[dramatic music] NARRATOR: The ancients had their
own version of "The Guinness Book of World Records--"
the fastest, the deadliest, and the most valuable
objects of antiquity. A land yacht that moved
faster than the wind, breaking the world
record for speed-- a weapon of death so
terrifying its own creators banned it from use-- a common piece of
fruit is converted into a legal firearm-- and the world's first jet
engine produced in ancient Egypt 2,000 years ago-- the world's oldest
record breakers are our ancient discoveries. [dramatic music] There are over 600 million
automobiles in the world today. We rely on them to meet each
day's demands with efficiency and speed. But man's need to create
a self-powered vehicle dates back thousands of years. Ancient records describe
an economical and environmentally-friendly
carriage able to transport passengers faster than horses. Our first record breaker
is an ancient vehicle that moved quicker
than the Model T Ford, the ancient Chinese land yacht. Can "Ancient Discoveries"
corroborate these tales? We will build a land yard
and will attempt to beat the ancient land speed record. In about 550 AD, a
man called Gaocang Wushu is said to have invented a
sailing land yacht, which could carry about 30 men at
considerable speed for, it said, hundreds of miles. It was a wheeled
vehicle with sails, and it was reported
that it could travel several hundred lee in a day. Now, a lee is roughly
half a kilometer, so we're looking at
distances perhaps of sort of 70 to 100 miles in a day. NARRATOR: Ancient
Chinese records contain no visual
depiction of the vehicle. Nevertheless, there is
evidence that the Chinese had for many centuries
harnessed the wind for travel on land as well as sea. We know it was fairly
commonplace to attach sails to the huge single-wheel
wheelbarrows, which were invented in
China probably around about the second century AD. And it was very common
for them to actually use this wind assistance to
help them move these things. NARRATOR: Model
maker Richard Windley has designed a land yacht
based on the known technology of the time. We don't know whether
they based these vehicles on seagoing vessels, or whether
they were based on carts. It seems quite likely they were
to base them on a standard junk sort of design. So, effectively,
that's what we've got, a junk with this sort
of standard junk rigging, but it would have
axles and wheels on it. NARRATOR: The junk was common
in the rivers and coastal areas of ancient China,
as it is today. The flat bottom
of Chinese ships was especially useful for
navigating shallow waters, particularly the rivers whose
water level varied considerably with the seasons. The typical hull shape
which is associated with the Chinese
junk would obviously be the ideal shape for
translation into a land yacht. NARRATOR: However, translating
the traditional junk design onto a land-based
vehicle is far from easy. One of the problems with a
reconstruction like this is the classic junk fore and
aft rig would require quite a lot of management
of the sails, and that would be more than
one person could deal with. So we've actually
simplified this. We've given it one
sail, one mast. And we're not all that sure
how the junk rig is going to work in terms of efficiency. NARRATOR: Before
making the sail, the performance of
Richard's proposed rigging is tested using a
ninth-scale model prototype. We've come here today to
the wind tunnel at Manchester University. And the object is to
find out how it works, whether its performance
is effective, and what the most effective
sailing rig is going to be. [engine rumbling] OK, Andrew, we got a lot
of numbers on the screen, but I think some of these are
more important than the others. Yeah. I mean, the main ones
we're interested in are the thrust, which is
moving the yacht along, the side force, which is
acting across the yacht, and also the pitching movements,
the movement use of the force, which is going to try and
dig the nose into the ground. ANDREW LAMBERT: Right. So the wind is doing
three different things. What we're looking at is trying
to find an optimum sail setting where we get the maximum
forward movement-- ANDREW KENNAUGH: Yeah. ANDREW LAMBERT: --an acceptable
minimum of sideways movement-- ANDREW KENNAUGH: Yeah. --and not undue pitch. Yeah. Because, obviously, if
it's pitching on its nose, it won't steer. The thing is, if the
side force grows too much, then you end up blowing
the yacht onto its side. So that's something you
need to be careful of. NARRATOR: The experts reset
the position and the angle of the mast and
sail several times to discover the best rigging
for optimum performance. So with the sails set at a
45 degree angle at 15 degrees yacht from the wind, we
seem to have something like an optimum
sailing performance. Yeah. The thrust is at
its highest position and the side force is getting
close a high value as well, so I think that's probably going
to be one of the best altitudes to actually sail the yacht at. NARRATOR: With confidence in
the design's effectiveness, work has begun on
the full-scale sail. Dick Hannaford has over
30 years experience in modern and
