpowder is ignited behindit.The laborious loading and firing of such weapons limits their effective use to sieges - either inside a castle defending an entrance,or outside lobbing heavy objects at the walls. The size of the missile rather than its speed is the crucial factor. A breakthrough in

this respect, in the late 14th century, is the discovery of how to cast gun barrels from molten iron.

Cannon, during the next two centuries, become progressively larger. There are some impressive surviving examples. Mons Meg,dating from the 15th century and now in Edinburgh castle, could hurl an iron ball, 18 inches in diameter, as far as a mile. The

even larger Tsar Cannon in Moscow, cast in 1586 with a bore of 3 feet, weighs nearly 40 tons. Mobility is not one of its features.

One of the most remarkable of early cannon is a proud possession of Mehmed, the Turkish conqueror ofConstantinople. Beforehis final attack in 1453 he terrifies the inhabitants by trundling close to their city a massive 19-ton bombard of cast iron. It

requires 16 oxen and 200 men to manoeuvre it into its firing position. Once there, it settles down to a slow but devastatingbombardment. A stone weighing as much as 600 pounds can be lobbed against the great city walls. The rate of fire is sevenstones a day.

In this same same year, atCastillonin France, another potential of gun power is demonstrated - in the effect of light artillery on

the battlefield.

Hand guns: 14th - 17th century AD

Portable guns are developed shortly after the first cannons. When first mentioned, in the 1360s, such a gun is like a small version

of a cannon. A metal tube, up to a foot long, is attached to the end of a pole about six feet in length - an early and very basicversion of the barrel and stock of a rifle.

The gunner has to apply a glowing coal or a red-hot wire to a touchhole in the loaded barrel, and then somehow get far enough

away from the explosion. There is clearly not much opportunity for rapid aiming. Most such weapons are probably fired by twomen, or are carried to a new position and fixed there before being loaded and ignited by one.

Refinements follow surprisingly fast. During the 15th century the barrel of such weapons is lengthened, giving more reliable aim.

The wooden stock acquires a curve, so that the recoil raises the barrel rather than driving backwards with full force. A length ofrope known as a 'match' replaces the hot coal or wire for igniting the charge in the touchhole; it is soaked in a substance which

causes it to burn with a steady glow.

And a device called a 'lock' is developed - a curving arm of metal which holds the glowing match and will plunge it into thetouchhole, when a pull on a trigger releases a spring. The 'matchlock' becomes the standard form of musket until the arrival of theflintlockin the 17th century.

Type foundry in Korea: c.1230

In the early 13th century, more than 200 years before Gutenbergs innovation in Europe, the Koreans establish a foundry to castmovable type in bronze. Unlike earlierChinese experimentswith pottery, bronze is sufficiently strong for repeated printing,

dismantling and resetting for a new text.
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With this technology the Koreans create, in 1377, the worlds earliest known book printed from movable type. Known asJikji, itis a collection of Buddhist texts compiled as a guide for students. Only the second of the two published volumes survives (held at

present in the National Library of France). It reveals not only the date of its printing but even the names of the priests whoassisted in the compiling of the type.

The Koreans at this time are using the Chinese script, so they have the problem of an unwieldy number of characters. They solve

this in 1443 by inventing their own nationalalphabet, known as han'gul. By one of the strange coincidences of history this isprecisely the decade in which Gutenbergis experimenting with movable type far away in Europe, which has enjoyed the

advantage of an alphabet for more than 2000 years.

A keyboard for strings: AD 1397

In a manuscript of 1397 it is reported that a certain Hermann Poll has invented a clavicembalum or harpsichord. In doing so hehas adapted the keyboard (long familiar in the organ) to the playing of strings. Whether or not Poll is its actual inventor, theharpsichord rapidly becomes a successful and widespread instrument. It stands at the start of the tradition which will eventuallymake keyboard music a part of everyday life.

But the harpsichord has one limitation. However hard or softly the player strikes the key, the note sounds the same; the actionmerely releases a device to pluck the string. For playing soft or loud, a further development is needed - the

Gutenberg and western printing: AD 1439 - 1457

The name of Gutenberg first appears, in connection with printing, in a law case in Strasbourg in 1439. He is being sued by two of

his business partners. Witnesses, asked about Gutenberg's stock, describe a press and a supply of metal type. It sounds as though

he is already capable of printing small items of text from movable type, and it seems likely that he must have done so in

Strasbourg. But nothing from this period survives.

By the time he is next heard of in connection with printing, he is in Mainz. He borrows 800 guilders in 1450 from Johann Fust

with his printing equipment as security. The resulting story ofGutenberg and Fustis a saga in itself.

