NARRATOR: All across the
world lie the footprints of our distant forefathers. There are skyscrapers
thousands of years old, ancient manuscripts
that reveal stories of awe-inspiring
enormous weapons, and remnants of huge
structures hidden at the bottom of the ocean. How could the ancient
engineers possibly have achieved such
phenomenal feats? Mega machines-- as we rediscover
the astonishing technology of our past, we are being
forced to rethink all that we thought we knew
about ancient civilizations. This is the story of the
most powerful, complex, and awe-inspiring machines
in the ancient world. [theme music] Today, we have
almost no conception that thousands of years
ago, the Earth was populated with colossal machines. Cranes that transported
tons of marble, aquatic claws designed to
harpoon ships and drag them down to the ocean floor,
and mechanical saws powered by the force of water. These remarkable
devices were used to construct magnificent
temples and monuments reaching to the heavens. Some of them would
not be out of place on a modern building site. MILENA MELFI: Somebody
traveling to a construction site of antiquity would have
recognized the same machines which are used in a building
site in modern times. NARRATOR: Yet mega
machines were also found in the ultimate
theater for new technology-- the battlefield. Simple hand weapons
were replaced with gigantic mechanized
catapults and trebuchets, ancient weapons of
mass destruction. Modern engineers
are still seeking to decode the astonishing
complexity of these designs and unravel how they
would have worked. PETER KIENZLE: There are
a lot of large structures in the ancient time such as
temples, amphitheaters, and all these sort of buildings. They all, of course,
needed building works in a very sophisticated way. NARRATOR: All over the world
from the desert kingdoms of Carthage to the Roman
Empire, the great civilizations of antiquity built
grand monuments on an astonishing scale. But what were the
mega machines that created these incredible
works really like? Can modern science
uncover new insights into the techniques the ancient
engineers would have used? One of the most widely
built mega machines was a huge crane designed and
built to hoist large weights. Ancient texts record that the
first hoisting device was used around 500 BC in building the
monuments Ephesus in Pergamon, in what is now modern Turkey. But now, new evidence
suggests that the first crane may have been invented much
earlier than was previously believed. In Corinth, in what was once
the heart of ancient Greece, archeologists have made a
series of startling discoveries. During a recent
research expedition, researchers from the American
School of Classical Studies in Athens uncovered two
limestone coffins dating to almost 3,000 years ago. GUY SANDERS: We knew
we had a tomb here because I could see part the
edge of the custom grave. But the students working with
me were a little bit unsure. And after a couple of days
digging down within the grave, we came across this simply
enormous cover slab. And we knew we had a grave
of considerable importance. NARRATOR: Archeologists
were totally baffled by these enormous sarcophagi
for one simple reason, their weight. GUY SANDERS: The grave coffin is
about 3 meters long and about 2 meters wide from east to west. And the sarcophagus
is absolutely huge. NARRATOR: At over 3 tons
each, neither of the coffins could have conceivably been
lifted into the graves by hand. How could the ancient
Greeks have thus performed such a
precision maneuver on such a colossal object? GUY SANDERS: Probably,
the easiest way to do it would be to transport
the stone on rollers and use oxen to haul it
into place there. Then what they do is they roll
the sarcophagus on the rollers over the top of the
hole that they had dug. And then they could turn ropes
around the sarcophagus proper and make it steady by
wrapping the ends of the ropes around something
called Samson post. You can then maintain the
weight of the sarcophagus, pull out the rollers so the
sarcophagus is then just swinging free above the hole. And then using friction, you
can lower the block into place. NARRATOR: Archeologists
now have a new theory. The Greeks would have
used an ancient crane to lower the coffins
down into the graves. It is believed an A-frame
structure was used in the design of the crane. The ropes were wrapped around
the beam of the frame allowing precision control when
lowering the coffins. GUY SANDERS: So we have
here monumental architecture for the dead below the ground. And we must be a step away
or even a step behind having monumental architecture above
the ground circa 900 BC. NARRATOR: We are still
seeking to fully unravel the mystery of the Corinth
coffins and the first crane. It provides a
tantalizing glimpse of what ancient mega machines
could lie beneath the earth's surface awaiting discovery. Yet if the Corinth coffins
were the first usage of an ancient crane, it
was to take a true genius to understand the complex
science behind how they are used. His name was Archimedes. Archimedes lived around 200
