12 Most Amazing Ancient Technologies That Scientists Still Can't Explain

imagine trying to explain the internet to someone in the 1950s now imagine that person from the 1950s trying to explain the concept of a movie theater to someone in the 1850s technology changes and progresses rapidly sometimes so fast that we don't even notice it's happening the one constant though is that someone always seems to have an idea that's so far ahead of its time it's almost like they got it from the future the people who created the things you're about to see in this video all belong to that Elite [Music] group the invention of the printer was an important breakthrough in mass communication and it happened a lot earlier than most people would imagine it started with a concept called movable type before it came along any form of written communication had to be copied by hand from its source before it could be distributed this change changed when the Chinese inventor bang came up with the first version of movable type in the late 10th Century his method involved arranging characters into small blocks of clay which could be rearranged and then stamped onto a page to make the desired words and phrases the blocks would be assembled and then glued to an iron plate then pressed against the page like a stamp this allowed ancient Chinese books to be reproduced quickly and easily leading to a cultural revolution in the country Bang's method remained the most efficient way of reproducing print until Johan Gutenberg adapted the idea into the Gutenberg Press in Germany in 1438 bang changed the world and was at least 400 years Ahead of his time yet hardly anyone outside China knows his name astronomical clocks were considered to be among the greatest Feats of engineering of their era but taking all all of that machinery and condensing it into something small enough to fit inside your home seemed impossible until Italian inventor Giovani Dondo Del orio mastered the art in the mid 14th century the clock he built was called narium and contained over 100 moving Parts the Arium had seven faces and could tell the time but could also tell you where the sun and moon were in the sky along with the relative positions of the five planets that were known at the time it could even tell you when the next holy Feast would be Giovani starium is considered to be the first truly mechanical clock to be built in Europe and yet it didn't contain a single screw it was hailed as a miracle by journalists who wrote of it at the time few of whom could even begin to comprehend its complexity tragically the original clock was lost somewhere around 1485 but the influence it had on clock design and engineering shaped the way that such things were built for hundreds of years American inventor Eli Whitney invented a remarkable cotton Jin in 1793 but when we say Jin we're not talking about a drink instead we're talking about a machine that could separate cotton fiber from cotton seeds rapidly speeding up cotton production enormously and then processing it into Calico and other cotton Goods it even separ ated off the undamaged cotton so it could be used in textiles and left the seeds behind so they could be used to grow more cotton Whitney's machine used a combination of wire Hooks and wire screens to pull cotton through its mechanisms while simultaneously applying a brush to remove loose lint and prevent the machine from jamming his creation brought about a revolution in the American cotton industry but sadly in an unintended consequence also resulted in significant growth in slavery because of the increased demand for cotton harvesting in some ways you could say that Whitney inventing his cotton Jin was the first step along a road that led to the American Civil War The Invention made a lot of people rich in the American South but it also indirectly caused a lot of [Music] Bloodshed when you first see Chand bori in jaer India it's hard to know what you're looking at if you haven't been told already you'll probably assume it to be an enormous Ancient Temple but this isn't a religious building instead it's the most incredible medieval stepwell in the world Chand bori contains literally thousands of stone water storage Wells accessed by thousands more Stone steps the wells were needed because a steady water supply can't be relied on in the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan monsoon season brings enormous amounts of water but it disappears almost instantly when temperatures exceed 100° in the summer to solve the problem a unique water storage facility was required the earliest of the stepwells in the region was probably built in the mid 6th Century but they're nothing compared to the Majesty of Chan bori it's a 10th Century creation that's 100 ft deep and has Temple like Aesthetics because it's dedicated to harot mat the goddess of Happiness the walls were once brightly colored but the ancient paintwork has faded over time usage of Step wells in India declined during the time of the British Raj but the Splendor of this one Still Remains the largest pyramid in the world is not as you might have been taught to believe in Egypt it's not even in Africa you'll find it in Mexico but it's hard to appreciate the true scale of it because at least half of it is hidden inside a mountain this is T watch with to Petal which translates into English as mountain made by hand most westerners prefer to call it the chalula pyramid because it's easier to pronounce this is not only the world's biggest pyramid but the world's biggest human-made Monument of any kind it has an astonishing volume of 13 million cubic feet that's twice as wide as the Great Pyramid of Giza but part of the reason it doesn't get the recognition it deserves is that while it might be white lighter than the more famous pyramids it's also shorter and mostly buried archaeologists have examined the pyramid and concluded that it was buried deliberately probably by native people who wanted to hide it from the advancing Spanish conquistadors Legend has it that the pyramid was built by a giant called shalua who appears in Aztec mythology in reality nobody knows who built the Pyramid when or why it's hard to make clothes unless you're able to weave fabric and if you're going to weave large quantities of fabric you're going to need a loom that's why the warp weighted Loom was such an enormously important invention for our ancient ancestors although nobody knows who to give credit for the work it's a basic system but it's very effective a warp Loom is made of two vertical upright Parts a warp beam across the top a shed Rod a headle rod and then a set of stone metal or ceramic weights to apply tension to the threads and hold them straight the weighted threads were then tied so they didn't untwist while being spun by using these tools our ancestors could create not only clothing but also rugs blankets and even large scale works of art like tapestries the oldest known evidence of warp Bloom was found in chatal huk Anatolia turkey and consists of a collection of loom weights that are thought to to be about 9,000 years old amazingly the same technique using the same Machinery is still used to create