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"They had cities ordered into grids, with exquisite plumbing, which was not encountered again until the Romans" It's amazing how quite advanced technologies (f

by othello 14y ago

"They had cities ordered into grids, with exquisite plumbing, which was not encountered again until the Romans" It's amazing how quite advanced technologies (for a civilization that thrived from 5000 to 3000 years ago) were mastered only to be lost later over the course of history. A mind-blowing example closer to us is the Antikythera mechanism [1]. Found in a Mediterranean wreck in 1900, the artifact was not analyzed until the 1950s, when it was found to be "a mechanical computer designed to calculate astronomical positions" - except it was made in the first century BC. Wikipedia notes that "Technological artifacts of similar complexity and workmanship did not reappear until the 14th century, when mechanical astronomical clocks were built in Europe." It is the oldest known mechanical computer - and to my knowledge no comparable device was to be manufactured until the 17th century and the invention of the Pascaline [2]. That's 18 centuries of gap, right there. The precision of the clockwork and the exactitude of the astronomical calculations made by the Antikythera mechanism only goes to show how much knowledge was lost in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. Progress does not always follow a straight arrow. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascaline http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascaline

jseliger 14y ago
It's amazing how quite advanced technologies (for a civilization that thrived from 5000 to 3000 years ago) were mastered only to be lost later over the course of history. It's actually not (too) hard to imagine something like this happening again: the process (probably) starts with nuclear weapons and ends with something like A Canticle for Leibowitz: http://www.amazon.com/Canticle-Leibowitz-Walter-Miller-Jr/dp/0060892994?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957 http://www.amazon.com/Canticle-Leibowitz-Walter-Miller-Jr/dp...
- opminion 14y ago
  There it is, I have been trying to remember that title for a while. Not available for the Kindle!?
kingofspain 14y ago
There was a decent BBC documentary from last month which covered the mechanism and the attempts to decipher it. On my phone now so this is the closest link I can find: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17989915 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17989915 but you can get to it from there :)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
Dn_Ab 14y ago
The Antikythera Mechanism used to be on the top of my list until I read about Gobekli Tepe. That place fills me with awe to near bursting. I plan to visit this year. The site is a bunch of concentric T shaped monoliths - kind of like Stone Henge. Except the stones are cut more cleanly, covered in beautiful animal reliefs and it is nearly 8000 years older than stone henge. Activity suggest its origins could reach as far back as 20,000 years ago. And the reason the site has survived intact till this day is because whatever culture built the place decided to bury it. There are all sorts of theories as to whether a hunter gatherer society could really build such a place. Whatever the case, this discovery gives the typical timeline of history a very hard erm time. Until excavations began, a complex on this scale was not thought possible for a community so ancient, and with such primitive quarrying tools. The massive sequence of stratification layers suggests several millennia of activity, perhaps reaching back to the Mesolithic. The oldest occupation layer (Layer III) contains monolithic pillars linked by coarsely built walls to form circular or oval structures. Four such buildings have been uncovered, with diameters between 10–30 meters (33–98 ft). Geophysical surveys indicate the existence of 16 additional structures. Layer II, dated to Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) (7500–6000 BC), has revealed several adjacent rectangular rooms with floors of polished lime, reminiscent of Roman terrazzo floors. The most recent layer consists of sediment deposited as the result of agricultural activity. At present, Göbekli Tepe raises more questions for archaeology and prehistory than it answers. We do not know how a force large enough to construct, augment, and maintain such a substantial complex was mobilized and rewarded or fed in the conditions of pre-Neolithic society. We cannot "read" the pictograms, and do not know for certain what meaning the animal reliefs had for visitors to the site; the variety of fauna depicted, from lions and boars to birds and insects, makes any single explanation problematic. As there seems to be little or no evidence of habitation, and the animals depicted on the stones are mainly predators, the stones may have been intended to stave off evils through some form of magic representation; it is also possible that they served as totems.[31] The assumption that the site was strictly cultic in purpose and not inhabited has also been challenged by the suggestion that the structures served as large communal houses, " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/gobekli-tepe/musi-photography http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/gobekli-tepe/musi-...
- 14y ago
Spooky23 14y ago
I think these sorts of phenomena are a direct result of the merger & consolidations that seem to be inevitable as technology moves on. If you think about it, there is a shockingly small number of people who know how to do things critical to society. How do you make a car axle? Sew complex stitching on an industrial scale? Build a CPU?

by othello 14y ago

jseliger 14y ago

It's amazing how quite advanced technologies (for a civilization that thrived from 5000 to 3000 years ago) were mastered only to be lost later over the course of history. It's actually not (too) hard to imagine something like this happening again: the process (probably) starts with nuclear weapons and ends with something like A Canticle for Leibowitz: http://www.amazon.com/Canticle-Leibowitz-Walter-Miller-Jr/dp/0060892994?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957 http://www.amazon.com/Canticle-Leibowitz-Walter-Miller-Jr/dp...

opminion 14y ago
There it is, I have been trying to remember that title for a while. Not available for the Kindle!?

kingofspain 14y ago

There was a decent BBC documentary from last month which covered the mechanism and the attempts to decipher it. On my phone now so this is the closest link I can find: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17989915 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17989915 but you can get to it from there :)

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

Dn_Ab 14y ago

The Antikythera Mechanism used to be on the top of my list until I read about Gobekli Tepe. That place fills me with awe to near bursting. I plan to visit this year. The site is a bunch of concentric T shaped monoliths - kind of like Stone Henge. Except the stones are cut more cleanly, covered in beautiful animal reliefs and it is nearly 8000 years older than stone henge. Activity suggest its origins could reach as far back as 20,000 years ago. And the reason the site has survived intact till this day is because whatever culture built the place decided to bury it. There are all sorts of theories as to whether a hunter gatherer society could really build such a place. Whatever the case, this discovery gives the typical timeline of history a very hard erm time. Until excavations began, a complex on this scale was not thought possible for a community so ancient, and with such primitive quarrying tools. The massive sequence of stratification layers suggests several millennia of activity, perhaps reaching back to the Mesolithic. The oldest occupation layer (Layer III) contains monolithic pillars linked by coarsely built walls to form circular or oval structures. Four such buildings have been uncovered, with diameters between 10–30 meters (33–98 ft). Geophysical surveys indicate the existence of 16 additional structures. Layer II, dated to Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) (7500–6000 BC), has revealed several adjacent rectangular rooms with floors of polished lime, reminiscent of Roman terrazzo floors. The most recent layer consists of sediment deposited as the result of agricultural activity. At present, Göbekli Tepe raises more questions for archaeology and prehistory than it answers. We do not know how a force large enough to construct, augment, and maintain such a substantial complex was mobilized and rewarded or fed in the conditions of pre-Neolithic society. We cannot "read" the pictograms, and do not know for certain what meaning the animal reliefs had for visitors to the site; the variety of fauna depicted, from lions and boars to birds and insects, makes any single explanation problematic. As there seems to be little or no evidence of habitation, and the animals depicted on the stones are mainly predators, the stones may have been intended to stave off evils through some form of magic representation; it is also possible that they served as totems.[31] The assumption that the site was strictly cultic in purpose and not inhabited has also been challenged by the suggestion that the structures served as large communal houses, " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/gobekli-tepe/musi-photography http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/gobekli-tepe/musi-...

14y ago

Spooky23 14y ago

I think these sorts of phenomena are a direct result of the merger & consolidations that seem to be inevitable as technology moves on. If you think about it, there is a shockingly small number of people who know how to do things critical to society. How do you make a car axle? Sew complex stitching on an industrial scale? Build a CPU?