BC in Syracuse, which is now modern Sicily. He was to become known as
the godfather of invention, a visionary who
experimented with ideas far in advance of his time. Archimedes discovered a
mathematical principle that now serves as the basis
for countless modern machines, from cranes to motor cars-- the lever. He deduced that you could lift
incredibly heavy objects using little force if you
have the correct lever and angle of leverage. Most famously, he claimed
that if you gave him a big enough lever, he would
be able to move the world. It was really Archimedes
codification of the principles of the lever that allowed it to
be used in a more sophisticated way as a component
in larger machines. NARRATOR: Yet were his
revolutionary ideas ever put into practice in his
own time by his peers? This drawing depicts a harbor
built at the port of Amethyst in Cyprus to protect naval
fleets against rough seas. The harbor was a
monumental achievement. 5,000 huge stone blocks,
each weighing over 3 tons, were laid down to provide
shelter from the Mediterranean Sea. RICHARD WINDLEY:
This probably would have been a compound machine
using levers, multiplication pulleys, and probably some
sort of winding device. And again, enabling massive
weights to be lifted. NARRATOR: Ingeniously, as
one section was finished, the crane would slide
along to the next one. The Amethyst harbor
crane transformed cranes into movable dynamic
mega machines able to adapt to the
requirements of almost any terrain. Yet it was to be another
Greek mega machine that was critical to building perhaps
the most influential structure in the ancient world. During the classical period
between 450 and 330 BC, three important
temples were erected on the ruins of the Acropolis. The Erechtheion, the Temple
of Nike, and the Parthenon. CATHY PARASCHI: The
Parthenon combines the unique ancient architecture
and higher level of aesthetics that one could find. It has all these little secrets
that make all the difference. NARRATOR: This
building epitomizes the great achievements
of the ancient Greeks. It has endured on
top of the Acropolis in Athens for
nearly 2,500 years. The craftsmanship seen in
the building of Greek temples has never been surpassed. Every single massive block
was hand-carved and set in place using a complex crane. MANOLIS KORRES: We know
a lot about cranes, thanks to direct
information left by ancient builders and some
representations, the pictures, et cetera, on marble. It was powered by
ten men at most. The crane was 27 meters
tall and it had the capacity to move parallel to
the building and also to lean towards the building
to lift the stone, then horizontally to move the
stone and then slowly to lower the stone to the
level of positioning. NARRATOR: The secret
of this mega machine? Productivity. The mega-cranes of
the classical age were able to hold
weights of up to 20 tons. These capstans increase the
workers efficiency by 20, then the pulleys above
increase it further by 3. So the combination of
capstans and pulleys meant that the work of 10
men became that of 600 men. Almost overnight,
productivity skyrocketed. It's no wonder then that
the mega-cranes of Athens were able to raise a block
of stone every 15 minutes and the entire Parthenon was
finished in under 10 years, a 10th of the time
it took to build the Great Pyramid at Giza. Some believe that even today, we
do not have the skills to match the quality of the work carried
out by the ancient Greeks, as their cutting and placing
was so incredibly detailed and precise. NICOLAS TOGANIDES: Nobody knows
exactly the secret of a worker. If somebody stopped
this procedure, then you lose all
the information. Today, we are trying to
understand how they did it. If you tried to pass
through the joint, it's impossible to put it aside. It needs a perfect technique to
match the two marble together. Today, it's incredible. NARRATOR: There is evidence
of ancient cranes littered across the world. There is even evidence
of cranes used in fantastical
circus-like theatrics. Ancient texts record how
a lifting device known as the Oracle of
the Dead was used for strange and occult rituals. Amazingly, people were
given narcotic drinks and taken to a darkened cave. Here, they would see the
priest suspended from a crane like a modern day magic man. To people of the time, he
appeared as an apparition of the dead flying above them. Could the ancients
really have created such an elaborate machine? For the foreseeable
future, the truth about the Oracle of the Dead
is likely to remain a mystery. We are still discovering the
secrets of how and why cranes were used by the great
civilizations of antiquity. But it is clear that it was
the Romans who were to take these cranes to their zenith. Can we at last learn to uncover
insights into the mega machines that built the largest
empire in the ancient world? The ancient Greeks
invented great cranes to build their beautiful
temples and monuments. Yet it took an
ancient superpower to develop this technology
on a mass scale-- the Romans. The mighty Roman Empire
stretched over 3,000 miles from Britain in the west