clothing and textiles in some parts of rural Norway today the county of Somerset in England is steeped in myths and legends it is after all home of glastenbury tour and the world famous glastenbury Festival it's also home to the tar steps they're not quite as famous as Glastonberry tour but the Legends behind them are no less Fantastical it's even said that the steps are where the devil likes to lay down when he wants to sunay nobody's ever managed to snag a photograph of the devil at the site but that doesn't change the fact that this is the oldest known Bridge of its kind each of the 17 stone slabs that make up the bridge weighs more than 2 tons and have been in place for at least 3,000 years we should note that nobody knows how old the bridge is and and it might be far older than the estimate the story about the devil can be traced back to the 14th century when he was said to have been driven Away by a local Parson the bridge would already have been ancient by then it's a primitive way of crossing a Waterway by modern standards but would have been considered Quite a feat of engineering all those thousands of years ago if you've ever been woken up from a pleasant Dream by an alarm clock and wanted to curse the person who invented them direct your curses at Plato the famous Greek philosopher came up with the idea 2400 years ago after growing tired of students arriving late to his lectures because they'd overslept clocks as we know them didn't exist back then so Plato's creation looks more like a kettle it functions more like a kettle in some respects too to make the alarm work water is heated up and pushed through a series of tubes as it expands eventually reaching a sealed vessel that whistled as pressure built inside it the idea was that the students would place the alarm over a fire at night and it would heat up slowly thus waking them up at a reasonable time when the whistling began and sending them on their way to Playdoh the exact amount of sleep the device would allow you to get would have varied depending on how much water you put into it so presumably Plato provided his students with instructions on that matter it's a clever system and an mention that's been depriving students of excuses for missing class ever [Music] since the island of Jersey in the English Channel contains more ancient monuments than you'd expect it to given how small it is the most impressive of them is laog B this is a passage grave but might have also been used in rituals during the Neolithic era if archaeologists are right about that suspicion it wouldn't have been the only time the usage of the monument changed it's also been used as an unconventional Christian Chapel not once but twice at different points in history while dating Stone monuments isn't an exact science the oldest of the burials here indicates an age of around 5,500 years it's one of the best preserved passage tombs in the world still fully intact and demonstrating the strangeness of these burial mounds which feature a crawl space so people could pass through the middle of them the orientation of the passage is very specific it's aligned to receive light from the sun and illuminate the deepest parts of the chamber on the day of the solstice the two Christian chapels were both added to the top of the mound during the medieval period one of which Still Remains and features 14th century fresco [Music] paintings we've already looked at one hidden pyramid in South America so there's no harm in checking out another this is ladan in Guatemala it's the most impressive structure in elidor the legendary lost city of the Maya this was one of the civilization's most important cities 2600 years ago and thrived for three centuries before construction slowed down and people began to move away it was abandoned by the end of the 9th century and then swiftly swallowed by the jungle thus explaining why archaeologists didn't find it for almost 1,000 years ladante which is a pyramid-shaped temple is the only one of the city structures that pokes out above the tree line it's 236 ft tall and has a volume of just under 100 million cubic feet based on the construction methods we think the Maya used to build it 15 million full days of labor would have been required to finish it visitors are free to climb the staircase that leads up the Eastern face of this Temple which offers incredible views across the Panorama of trees that surround this ancient wonder speaking of Wonders there are many people who believe that ceria in Sri Lanka should be recognized as the Eighth Wonder of the ancient world it's certainly one of the most impressive Stone fortresses you're ever likely to see the name sigara means lion Rock and the Fortress at top it was built by order of king kosaya during the fth century The Limited historical record we have from that time suggest that he built his palace here so he'd be safe from attacks by forces led by his brother even the gardens that surround the king's old fortress are significant because they're the oldest landscaped Gardens on the planet it's thought that the palace was once full of magnificent paintings but sadly very few of them still exist those that do are considered to be the earliest examples of Sri Lankan classical realism further paintings can be found in the The Caves at the foot of the rock after King Kash payak passed away his old Palace became a Buddhist Monastery and that's how searia stayed until it became abandoned in the 14th century we have no idea why such a stunning creation was abandoned but it's a popular tourist destination now felo of Byzantium had a personal robotic servant 2300 years ago we know that sounds ridiculous but it's true he wasn't even the only person who had one Heron of Alexandria had a robot servant too both men were kind enough to leave behind full schematics for their Creations they're impressive but their purpose was extremely Limited in fact all they could do was pour wine the human-shaped robots had wheels and brakes when their brakes were released they would roll toward a guest of felo or Heron who had then Place their wine receptacle into the robot's metal hand the pressure of the cup depressed a latch the latch made the robot tilt a picture of wine in its other hand and the cup of the party guest would then be filled once the wine cup reached a certain weight it would trigger a second latch which would then tell the machine to stop pouring this would have been nothing more than an amusing party trick for felo or Heron but it would have left their guests astounded come to think of it we'd quite like a robot wine servant of Our [Music] Own subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications and you will be the first to know when a new video comes out thank you for watching and see you in the next video

Channel: Inforado

Views: 17,850

Keywords: 12 Most Amazing Ancient Technologies That Scientists Still Can't Explain, ancient technologies, archaeological finds, scientists still cant explain, amazing ancient technologies, ancient finds, cant explain, 12 most, top 12, most amazing

Id: _4vNuvk_OuM

Length: 15min 39sec (939 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 12 2024