Gutenberg's great achievement in the story of printing has several components. One is his development of the printingpress,

capable of applying a rapid but steady downward pressure. The concept of the press is not new. But existing presses (for wine, oil

or paper) exert slow pressure - uneconomical in printing.

More significant are Gutenberg's skills with metal (his original trade is that of a goldsmith). These enable him to master the

complex stages in the manufacture of individual pieces oftype, which involve creating a master copy of each letter, devising the

moulds in which multiple versions can be cast, and developing a suitable alloy (type metal) in which to cast them.

All this skilful technology precedes the basic work of printing - that of arranging the individual letters, aligned and well spaced,

in a forme which will hold them firm and level to transfer the ink evenly to the paper.

The printing process involves complex problems at every stage, and the brilliance of the first known products from Gutenberg's

press suggest that earlier efforts must have been lost. If not, the decision to make his first publication a full-length Bible in Latin

(theVulgate), printed to the standards of the bestblack-letter manuscripts, is a bold one indeed.

No date appears in the Gutenberg Bible (known technically as the 42-line Bible), which was printed simultaneously on six

presses during the mid-1450s. But at least one copy is known to have been completed, with its initial letters coloured red by hand,

by 24 August 1456. The first dated book from these same presses, in 1457, is even more impressive. Known as the Mainz psalter,

it achieves outstanding colour printing in its two-colour initial letters.

These first two publications from Germany's presses are of an extraordinary standard, caused no doubt by the commercial need to

compete with manuscripts. The new technology, so brilliantly launched, spreads rapidly.

Domestic clocks: 15th century AD

After the success of the clocks in Europe's cathedrals in the late 14th century, and the introduction of the clock face in places such
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as Wells, kings and nobles naturally want this impressive technology at home.

The first domestic clocks, in the early 15th century, are miniature versions of the cathedral clocks - powered by hanging weights,

regulated by escapements with afoliot, and showing the time to the great man's family and household by means of a single hand

working its way round a 12-hour circuit on the clock's face. But before the middle of the 15th century a development of great

significance occurs, in the form of a spring-driven mechanism.

The earliest surviving spring-driven clock, now in the Science Museum in London, dates from about 1450. By that time

clockmakers have not only discovered how to transmit power to the mechanism from a coiled spring. They have also devised a

simple but effective solution to the problem inherent in a coiled spring which steadily loses power as it uncoils.

The solution to this is the fusee.

The fusee is a cone, bearing a spiral of grooves on its surface, which forms part of the axle driving the wheels of the clock

mechanism. The length of gut linking the drum of the spring to the axle is wound round the fusee. It lies on the thinnest part of

the cone when the spring is fully wound and reaches its broadest circumference by the time the spring is weak. Increased leverage

exactly counteracts decreasing strength.

These two devices, eliminating the need for weights, make possible clocks which stand on tables, clocks which can be taken fromroom to room, even clocks to accompany a traveller in a carriage. Eventually, most significant of all, they make possible the

pocket watch.

The first globe: AD 1492

One of the most unfortunate innovators in the history of invention is Martin Behaim, the creator of the world's first globe - made

in Nuremberg in 1492.

His idea is excellent. A globe is the only accurate way of representing the surface of the earth. His misfortune is to base his globe

onPtolemy(who postulates a single ocean between Spain and China) and to achieve his three-dimensional version of this notion

in the very year in which it is disproved - by Columbus reaching America. But Behaim shows the reason for Columbus's

confidence in sailing west. The distance on his globe between Spain and China is only half what it should be.

Stocking frame: AD 1589

The world's first piece of industrial machinery is invented in 1589 by an English clergyman in Nottinghamshire. Tradition

maintains that his inspiration derives from annoyance at his loved one being so busy with her knitting whenever he comes

courting. The frustrated lover, William Lee, duly invents a knitting machine.

His device, known as the stocking frame, depends upon a needle with a hook which opens and closes at successive stages of the

process to imitate the procedure of the hand-knitter. Lee's type of needle (known as the beard or bearded spring needle) is still a

feature of the machines used in modern industrial knitting.

Elizabeth I refuses Lee a patent for his stocking frame, partly on the far-sighted grounds that it may damage the trade of hand-

knitters. Lee then takes his machines to France, on the invitation of Henry IV, but they are brought back to England after theassassination of the French king in 1610.

Framework knitting gradually becomes established, and the Worshipful Company of Framework Knitters is given a charter by

Charles II in 1663. The growth in the number of machines over the next two centuries reflects the gathering pace of theIndustrial

Revolution. There are some 650 stocking frames in Britain in 1660, and about 43,000 in 1844.

The knitting machine also provides an early instance of the Luddite tendency, as the threat predicted by Elizabeth becomes an

increasingly evident reality.
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