to Jordan in the east. Maintaining this vast patchwork
of peoples under the Roman yoke needed quick conquests followed
by rapid building programs. Monuments were erected that
left defeated territories intimidated for centuries. But the Romans did
not have hundreds of years like the
Egyptians to allow them to build these huge structures. They needed to find
fast techniques. And to achieve this, they
invented massive cranes to raise the buildings from
the ground in record time. Rome called on the engineering
genius of its finest architect. A man named Vitruvius. He devised several
visionary designs for ancient cranes that were to
prove instrumental in building the colossal structures
of the Roman Empire. His most influential
design used a wheel in order to multiply the awesome
lifting power of the machine. The wheel was driven by a crew
of five men walking inside. It would also use an
intriguing technical approach when lifting a block of marble. A set of metal wedges would
be inserted into an opening in the block of stone, which
would slide into a specially constructed hole in the block. When all three wedges were
in place and a locking pin attached, the block
could be lifted. The large weight of the
blocks helped lock them firmly in place as they were lifted. It was an ingenious method
of lifting a stone block without the need of
ropes under the stone. Some of Rome's most
amazing structures were built using the same
types of mega cranes, such as the awe-inspiring
Trajan's Column. Trajan's Column is a
remarkable monument which towers high above Rome,
and which once would have been surrounded by a complex of
elaborate Roman buildings. ANN KUTTNER: Trajan is
the emperor that takes us his ruling name biggest of all-- Trajan Optimus Maximus. And if you're going to
be the biggest emperor, you have the biggest
column monument. NARRATOR: This vast
structure is 98 feet high and has been created out of
a series of 40-ton marble drums laid on top of each other
with exceptional precision. Inside that column
is a helical stair. Those little slits are windows. So they had to cut each block
with the internal staircase and have them perfectly aligned. The stones stay together. They don't shift. And what that takes is
calibrating the joints absolutely. NARRATOR: Yet what kind of crane
could possibly have been used to achieve such a feat? On the side of a Roman
funeral relief called the relief of Haterii is a
find of supreme significance. It offers unique insight into
how a crane would have been used in ancient Rome. It reveals that the Romans
used quintupled pulley systems powered by a crew of
five specialized workers. It proves once and for all
that the Romans had far more advanced crane technology
than any other civilization in the ancient world. The Roman engineers
constructing Trajan's Column used the most sophisticated
cranes of their time. When Rome imported
Egyptian obelisks, these powerful lifting
devices were also used to erect the
huge slabs of stone. Sadly, no fully
intact cranes survived from the ancient world. It is only from works such
as these magnificent obelisks that we can piece together
the secrets of the cranes the ancient builders
would have used. Yet in Germany, one remarkable
new project is changing that. A team of modern engineers have
reconstructed an ancient crane for the first time. Can we at last uncover how the
ancient mega cranes would have looked in their heyday? This amazing crane was built 20
years ago as a reconstruction. PETER KIENZLE: Because this part
of the crane is the capstan. It's the point where
we start pulling. So four men are necessary
to push these handles, and by doing so, winding up
the cable on this vertical axle right here. From the capstan to the main
crane, you get one cable. And this cable being wound up
on the main wheel over there. This is the very basic
principle of a transmission. So while winding up this
cable from the capstan on the big wheel
at the same time, you've got the small wheels on
the axle winding up the cable from the stones
that's to be lifted. That's very much the
powerhouse of the crane. In this transmission, you've
got the fourfold power transmission. So you need four times
the length of the cable but you only need a fourth
part of the power to pull it. NARRATOR: This
extraordinary device is based on the same
exact principles as every modern gearbox. Transmission increases
the length of cable needed but decreases the power
needed to achieve activation. PETER KIENZLE: Right here,
you see very important feature of lifting up the stone block. This is a block
with pulley wheels and you see a number of
pulley wheels down here and another set of
pulley wheels up here. We have a sequence
of machines lined up, so every time you use
the power necessary and you increase
the length of cable and you line up a number of
times, and this in the end is very efficient. NARRATOR: So although the Xanten
crane uses pulley technology to increase the power of
men, the ancients also had another even more
unbelievable trick up their sleeves. They used wheels which could
be automated to create power, giving birth to a