traditional sail making. The beauty about
the junk sail is that with the battens
running across the sail, they're able to control
the sail much better than the sails used
on Western craft. And you can reduce
or increase the size like you can a Venetian blind. NARRATOR: As the wind strength
increases or decreases, a pilot adjusts the sail size to
control the speed of the craft. DICK HANNAFORD: This is in
a synthetic canvas, which has the feel and the look
of a traditional canvas, very similar to the one that the
Chinese would be familiar with. NARRATOR: The finished
build is transported to the sands of Brean Beach
on the south coast of England. RICHARD WINDLEY: OK,
we're here on the beach. This is the reconstruction of
the hypothetical Chinese land yacht. In some ways, it's much more
complicated than the boat because there are issues with
how we attach the mast now. We've got quite a lot
of flex in the mast, and the mounting of the
mast is absolutely critical. On a boat you've got
a lot more depth, so the mast can be mounted
a lot more rigidly. And then the chassis is going
to flex, so as the mast weighs, the actual wood will twist
backwards and forwards and so absorb some of
the pressure of the mast, rather than make the whole thing
absolutely rigid, which might possibly end up in breakage. In a sense, it's a bit like
a very simplified soapbox. But the basic principles
are really kind of dictated by the physics. [music playing] NARRATOR: The team is
joined by Mike Young, a professional racer
of modern land yachts. MIKE YOUNG: The modern
sport started probably after the Second World War. An American newspaper company
sponsored building some sand yachts, and they
were made of wood. And then the sport has
obviously progressed from that type of thing to
modern craft like this one. I'm really looking forward to
getting in and giving it a try, just putting myself in the
position of the old guys that used to, obviously--
not probably old guys. They were young guys who
were actually sailing it. But in the olden times,
actually sailing that craft. NARRATOR: But the team
hits an ancient problem. We've got a small
technical hitch. The wind has dropped, and
there's nowhere near enough wind to conduct the experiment. It's four-- four
miles an hour. It's just gone down three-- going down. That's just not enough wind
to certainly move this thing, anyway.
- No, no. And I would say for
this one with the weight and the size of the sail,
we would need 15 to 20 miles an hour.
Yes. Well, of course you're
dealing with the wind, which is natural phenomena. And, I mean, it's variable. It's going to be variable in
China 2,00 years ago the same as it is today. They're going to have the
same problem, aren't they? We've actually chosen a
rather nice day, haven't we? That's the problem. It's a lovely day today,
[laughs] but not for sailing. Just pull the parallel
bead through a little bit. Parallel bead. That's great. Yeah. Just going to tighten it down. That's it. Pull down. Give it a good tug. Right, put a half inch on it. [music playing] NARRATOR: Finally,
wind speed increases. Will the "Ancient
Discoveries" land yacht successfully transport our pilot
as Gaocang's vessel reportedly did some 2,000 years ago? [suspenseful music] It works. We've got the wind behind. The land cart works. We're away. Absolutely brilliant. It's going, which is tremendous. NARRATOR: The land
yacht could reach a speed of 40 miles per hour-- faster than a horse. It would have taken the
ancient land speed record. Stering-wise, it's
very cumbersome, and I haven't got quite a
turning circle as I have certainly in mine. But the steering's fine. I mean, it will steer around
corners and steer around things. What we've discovered today is
that a wind-powered land craft using ancient technology
is perfectly feasible. As a form of transport, yes. In olden days, yeah. Absolutely, no problem at all. And free. [laughs] NARRATOR: In the 6th
century, Chinese engineers using wind for fuel created an
effective self-powered vehicle over 1,000 years before the
advent of modern automobiles. There's more than
enough power in the wind to drive a wheeled vehicle
along at a reasonable speed over quite long distances. NARRATOR: The successful trial
of "Ancient Discoveries'" sail cart has confirmed that
by adapting the technology of the time to the
natural environment, the Chinese could have indeed
achieved the world's first self-powered land vehicle. I'm so pleased it
actually got going. NARRATOR: Some innovations
like the land yacht are still in use in
recognizable form today-- others reached a dead end
when no further development was possible. From Africa,
"Ancient Discoveries" has unearthed a device that was
so deadly it was deliberately suppressed. The secret of why this was
the deadliest knife in history is our next ancient discovery. [knife thuds] For centuries, the lethal power
of this bizarre African weapon has lain dormant in
its elaborate blades. "Ancient Discoveries" is
uncovering the lost secrets of the world's deadliest
throwing knife. [knife thuds] Over 500 years ago, a tribe
called the Kuba Bushong were known as the most ruthless
