

We bet you calculated the area of a triangle using only the lengths of its sides during your school years. Hero engine), invented the wind wheel, and was a follower of atomist philosophy.

Hero accomplished many breakthroughs in the area of pneumatics he designed what is thought to be the first steam-powered engine named aelopile (a.k.a. Make no mistake, his ‘work’ was not anything near ordinary. Would you like to meet your Roman colleague, Hero?īeing an ancient Greek engineer and mathematician, Hero did most of his work in Roman-ruled Alexandria. The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria - Buy Now Source: Bennet Woodcroft/Amazon Hodges provides the reader with a general understanding of what was technology like in the ancient age, even in daily lives, so that the scope between the utmost ancient technologies and everyday ancient technologies can clarify the level of advancement in ancient engineering. The book provides a general outlook over ancient technology, studying some of the major applications in areas such as agriculture, navigation, transportation, and others.Ĭovering mainly the Roman world, the book explores a lot about ancient technologies from their origins until the fifth century A.D., enriched with many illustrations. Technology in the Ancient World - Buy Now Source: Hendry Hodges/Amazon

Thus, you can get down to the most fundamental principles of ancient engineering developed by these thinkers, and see how this knowledge is applied in both ancient Roman and Greek civilizations.ģ.

The book also explains these technologies by tracking the engineering knowledge that is taken from the great early thinkers such as Plato, Pliny, and Archimedes. Landels/Amazonįocusing more on ancient Greek and Roman engineering, the two pioneers of Western Civilization, this book explains a lot about engineering, the use of energy sources, watering, transportation, and many other technologies of the ancient world. Engineering in the Ancient World - Buy Now Source: J.G. So, get ready to explore the work of your ancient colleagues thoroughly, for this book will take you to an engineer's time travel. Muslims believe that the Quran, the holy book of Islam, contains within its pages the entirety of the world, of existence, which includes all realms of art and science.The book tells us about ancient engineers by their civilizations, having chapters such as the Egyptian engineers, Mesopotamian engineers, Greek engineers, Early Roman engineers, and many more. While the quest for knowledge led scholars of the Islamic Golden Age to the works of the ancient Greeks, theology also played a part. Yet the Muslim world was alight with the fire of knowledge, as scribes tirelessly translated the works of ancient Greek scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians, whose works later inspired some of the most important intellectuals in history. This wave of intellectual curiosity and state-sponsored research in the Islamic world was a sharp contrast to Europe, which was in what some used to call the Dark Ages, when literacy rates were low and theology was preferred to knowledge from antiquity.ĭuring this time, in much of Europe, much of the works of Aristotle, Archimedes, and other important ancient Greek figures were completely lost or even unknown. Islamic scholars preserved writings of Ancient Greeks This knowledge was easily spread across the Muslim world because Arabs had learned the art of making paper quickly and effectively from the Chinese, allowing them to disperse manuscripts very quickly.Įuropeans later learned this paper-making technique from the Arabs. Credit: Public Domain Scholars of Islamic Golden Age translated ancient Greek works A 13th century manuscript of an Arabic translation of the ancient Greek pharmacological text “De Materia Medica” by Dioscorides. These scholars, often fluent in Latin, ancient Greek, Arabic, and Syriac, hunted down the most important texts from ancient cultures across the world and translated them into Arabic, allowing them to be widely studied throughout the Islamic world. Either way, its prominence as an intellectual site is well documented by contemporary writing and the many works of scientific and scholarly importance produced there.ĭuring the Islamic Golden Age, scholars translated massive amounts of important works of poetry, mathematics, and science from ancient cultures around the world, particularly Ancient Greece.