new mega machine. At an ancient flour mill in the
south of France at Barbegal, there is incredible evidence of
this groundbreaking technology. The power to drive
the millstones came from 16 waterwheels. Yet as we seek to
uncover the secrets of the ancient mega machines,
we are faced with an even deeper mystery. How did the ancients
cut the vast quantities of rock needed to build
such colossal buildings in the first place? All across the world
from the statues of Rome to the temples of Greece
or the pyramids of Egypt, men has forged great
structures from stone. Now, modern engineers are
seeking to piece together the mega machines that lie
behind these super-sized constructions. And surprisingly, a
remarkable find has recently surfaced that makes us wonder-- did the ancients actually create
a mechanical multi-blade saw? The ancient's mega structures
were truly mind-boggling in scale. Thousands of years before modern
trucks, cranes, or diggers, they built immense
monuments cut from rock. In the past, it was
believed that it was solely through the brute force of
thousands of oxen and slaves that they created these
amazing architectural feats. Now, modern engineers
are discovering that our distant ancestors
used mega machines. The stone used for
the Greek's Acropolis weighed more than 20
Statues of Liberty, yet it is the Romans
constructions whose sheer scale baffles most of us all. At the outermost reaches of
the Roman Empire in Lebanon lies the Stone of the South. At over 1,200 tons in
weight, this vast obelisk remains the largest piece
of stone work ever crafted. How did the ancients
cut the rock for their incredible
building projects? And how did they transport
this rock hundreds of miles to the construction sites? Our quest to unravel the
mega machines behind cutting and moving the stone
of Jordan takes us on a voyage back
4,500 years to Egypt in the legendary
Pyramids of Giza. It took a century to place the
2.4 million limestone blocks in place, but what machines
did the Egyptians use to create this wonderful ancient wonder? You see this large
mound of brick and debris, it's the remains of
a construction ramp that was used to haul the stones
that were course by course to build this tower
of this gateway. The construction of the
tower was never finished. And when the temple was
cleared in the 19th and early 20th century, this
particular mound was left in place as an example
of how this construction technique was carried out. NARRATOR: Ramps were built on
either side of the building, enabling construction
by separate teams to be carried out on both
sides simultaneously. In the Karnak Temple in Egypt,
we can discover yet more clues as to the techniques of the
ancient temple builders. EDWIN BROCK: Once they
pile the stones up for whatever part of the
temple they were doing, like this column here, they
then would have to cut it to the shape they wanted. So really, what they're doing
is they're piling up stones and then sculpting the temple. These blocks are going to
be cut into a rounded shape, and then it's just a matter
of working down from the top and trimming, trimming,
trimming till they get the right dimensions in shape. NARRATOR: But how did they lift
these 1,000-ton rocks and move them all over Egypt? In the quarry at Aswan,
there is a monumental clue. This is the famous unfinished
obelisk still attached to the bedrock. Almost uniquely in
the ancient world, we can see work in progress. This huge undertaking was
suddenly abandoned when a crack appeared in the lower section. It is 130 feet long,
and if finished, it would have
weighed 1,000 tons. DANY ROY: To remove an obelisk
like the unfinished obelisk in Aswan out of the bedding
would have been problematic. Even nowadays with the machinery
we have and the lifting device we have, it would still
represent a very difficult task. Here lies a bit of a
mystery of how they did it. But obviously, they did it. NARRATOR: So how could the
Egyptians have possibly done this without the use of cranes? LUCIA GAHLIN: One suggestion is
that they would drag an obelisk up a man-made embankment
and then lower it down into a funnel-shaped
pit, and remove the sand from the bottom,
thus allowing the obelisk to slip down into
a vertical position before you clear
away those ramps. An alternative suggestion is
that the obelisk was raised up to 34 degrees and then erected
by men pulling on ropes. NARRATOR: But recent evidence
suggests that the Egyptians were even further advanced
than we once realized. At a site in Karnak,
archeologists came upon a remarkable find,
a vast block of stone that appears to have been cut
not by hand but by a sort of high-speed machine. Could the Egyptians, in fact,
have developed mechanical saws? DANY ROY: Here in
this bizarre floor, you can clearly see here the
mark left by the saw when they were cutting the rock. NARRATOR: Evidence exists that
suggests that these mechanisms were used to shear through
massive sheets of rock and quarries. One machine has been suggested
that consists of a frame which would have been anchored
to the side of the quarry. A large heavy block would have
