"Ancient Inventions with Terry Jones" walks across centuries to discover inventions which we would have assumed are modern day but to my utter surprise (and I am sure yours too, if you care to investigate) are thousands of years old.
The grid-plan in modern day cities was 'invented' in the Indus valley civilization and simultaneously in the Aztec and Mayan cities of South America. It was shamefully, and quite unsuspectingly copied by New York in the 1800s when they decided to bring some order to the city plan. An interesting corollary is that the 'Wall Street' was actually a street with wooden walls to separate the British and Irish settlements from the native Indians.
Cities were marked by some other characteristics that date back centuries as well. For example, cities are marked by eating joints and the ability to find and eat food without having to cook for it yourself. Well, these fast-food joints and restaurants were common in Rome around 1 BC. In fact, one of the dishes quite resembles the modern day hamburger!
Another invention to interest you would be books. Romans at it again! The city of Parthenon came up with the first library of over 20,000 papyrus scrolls for the intellectual stimulation of their residents. However that prompted jealousy by the Egyptians. So what did they do? They banned the export of Papyrus, of course. That prompted the Romans to find an alternative source of 'paper', I guess. I don't know how many animals were sacrificed for them to find it, but they finally struck on the right writing medium - Parchment, i.e dried skin of sheep. These skins, for all their inefficiencies compared to papyrus had one good feature. They could be sewn together. And lo and behold - the first books!
Enough advertising, now go see the documentary...
1 comment:
Very interesting,especially about the Wall street bit..just read up about it.
PS: Why don't you increase the font size so that I do not have to go CTRL & + to actually save my eyes from further damage?(!)
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