4 ms·
Ancient lead pollution in a Roman harbor (2017)
- FreshStart 3y agoAre there any alternate history books were Rome kicks off the industrial revolution?
- mdpye 3y agoKind of the opposite of what you're asking for, but you might enjoy an earnest exploration of why it didn't happen: https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-industrial-revolution/ https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-indus...
- ideamotor 3y agoCool
- Eumenes 3y agoOne important thing that I feel this article left out was how technological innovation was driven by military endeavors. From antiquity to Europe getting comfortable with gun powder was a very long time. Prior to gun powder, the focus was on siege warfare - how to destroy walled defenses in a timely fashion before supply chains before untenable. With the rise of gunpowder, innovation followed. Alot of industrial success came out of America, and with a giant ocean between itself and any potential invaders, they were able to focus that innovation for industry as opposed to militarily.
- bombolo 3y agoYou do realise that "america" didn't happen for more than a thousand of years since the roman empire right?
- Eumenes 3y agoThe Byzantine empire fell in 1453 and you can argue that the Vatican maintained some institutional power of western Europe through the middle ages
- thom 3y agoThat isn’t left out - everything rested on the three centuries European countries had spent perfecting the cannon.
- nunuvit 3y agoTold in Stone has a good video series on this too. https://youtu.be/5uqPlOAH85o https://youtu.be/5uqPlOAH85o
- jabl 3y agoSometime ago I stumbled upon Kingdom of the Wicked by Helen Dale. Haven't read it myself though.
- BurningPenguin 3y agoStretching it a little bit, but: "Ultima" from Stephen Baxter. But you should read "Proxima" first to understand the context.
- Eumenes 3y agoIf you think of the West/US as the inheritor of the Roman Empire, they technically did !!
- onpensionsterm 3y agoWhy would I think that?
- imbnwa 3y agoThis has been the #1 meme of Western Europe since Clovis
- tgbugs 3y agoLest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp would be a classic answer (though it is also scifi so maybe not quite what you are asking for).
- drewcoo 3y agocorrelation: A technology (lead pipes) was really popular in urban areas later in the empire, when it could be used. And the Roman Empire fell. causation: ??? But the lead! So what? Show me a causal chain or this is yet another a puff piece from Ars. And an old one at that.
- bell-cot 3y agoBy my reading, that is not the causation they're talking about. At all. My read: "Lead plumbing was an extremely expensive luxury in Ancient Rome. Evidence of widespread use of lead plumbing (in sediments in the harbor) rises when economic times where good (so the Romans could afford it), and falls when times were bad (so they couldn't). And we found some other interesting details in our sediment core samples."
- krisoft 3y ago> Show me a causal chain The article itself says that the theory that Rome fell due to lead poisoning is disputed. In fact they say these then recent findings are contradicting the theory. The exact quote you didn't seem to notice: "The city's infatuation with lead pipes led to the popular (and disputed) theory that Rome fell due to lead poisoning. Now, a new study reveals that the city's lead plumbing infrastructure was at its biggest and most complicated during the centuries leading up to the empire's peak." > or this is yet another a puff piece from Ars. There is something particularly odious about complaining about the lack of intellectual rigour while showing none in the same comment.
- thom 3y agoIf anything, the Romans (e.g. Vitruvius) actually _knew_ lead could be bad but even then decided it was best overall.
- bboygravity 3y agoThe city of Chicago almost 2000 years later did the exact same.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]