been placed in the machine. Underneath this was
a stone cutting saw. Amazingly, the machine was
powered by multiple teams of oxen, men and
beasts worked together to cut deep into the rock. Very same idea is used in
this modern quarry in Egypt. Here, millions of
tons of limestone have been cut from the
bedrock using a mechanical saw but replacing oxen with
a powerful diesel engine. The ancient Egyptians used
saws to carve the rock for some of the greatest monuments
man has ever created, but there is evidence
in Jerash in Jordan which may reveal that the
ancients also developed a yet more advanced
method of cutting. Close to the city of
Amman, Jerash has within it an astonishing set of ruins. Archeologists now believe that
these tumbled down remains were once an ancient
workshop used as a factory for cutting stone on
an industrial scale. The construction method favored
by the Byzantine builders was to use limestone with
cosmetic facings of marble veneer, a cost-saving technique
also used by the Romans to construct their beautiful
buildings that stretched across their vast empire. This simple limestone
slab is believed to hold the key to unlocking
a fascinating secret. Could it show the signs of an
ancient mechanical mega saw? AIDA NAGHAWY: This is a drum
that's part of a column. In the Byzantine period,
they brought this drum to this workshop to
convert it to slabs. It is very perfect which means
it cannot be done by hand. It is by a machine. NARRATOR: This is a
reconstruction of the machine thought to have been used here. Hundreds of gallons
of water power a waterwheel connected to a
central wooden shaft which summons the vast energy needed
to drive the great blades. AIDA NAGHAWY: We know
where the wheel was because of the location of the cranks. NARRATOR: The cranks would
have been the powerhouse of this machine
and were connected to two banks of quadruple
sawing blades, which would cut precisely
through the marble pillars. AIDA NAGHAWY: It works by using
abrasive materials like a sand. NARRATOR: The sand would
create a friction which would allow the iron blades
to cut deep into the rock. The multi-bladed automatic
cutting mill in Jerash is a fascinating new discovery. We now believe that
thousands of years ago, there would have
been similar saw-cutters all over the globe. Automated mega machines were,
thus, not just the preserve of the modern world. They were actually
invented by the ancients. But once again, it was
to be the Romans who were to push this ancient
mega machine to its zenith. In 2,000-year-old texts written
by the Roman engineer Pliny, there was a description of
a remarkable cutting device unlike any other in
the ancient world. Pliny describes what
is believed to be the first mechanized water
saw, yet it remains just that, a description. No one knows whether the
design would work in practice. Richard Windley is a leading
model-maker and expert in recreating the inventions
of our distant past. This is a small model I've
made which represents one way that this machine could
have been put together. The motive power is
supplied by the waterwheel. The waterwheel will rotate. The axle of the wheel is
connected to the main drive wheel of the band. It uses the system of abrasion
using probably emery sand. The emery would made
into a slurry with water. NARRATOR: It is believed
that a worker would sit on the stone dripping the
emery slurry onto the rotating blade. When the block is being
sliced right the way through, the block shifted over and the
next cut would then take place. NARRATOR: Does Pliny's ancient
saw powered by just sand, wire, and water hold the
key to discovering how the Romans carved their
huge stone structures? As the ancients began to master
machines that could cleave their way through
rock, so they began to develop mega
machines that could cut their way through
people on the battlefield. They created massive
machines of war, terrifying siege machines
capable of destroying cities, and ancient super weapons
that sunk whole naval fleets. Although it may seem
strange to think of it now, the Greeks and Romans actually
developed huge mega catapults to hurl massive weights
to knock down battlements. Their siege engines
were terrifying and held an arsenal of powerful weapons. Their enormous catapults
use twisted ropes to create torsion, firing huge
stone balls into castle walls. DUNCAN B. CAMPBELL:
The largest catapults, the mega catapults would
have stood 20, 30 feet high. So clearly, psychologically
daunting to any defender. These mega catapults were
capable of breaking down battlements or knocking over
entire ranks of soldiers. It must have been truly
terrifying to face a machine like that. NARRATOR: In
medieval times, there was a quantum leap
in technology which led to one of the most
destructive war machines the world has ever known. Pulleys, ropes, and treadmills
used in Greek and Roman cranes were adapted for use in a
sophisticated weapons system. In Warwick Castle,
England, a group of historians and reconstructors
have built a full replica of one of these
mega war machines. NICK GLEW: What we've got
