15 November, 2015 - 14:12
aprilholloway
Just
a couple of decades ago, the people of ancient civilizations were
viewed as simple, primitive people. However, numerous discoveries since
then have revealed a number of surprising facts about ancient cultures,
namely that many of them possessed advanced knowledge of metallurgy,
mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, and more. With this knowledge they
forged steel stronger than anything else seen until the Industrial
Revolution, created a recipe for concrete so durable that their
buildings would endure for millennia longer than the constructions of
today, cut stones and assembled walls so precisely that attempts at
modern-day replications have failed. Scientists are still scratching
their heads over some of the amazing accomplishments of ancient
civilizations. Here we feature ten of them.
1. Aqueducts and hydro technology
Who would have thought that 21st century governments would
be looking to 1,500-year-old technology for guidance on how to solve
water access problems? But that is exactly what is happening in Lima,
Peru.
Peru has been facing a severe water crisis as chronic problems, such
as polluted water supplies, and environmental change combine to
undermine the water security of the entire country. However, a new plan
has been put forward by Lima’s water utility company, Sedapal, to revive
an ancient network of stone canals that were built by the Wari culture
as early as 500 AD, in order to supply the population with clean,
unpolluted water.
The Wari built an advanced water conservation system that captured
mountain water during the rainy season via canals. The canals
transported the water to places where it could feed into springs further
down the mountain, in order to maintain the flow of the rivers during
the dry season.
Many ancient civilizations are known for their advanced construction
of cisterns, canals, aqueducts, and water channelling technology,
including the Persians, Nabataeans, Romans, Greeks, Harrapans, and many more.
2. Steel
Over 2,000 years ago, ancient people in the Levant were forging
swords made of steel so advanced that blacksmiths would not come close
to creating anything of equal quality until modern times. The metal was
so strong that the swords could slice straight through objects made of
other metals.
The steel, known as Damascus steel, was produced out of a raw
material, known as Wootz steel, from Asia. Other materials were added
during the steel’s production to create chemical reactions at the
quantum level. It was first used around 300 BC, but was produced en
masse in the Middle East between 1100 and 1700 AD.
The secret of making the Middle East’s Damascus Steel only re-emerged
under the inspection of scanning electron microscopes in modern
laboratories.
3. Concrete
Today’s concrete structures are typically designed to last between
100 and 120 years. However, the Romans built structures from concrete
2,000 years ago that have maintained their structural integrity to this
day. So what was their secret?
The Romans made concrete by mixing lime, volcanic rock, and seawater.
The combination of the three instantly triggered a chemical reaction in
which the lime incorporated molecules into its structure and reacted
with the ash to cement the whole mixture together. The ancient seawater
concrete contains the ideal crystalline structure of Tobermorite, which
has a greater strength and durability than the modern equivalent.
As well as being more durable, Roman concrete was also more
environmentally-friendly compared to today’s concrete. Conventional
modern cement requires heating a mix of limestone and clay to 1,450
degrees Celsius which releases significant amounts of carbon into the
atmosphere. In contrast, Roman cement used much less lime and made it
from baking limestone at 900 degrees Celsius, requiring much less fuel.
4. Road-building
These days, we’d be lucky to get a decent highway built within a
year. But it was not always this way. Ancient people recognized the
importance of roads and networks linking together cities and settlements
across regions and countries… and they built them fast!
Qhapaq Nan, otherwise known as the Main Andean Road, is a huge
network of roads once used by the mighty Inca Empire that extends over
more than 30,000 kilometres. It was the backbone of the Inca Empire’s
political and economic power, connecting production, administrative, and
ceremonial centres of pre-Inca Andean culture. The Incas of Cuzco
achieved this unique infrastructure on a grand scale in less than a
century, extending their vast network across what is now Argentina,
Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
The Romans too are known as expert road builders. About 1.7 million
square miles of territory was covered by the Roman roads, which were
made with gravel, dirt, and bricks made from granite and hard lava. Many
ancient roads are still used today.
5. Stone Cutting
Around the world, we can find numerous examples of ancient
stone-cutting so precise that they rival creations of the modern day
produced with advanced machinery. One prime example can be found at
Puma Punka, a 15,000-year-old archaeological site in Bolivia that
contains such incredible stonework that it looks as if the stones were
cut using a diamond tool. Enormous blocks weighing up to 800 tons,
consist of perfectly straight edges that lock perfectly into each other
and contain no chisel marks. Attempts to replicate the precision of the
stonework have failed.
6. Agriculture
Human sacrifice is typically the first thing that comes to people’s
minds when they think about the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican cultures.
However, there is much more to these civilizations than this practice.
One of their innovations was the chinampa agricultural system, the
so-called ‘floating gardens’ which can be found on the shallow lake beds
in the Valley of Mexico.
