1,000 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 c 3,000,000 NEW EDITION Senior Editor Carron Brown the age 1o40f0a..u..t.h..o..r..i.t..y...... 40 Designer Mary Sandberg c 499 bc – US Editor Allison Singer Managing Editor Linda Esposito n14e0w1 –w17o5r0l.d..s..,..n..e..w...i.d..e..a..s... 72 Managing Art Editor Michael Duffy 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 Jacket Editor Maud Whatley Jacket Designer Laura Brim Jacket Design Development Manager Sophia MTT Publishing Director Jonathan Metcalf Associate Publishing Director Liz Wheeler Art Director Phil Ormerod Delhi office Jacket Managing Editor Saloni Talwar Jacket Designer Suhita Dharamjit HARDBACK EDITION Senior Editor Marie Greenwood Senior Art Editor Clare Shedden Designed and Edited by Bookwork Editor Louise Pritchard Art Editor Jill Plank Assistant Editor Annabel Blackledge Designer Kate Mullins Picture Research Marie Osborn Picture Library Sally Hamilton, Rose Horridge, Sarah Mills Production Kate Oliver DTP Designer Siu Yin Chan US Editor Margaret Parrish

inventions Hardback edition first published in for –ev19e5r0yo..n..e................. the United States in 2002 172 1901 This updated edition first published in the United States in 2014 by information & DK Publishing, Inc., 375 Hudson Street 1u9n5c1 e–r2t0a1i4n..t..y................ 212 New York, NY 10014 idnisdceoxvoerfieinsv.e.n..t.io..n.s..&............. 252 14 15 16 17 18 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 001–256610–7/14 dinisdceoxvoerfeirnsve.n..t.o.r..s.&.............. 254 Copyright © 2002, 2006, 2014 Dorling Kindersley Limited All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Published in Great Britain by Dorling Kindersley Limited. A Cataloging in Publication record is available From the Library of Congress ISBN 978-1-4654-2038-1 Printed and bound in China Discover more at www.dk.com 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