here is a 14th century siege catapult. It's
called the trebuchet. It's invented in the 3rd
century by the Chinese. And then the technology spread
through to the Middle East where we collected it
around the 11th century when the Europeans
went on crusades there. NARRATOR: The main engine
of this amazing machine would be a huge set of
wheels to be walked in. I said rotating wheels, it's
rotating on central axle which is taken in the wind's rope
which you can see is connected to the top of the arm there. Now, the guys just purely
using their leg muscles are raising up that
5 and 1/2 ton convoy. NARRATOR: The troops
run the machine like hamsters in a wheel. Their own brute force powers
its lethal destructive capabilities. NICK GLEW: Well, as the
arms are coming down now, I'm getting my trigger ready. All right, slope. And hold. And then we quite simply
engage the large metal trigger into the ring. NARRATOR: The men will need to
unwind the rope so the firing arm can be released. All the pressure of
this huge primed machine is focused on the firing pin. NICK GLEW: As you see now, the
wheels go in the opposite way around, undoing the rope
that's get plenty of slack. NARRATOR: The energy stored
up in this simple wooden siege buster was awe-inspiring. NICK GLEW: We measure energy
in what we call joules. A professional baseball
pitcher throws the ball with 2 joules of energy. Now, we're not
throwing a baseball, we're throwing a
33-pound boulder and we're throwing that with
roughly 100,000 to 120,000 joules of energy. NARRATOR: That's the equivalent
to driving a 1 ton pickup truck into a house at
around 60 miles per hour. For our particular
experiment, we wanted to test
for the first time the speed of this
massive weapon. NICK GLEW: One of our crew
has got a police speed camera. The things that you're
using radar traps. And when we take the shot,
what we're going to do is we're going to try and see
how fast the ball accelerates down the track and see
if we can try and record its top speed just before
at leaves the machine. [music playing] 132 miles an hour. NICK GLEW: It looks like
the ball accelerated up to 132 miles an hour. Now, that's some sort of energy. That acceleration was
over a 5-meter distance in under a second. Now, that's faster than
any Formula One car and faster acceleration
than a modern jet fighter from takeoff. Whether it's a medieval
trebuchet, a Greek ballista, or a Roman mangonel, the
torsion catapults of that time, it's not really a question
of are we going to knock down this castle. It's just a question of when
we're going to knock down this castle. OK. NARRATOR: But as incredible
as these machines were, there were still other ingenious
mega war machines which were invented by the ancients. On the island of
Syracuse around 200 BC, Archimedes developed
a number of catapults to repel the most
invincible fighting force the ancient
world had ever known-- the Romans. But he also invented
other ingenious devices, many of which would astound
military engineers today. As an island, Syracuse had a
single critical weak point, making it vulnerable
to enemy invasion-- its harbor. In response, Archimedes devised
an astonishing yet ingenious defense. DUNCAN B. CAMPBELL: Archimedes
developed a machine known as the claw which was designed
to grab the claw of the Roman ships, lift them into the air,
and suddenly drop them again. Hopefully, capsizing the vessel. NARRATOR: The claw was to
become enshrined in legend as an ancient super weapon
that sunk entire fleets and struck fear into the hearts
of the Roman sea captains. But it is now thought that
Archimedes may have developed an even more cunning machine,
a device that lay hidden beneath the surface
of the water, ready to pounce on
unsuspecting ships. It would be known as the
Archimedes' ship shaker. ANN KUTTNER: One
can imagine trying to disable a ship, a very
good way is to knock it over. If you get it off
balance slightly and people start to slide,
maybe you could tip the thing or at least really
upset the oarsman if they get their oars
tangled they've at. NARRATOR: Although archeological
records are scarce, stories of its existence have
been linked with Archimedes. The idea was that a ship
would sail into an apparently undefended harbor. But unknown to the
soldiers on board, they were sailing right into a
giant venus flytrap underwater. As the ship docked,
a massive spike would drive upwards
into the ship, paralyzing the
ship and its crew. Then a huge claw would
come out of the water and engulf the ship entirely. With the ship neutralized
and powerless, the mechanism would shake
the ship from side to side before pulling the
ship and its crew to the bottom of the ocean. The Archimedes' ship shaker
may have been powered by a team of oxen who
would pull ropes to operate the actions of the machine. The oxen were hidden
by a giant screen so the harbor seemed
as if it was deserted. The ship shaker was
a cunning device created to trick the
unsuspecting Romans into believing they
could dock safely. Yet the dangerous mechanism
was waiting under the surface to destroy their ships. It is an intriguing device