and terrifying warriors of the southern Congo. According to legend,
they were armed with a strange and terrifying
weapon, the shongo. The ruling clan
of the Kuba people are called the Bushong,
which means "the people of the lightning," or "the
people of the shongo," the throwing knife. NARRATOR: Records of throwing
knives in Africa are sparse. Evidence relies on oral history. What remains a mystery is the
fact that most of these objects that we know of today
as throwing knives, only relatively few of
them have been documented as being thrown,
and even fewer still have been actually
documented as weapons of war. NARRATOR: Chris Spring is one
of the world's leading experts on African throwing knives. The reasons for
their use are still kind of shrouded in
mystery in many ways. Some we know a bit about. Some we know were thrown
in particular ritual kind of combats. The vast majority, though,
we don't know exactly what their real significance,
what their real function is. NARRATOR: Evidence
for the shongo comes from the explorer Emil
Torday, who traveled deep into the Congo to meet the
Kuba king at the beginning of the 20th century. Torday only heard
the weapon described. He never saw it in action. To test the performance of
this strange weapon, "Ancient Discoveries'" expert and
blacksmith Adrian Legge has forged a replica shongo. The shongo wasn't
actually too bad to make. It was made out of a piece of
sheet and actually cut out. And then it was work hardened,
which is a method by which you actually hammer the material. And that was the way they would
have actually toughened it up. NARRATOR: Knives like the shongo
were a tribal status symbol and would have been
beautifully decorated. These objects would have
been extremely personal. I think they would have been
decorated by the individuals, probably with tribal markings. NARRATOR: Over a foot in
diameter with five points and 10 blades forged
out of hardened steel, it certainly looks lethal. To find out how much damage
the shongo could cause, "Ancient Discoveries" has
enlisted the help of expert knife thrower John Taylor. [knives thudding] Throwing weapons work by
literally spinning themselves through the air. You impart the spin
into the knife. NARRATOR: John has been
studying the shongo to work out how it might have been thrown. JOHN TAYLOR: My first thought
was that you actually throw it and then bring it back. However, I soon realized
that the spike at the side would hit you in the back. So I suspect this
was thrown that way. NARRATOR: The shongo's perfectly
balanced, aerodynamic shape means that John is able to hit
the target with great accuracy. [knife thuds] The ingenious engineering
and unique positioning of the shongo's multiple blades
gives it a clear advantage over a single-bladed
throwing knife. The shongo is, in effect,
three throwing knives in that it can hit either end
of these three sharp points. If you throw this at anything,
except for the small blind spot if it hits the handle, it
will literally injure or kill anyone that's in front of you. NARRATOR: The knife
could also have been used in hand-to-hand combat. When you were faced with this
at about three to four feet from you, the warrior
could literally hack, chop, slice the groin,
take your head in there, pull you back. It is the Swiss Army knife
of the African warrior. NARRATOR: But John's
investigations reveal another more
startling capability of this deadly weapon. 100 years ago, Emil Torday wrote
that the secret of the shongo's superiority may have
been its ability to go around enemy defenses. Torday also speculated that
the multiple blades could cause the shongo to bounce
over the top of a shield and strike the man
hiding behind it. NARRATOR: Improbable
though it sounds, did these ancient warriors
develop a weapon that could get behind an enemy shield? The ancient African legend of
a knife that could flip over a shield and impale
the man behind it has never been tested before-- until now. A target dummy has been set up
with a full-size replica shield protecting it. For the first time, we will test
whether the ancient Kuba tale is true. [suspenseful music] What happened
then is the knife came over the top of the shield. As you can see, it's curled
around the shield over the top straight into his arm. He's out of action. It proves that this
could hook over a shield. NARRATOR: The unique shape
and positioning of the knife's blades means that when
thrown at a precise angle, it hooks onto the enemy's shield
and continues spinning, taking it over the shield
and into an opponent. To face this in a
battle it would have been a terrifying experience. There would have been numerous
knives being thrown at you. You would literally be
hiding behind a shield, but these could come around
the side at any oblique angle. NARRATOR: Over 500 years
ago, the Kuba Bushong invented an amazing weapon that
could get behind an enemy's defense. It was the deadliest
throwing knife of its time. It may not have
happened every time, but certainly it could have
carried out this sort of attack often enough to cause terror
in the ranks of an opponent. NARRATOR: Tales told