A chinampa plot was constructed by staking out a rectangular
enclosure into the marshy lakebed. The enclosure would then be fenced
in by joining the stakes with wattle. After that, the fenced in area
would be filled with mud and decaying vegetation. In order to prevent
the roots from becoming water-logged, it was important that the fill
brought the chinampa plot above the lake level. Canals surrounding the chinampa plots
formed an illusion that these agricultural lands were floating on
water, hence its misattribution as ‘floating gardens’. To further
stabilise these plots of land, willows were planted around the
perimeter. This is due to the dense root system which, over time,
anchored the retaining walls of the structure and reduced the effects of
erosion. In order to ensure that the chinampas produced good
harvests throughout the year, it was vital that the supply of water was
well managed. During the rainy season, flooding would have been a
problem. Hence, a sophisticated drainage system, which included dams,
sluice gates and canals, were put in place to counter this problem. By
using human excrement to fertilise the crops, the Aztecs were also able
to create a healthier living environment as the city’s wastewater would
have also been treated.
The system of agriculture and waste water treatment seen in the
floating gardens of Mexico, was so advanced that there have been
attempts (unsuccessfully) to implement it in modern times.
7. Walls
The Inca civilization is well-known for its advanced masonry work,
much of which can still be seen today in Machu Picchu and Sacsayhuaman
in Peru. Their large dry stone walls display huge blocks that had been
carefully cut to fit together tightly without mortar and with levels of
precision unmatched anywhere else in the Americas. The stones are so
closely spaced that a single piece of paper will not fit between many of
the stones. This precision, combined with the rounded corners of the
blocks, the variety of their interlocking shapes, and the way the walls
lean inward (to prevent damage in the event of an earthquake) have
puzzled scientists for decades. The method used to match precisely the
shape of a stone with the adjacent stones is still unknown and attempts
to recreate the technique have all failed.
8. City planning
In the last century, numerous ancient cities have been unearthed that have astounded scientists and urban planners alike.
When archaeologists discovered the 5,000-year-old site of Mohenjo
Daro in Pakistan, what they found was unprecedented in the region – the
city demonstrated an exceptional level of civic planning and amenities.
The houses were furnished with brick-built bathrooms and many had
toilets. Wastewater from these was led into well-built brick sewers that
ran along the centre of the streets, covered with bricks or stone
slabs. Cisterns and wells finely constructed of wedge-shaped bricks held
public supplies of drinking water. Back in its day, the city would have
been home to around 40,000 inhabitants.
In the same era, but on another continent, another great city was
being constructed – Caral. Located in the Supe Valley in Peru, Caral is a
5,000-year-old city that consisted of huge monuments, including
pyramids, plazas, amphitheatres, temples, and residential areas. They
had extensive agriculture, ate a varied diet, developed the use of
textiles, used a complex system for calculating and recording, built
water supply, and developed an intricate irrigation system.
Architects are currently looking to Caral for inspiration in city
planning. Japanese architects intend to incorporate building designs
that they implemented to protect their people from earthquakes. The
people of Caral suspended their houses in baskets filled with stones
that dissipated earth movement and prevented collapse.
9. Astronomy
From star constellations painted on ancient Greek ceramics to Native American rock art depicting solstices, star charts in ancient Japanese tombs , Australian Aboriginal dreamtime stories reflecting known astronomical events,
and a 10,000-year-old megalithic calendar in Scotland, there is no
doubt that ancient civilizations around the world possessed an
extraordinary understanding of the cosmos and its movements. But just
how they were able to so precisely and accurately record cosmological
events without the technology we possess today still eludes scientists
in many cases.
What is certain is that recent discoveries have revealed just how
advanced ancient cultures were when it came to astronomical knowledge,
and that they were far from the primitive people they were once thought
to be.
10. Weapons
While there is no doubt that modern-day weapons are far more superior
to their ancient counterparts in their ability to unleash mass death
and destruction, there exist a number of powerful ancient weapons that
still elude scientists as to their construction and capabilities.
Greek mathematician, engineer, inventor, and astronomer, Archimedes
(287 - 212 BC) is reported to have created a heat ray weapon (sometimes
called the ‘death ray’) to defend against ships attacking Syracuse, an
historic city in Sicily. According to 2nd century AD author Lucian and
centuries later, Anthemius of Tralles, the weapon was made of large
reflectors (possibly made from polished bronze or copper), which were
used to focus sunlight onto approaching ships, causing them to catch
fire.
Although its existence has been hotly debated among historians, a
number of tests have accurately proven that such a weapon is possible.
In 1973, the Greek scientists Ioannis Sakkas set up 70 mirrors with a
copper coating, which were pointed at a plywood model of a Roman warship
at a distance of 50 meters. When the mirrors were focused accurately,
the ship burst into flames within seconds.
By April Holloway
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