but it seems like the stuff of Hollywood battles. Although the story is based
in legend, what is remarkable is that every element
of this machine employs technology that was
actually in use at the time. There were many mega
machines in the ancient world but perhaps none so
intriguing as those which were found in Alexandria. It is here where
the ancient Greeks greatest inventors
worked and studied, and the machines they are
thought to have created were sophisticated far
beyond what we imagined ancient machines could be. One of their
greatest achievements was the Pharos Lighthouse,
a multipurpose mega machine used to guide ships
into the harbor as well as to destroy them. There was one building from
the ancient world which was the largest and most
complex machine in antiquity. Its reputation would have
stretched far and wide. And today, it is recognized
as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was known as the Pharos
Lighthouse of Alexandria. CHRISTOS LAZOS THROUGH
AN INTERPRETER: [non-english speech] Despite
the numerous races which pass through-- the Greeks, Romans,
Byzantium, the Arabs-- from the time it
was built, they all respected the lighthouse and
no one tried to destroy it. ALAN LLOYD: The
Pharos Lighthouse has begun in the
reign of Ptolemy I and completed in the
reign of Ptolemy II. It was constructed on
quite an enormous scale. NARRATOR: Estimated to have been
between 500 and 600 feet high, it truly was an
ancient skyscraper. It is thought to have been the
tallest tower ever constructed until the Eiffel Tower
was built in 1889. MILENA MELFI: It was the
biggest structure at the time, and it was not a coincidence
that it was built in Egypt where there was a long
tradition in constructing enormous buildings,
such as the pyramids. NARRATOR: The Pharos Lighthouse
was constructed around 290 BC. Its primary function was to
provide a beacon for the harbor at Alexandria. Today, standing on its former
site is a military fort. Although nothing exists
of the lighthouse, the harbor has recently
become the center of interest as archeologists have discovered
ancient marvels that may cause us to rewrite the history books. ISABELLE HAIRY THROUGH
INTERPRETER: Most of the stones that make up the
lighthouse were brought from the south of Egypt. We have found underwater
a huge amount of granite. The majority of the lighthouse
is built of pink granite from Aswan. NARRATOR: In the
shadows of the Pharos Lighthouse are a set of
intriguing pink granite blocks. These slabs of stone are
believed by archeologists to be sections of the
Pharos Lighthouse. But more intriguing
objects are to be found in the harbor at Alexandria. [water splashing] ISABELLE HAIRY
THROUGH INTERPRETER: [non-english speech] We are just
over the site where the blocks are submerged. Among which, there are
a number of pieces that come from the Pharos Lighthouse,
and some from the monuments that were part of the
decor of the lighthouse, and in particular, the entrance. NARRATOR: There is also
another ancient relic which could throw light on
the Pharos' construction. It is a structure known
as the alabaster doorway. It is believed that the entrance
to the Pharos Lighthouse would have looked very
similar to the structure. The size of the
Pharos Lighthouse would dominate the Alexandria
skyline for over 1,000 years. And it stayed intact
for so long because of how it was constructed. ALAN LLOYD: The
Pharos Lighthouse was built in three storeys. The lowest storey was
on a square section. The second was octagonal. And the third was circular. And then the light projecting
devices were on the top. When confronted with the
Ptolemy's producing something which is bigger and better
than anybody else has. This building is
propaganda in stone. NARRATOR: Some
people now believe there may have been
unusual mechanical automata on the outside of
the lighthouse. CHRISTOS LAZOS THROUGH
AN INTERPRETER: You peek around the second level
where eight bronze statues, which would follow
the route of the sun. We do not know how
this was possible or in fact, if it is true. NARRATOR: There
was another machine which told the hours of the day
by the use of melodic sounds. And amazingly, some writers
claim that the lighthouse was even used as a
massive telescope. ALAN LLOYD: I don't think
that I would want to go along with the view that it's the
first telescope in history. What you could do, of course,
was climb up inside the thing and look out of the top. And that gave you a panoramic
view of the delta area and indeed of the sea. NARRATOR: It is a romantic
notion that the lighthouse could have been
used as a telescope so the Egyptian
leader could observe whether the leaders
of Constantinople, the other great
city in antiquity, was preparing a fleet
of ships to attack it. But the curvature of
the Earth would not have allowed this to occur. So could the lighthouse have
been an early warning device? Richard Windley has
constructed a model of one of the devices thought to
have been a part of the Pharos Lighthouse. RICHARD WINDLEY:
Philo of Byzantium was one of the great
brains of his generation. And one of the things