of this deadly blade have been proved right. It's not often that we make
a new discovery about weapons that have been around
for hundreds of years. But when it does happen, it
can give us entire new insight into ancient history. NARRATOR: The shongo
proved so lethal a weapon that in the 17th century it was
banned by of king of the Kuba. It's perhaps because he deemed
it the most ferocious kind of weapon that they had. And therefore, in order to
stop kind of possible violence erupting in his
kingdom, he banned it, as opposed to the use of
swords, or spears, or other more conventional weapons. NARRATOR: This deadliest
of throwing knives disappeared into African
legend along with the knowledge of its extraordinary
capabilities-- until today. Our next ancient record
breaker is a primitive weapon that started a process
of development that changed the world of warfare. We have tracked down the ancient
world's deadliest fruit-- not a poison, but a firearm. It was a simple fruit that with
the addition of human ingenuity can lay claim to being one
of the world's first guns. How do you turn market
produce into a weapon? In our next discovery
from the ancient world, we reveal history's
deadliest fruit. [suspenseful music] In the 10th century
AD, the Chinese put gunpowder and weapons
together for the first time and created a
revolution in warfare. The Chinese introduction
of gunpowder weapons in about the 10th century
marked a revolutionary change in warfare. It was the first time in
history that chemical energy had been harnessed to
do any kind of work. It led to a lot of the
technological innovations that have produced the modern
world, including rocketry and eventually the
internal combustion engine. NARRATOR: The Chinese
experimented with a variety of gunpowder weapons. In the 15th century, they
created the oddest of all-- a gun made out of
a bottle gourd. One example of
Chinese ingenuity which we know about
from slightly later was the gourd gun. An ordinary bottle gourd,
such as grows in the garden and can actually be eaten,
was hollowed out and used as a container for gunpowder
and to propel projectiles out of the end. NARRATOR: Incredibly, the gourd
gun became a common feature of the ancient Chinese arsenal. We know that they were
made and stockpiled. And although we don't
hear of their specific use in any particular battle,
there can be little doubt that they were used,
especially in sieges, perhaps to throw from the walls, or
as short-range flamethrowers to deter an attacker. NARRATOR: But how was this piece
of dry fruit turned into a gun? Richard Windley is recreating
this unlikely weapon to find out. Well, this object I've
got here is a bottle gourd. And these grew widely
all over China, and they were used for
an incredible range of different purposes. Once these are dried
and hollowed out, it gives us a lovely vessel. They're quite hard and strong,
and they were useful water carriers, for putting kind
of powdered materials, for grain, all sorts of things. And one of the
early weapons that were produced with
these things were called Hulu gourd guns or projectors. And they would be filled with
some kind of gunpowder mixture, which probably contained some
sort of projectile, maybe little bits of stone. There may have been
bits of grit or sand, or they could have even
been small pebbles or even small pieces of
lead or scrap metal. And the idea was
that this material will burn fairly quickly. This is like a natural nozzle,
the neck of the vessel, so this would produce a
kind of fountain effect. And the idea was that the
projectiles would be thrown out at quite considerable speed
along with a spurt of flame. NARRATOR: But there was
a fundamental drawback with the simple gourd. Now, obviously, the gourd
is an organic material, and the high temperatures
generated by these gunpowder compounds burning is probably
going to char or even burn right through this, so we're
going to have a problem. NARRATOR: To show us how
the bottle gourd was adapted for pyrotechnics, Richard has
cut his prototypes in half. Now, the texts do indicate
that they used clay. And it talks about a coating,
so this is one variation I've constructed. And this is a slurry
of clay made into sort of like a creamy consistency
poured all around the inside of the gourd and then dried. This would give some kind
of refractory coating on the inside, which would
prevent the gourd from burning through. It might still char the material
of the gourd a little bit, but it's like a kind of barrier
between the intense heat of the gunpowder and the
kind of organic material that the gourd is made from. NARRATOR: This solves the
problem of combustion burning through the material. However, there is
another crucial issue. My concern with the simple
clay-lined gourd is that because of these sort of intense
pressures we're going to get generated with these
gunpowder compositions, and particularly because
we've got a nozzle, which is restricting the
outflow of the gases, we're going to get quite a
big buildup of gas pressure. So my concern is that
these things will explode. NARRATOR: Gunpowder works by
