Ancient Greek Technology
When most people talk about ancient Greek civilization, they usually think about the humanities (philosophy and literature) that flourished in ancient Greece. They know Plato and his theories about the ideal forms, they admire the depth of Aristotle 's thought. However, few people heard about the contribution of the Ancient Greeks in other sciences like medicine, which was made by Hippocrates, or mathematics and geometry by Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes and fewer know about technological achievements of the Ancient Greeks.
Among these achievements we can find automatic doors, steam engine, air and water pumps, gears, astrolabes and clocks. The work principle of some of these inventions is still used nowadays. So in this work I want to describe some inventions of the Ancient Greeks and to find out why technology didn 't develop further, what the reasons were.
Unfortunately, all original Greek texts were destroyed. So when we talk about Greek texts actually we mean Byzantine copies and copies of Arabs, who translated the originals and extended them in their own researches. Thus many scientific works, investigations and inventions did not reach us.
Ancient technology served for religion. When a believer presented gifts to a God, the God should thank him. Otherwise, the believer would go to another God (they had polytheism at that time, polytheism means a lot of Gods). In such way some priests could loose people who come and give presents to the God. And today everybody knows that these gifts were taken by priests for their own use. Thus today church is one of the richest organizations. So to keep believers priests widely used technology. For example: in some temples certain doors opened automatically when the fire was lit on the altar (pic.1) and even certain statues began moving.
"It is said that Heron had constructed mechanisms that sounded the trumpets of a temple when the altars were lit. The interior of temple was sprayed with scented water, metallic
Among these achievements we can find automatic doors, steam engine, air and water pumps, gears, astrolabes and clocks. The work principle of some of these inventions is still used nowadays. So in this work I want to describe some inventions of the Ancient Greeks and to find out why technology didn 't develop further, what the reasons were.
Unfortunately, all original Greek texts were destroyed. So when we talk about Greek texts actually we mean Byzantine copies and copies of Arabs, who translated the originals and extended them in their own researches. Thus many scientific works, investigations and inventions did not reach us.
Ancient technology served for religion. When a believer presented gifts to a God, the God should thank him. Otherwise, the believer would go to another God (they had polytheism at that time, polytheism means a lot of Gods). In such way some priests could loose people who come and give presents to the God. And today everybody knows that these gifts were taken by priests for their own use. Thus today church is one of the richest organizations. So to keep believers priests widely used technology. For example: in some temples certain doors opened automatically when the fire was lit on the altar (pic.1) and even certain statues began moving.
"It is said that Heron had constructed mechanisms that sounded the trumpets of a temple when the altars were lit. The interior of temple was sprayed with scented water, metallic
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