he's often credited with is the design and making of
some kind of warning device which was mounted on
the Pharos Lighthouse. There is just one
tantalizing reference to a steam siren which
utilizes a spinning wheel. NARRATOR: 2,000 years
ago, the lighthouse would have contained
a great beacon. This towering furnace
would have produced vast quantities of heat able
to fire steam-powered devices. RICHARD WINDLEY: In this case,
we've got a small boiler. The steam from this
boiler would come up the tube here through an
on/off stop caulk there which would give control. Inside this little section
here is a revolving wheel which has got small holes in it. And it's forced to rotate
a bit like a turbine so that the pressure of steam
actually spins the wheel and this produces
an audible tone. NARRATOR: When air is
forced through the alarm by steam or this modern
pump, Richard's model reveals an extraordinary truth. The lighthouse of
Alexandria could once have been a warning siren. Not only would sound be used,
but the ancients could also harness the power of light. The lighthouse would need
to be a beacon for ships to guide them safely
into Alexandria's harbor. It would therefore need
some way of using a fire or reflected light
to produce a beacon. CHRISTOS LAZOS THROUGH
AN INTERPRETER: The light of the lighthouse
reached about 30 miles. This is a mystery because
we have many issues relating to the fire which was
lit on the lighthouse. For example, we know that
in Egypt there was no wood. There were no big forest
from where trees could be cut to take wood to feed the fire. NARRATOR: Without an
abundance of wood in Egypt, the light projected at
night had to be produced with as little amount of
burning material as possible. This has led experts to believe
that a small fire would be used at night but it would
need to be amplified, hence the first theory
was that the fire was at the bottom of the
Pharos and reflected with a series of complex
mirrors inside the building to finally reach the top
and be reflected out to sea, almost like an
ancient laser beam. But did they have this
optical technology available? ANN KUTTNER: Well, Alexandria
and Pergamon are actually very important with this. They know how to
refract and focus light. They play like games. They know their optics. NARRATOR: The second theory
was that the fire was up high on the Pharos and would then
again be reflected out to sea. There are also references
in ancient texts of a strange crystal reflecting
light over vast distances. But in daylight, it is
believed a mirror would be used to reflect the sun. Richard Windley has
been experimenting with mirror technology. Given the height
of the Pharos, this would give the horizon
distance of only about 30 miles which is well within the
range of a significant mirror. My theory, and it
is a new theory, is that a mirror would collect
the sun's rays from somewhere in this direction into
this top mirror which had to be precisely angled so
that the beam went absolutely vertically down below,
which then could be scanned by rotated to distribute the
light around a wide area. NARRATOR: The
ancients would have had to calculate the
angles of reflection to incredible accuracy. One tiny miscalculation and
the beam would fail to fire. RICHARD WINDLEY: There's a
small camp following here, which is a lever, and that is
connected by these little levers and camps here
to achieve the desired angle of the mirror. NARRATOR: But will
Richard's model work when put to the test? RICHARD WINDLEY: I turn the
angle now and here we go, there is the sun beam
being distributed. And we have our lighthouse. NARRATOR: But there is
another strange theory that the lighthouse was, in
effect, a multipurpose machine, a mega weapon from antiquity. ANN KUTTNER: Somebody gets
the idea you could actually use this for a military weapon. NARRATOR: This is not a new
concept in the ancient world because it is claimed that
the same type of weaponry was used by Archimedes
with his burning mirrors. CHRISTOS LAZOS THROUGH
AN INTERPRETER: I remind here that the
reflectors of the Alexandria lighthouse have
close similarities with the reflectors of
Archimedes, with which he burnt the fleet of the Romans
during the Syracuse period. NARRATOR: While the true
effectiveness of ancient mirror technology is unknown, what
is truly awe-inspiring is that the Pharos Lighthouse
was a magnificent structure and remains so until
the 13th century AD, a span of some 1,600 years
when it was finally destroyed by an earthquake. It was the ultimate
mega machine. Although we may like to
believe that mega machines were a 20th century invention, we
would be wrong in thinking so. New insights from
modern engineering have revealed that without
complex ancient machines, many of the celebrated
monuments of antiquity would never have been created. In years to come, we will
uncover more elaborate machines and we'll have to take a second
look at how advanced we thought the ancients really were. As ancient inventors
finally get their due, we will have to admit that mega
machines did have their birth in the ancient world.