burning or oxidizing extremely rapidly. Firing, giving fire. NARRATOR: This causes a
violent expansion of gases, creating an explosion. This energy can be harnessed
in a number of ways. An explosion can simply blow
apart whatever the gunpowder was contained in-- for example a
firework or a bomb-- or the energy can be channeled
in a specific direction. In the internal combustion
engine of an automobile, tiny explosions drive pistons,
just as a bigger explosion propels a bullet or a
cannonball out of a gun barrel. The force produced by
a continuous explosion can push something forward,
as in a jet engine. Richard is concerned that the
expanding gases in the gourd will not be able to escape
through the narrow neck, and with nowhere to go, will
simply blow the gourd apart. [fuse hissing] [explosion] What engineering solution
could the ancient Chinese have found for this
fundamental problem? As an alternative, I've come
up with another system whereby the gourd is almost
entirely filled with a sort of solid material. The gourd then will
constrain this material. The whole thing
will be very strong. It also has the
benefit of leaving us with a cylindrical hole down
the middle of the gourd, which is incredibly useful in terms
of ramming the gunpowder. Because this means
we can compact it, we can slow down
the burn rate, we can incorporate different
sorts of projectiles into it. NARRATOR: Based on the
ancient Chinese texts, Richard has built working
models of these two versions of the gourd gun. What we need to do now is to
load these with a composition and take them to a secure
site and test them and see how the two different
methods compare. NARRATOR: Richard has come
to our secure testing grounds to fire the gourd guns. Can Richard discover whether
they would have been effective on an ancient battlefield? First he will test the gourd
which has been simply lined with clay. OK, so what I've got
here is the first variation of the gourd. This is the one where we've
got a thin clay lining on the inside of the gourd. It's been like a slurry
applied to it and then dried. I'm hoping this will act as
refractory material which will prevent the gourd from burning. However, I'm really
quite concerned about this one in terms
of its performance because we can't ram
the pyrotechnic mixture. So unless they were using
a very, very slow kind of gunpowder or mixture,
there's a fair chance that this could explode. All clear. NARRATOR: Will the gourd
and its thin lining of clay contain the force
of the gunpowder, or will it explode
as Richard predicts? [fuse hissing] [loud bang] Well, I think I was
right in the assumption that we might well
get a big bang if this pyrotechnic mixture
wasn't compacted enough. And there's no point in
taking out your own personnel. It's a self-defeating piece
of equipment if that happens. So I think we need
to go on to plan B, and we'll try the other
method where we've left a cylindrical
hole down the gourd and we've been able to ram the
powder to compact it to slow down the burn rate. And hopefully we'll get a
similar amount of energy to the explosion, but we'll
get a prolonged period of time, over 20 or 30 maybe
seconds if we're lucky, rather than just
that one sudden bang. NARRATOR: Will the second
version of the gourd gun have any range or direction? [fuse hissing] The second gourd gun creates
an impressive fountain of exploding gunpowder. If there were
projectiles in the mix, the enemy would be faced with
a volley of primitive shrapnel. [loud bang] RICHARD WINDLEY: Now, these
wouldn't have come out at very high velocity. But they could still do damage. They could still blind people. So these would have
been very, very nasty. NARRATOR: Richard has discovered
that the gourd gun can be easily handled. Ancient Chinese
commanders would have been able to equip entire armies
with these primitive handguns. You wouldn't want that
plume of flame coming at you. If you're trying to scale, say,
the walls of the fortification, of a castle, and you
were just getting to the top of the
ramparts and suddenly a whole spurt of this
flame came at you, you wouldn't want to be there. So in terms of
defensive weapons, they were probably
very effective. And, of course, on
the battlefield, a whole troop of people
wielding these things would quickly make inroads
into the enemy ranks. NARRATOR: With a few
simple modifications, the gourd was turned into a
cheap and effective fighting tool and became one of the
forerunners of the modern gun. In a sense, you could say that
the gourd was the first step on the way to the gun. It's fairly rudimentary,
and it is still more related to a firework
than the gun proper. But you can see the genesis
of the gun in the fire gourd. NARRATOR: The gourd
gun has moved on, but some chemical discoveries
are still with us. The most expensive commodity
in the ancient world-- it is still the most expensive
today, more than gold, platinum, or even diamonds. Tyrian purple was a pigment
made to dye the clothes of Roman emperors. It was made from old shellfish,
and it costs over $50,000 for one single ounce. [music playing] The world has always
contained treasured objects, from the beautiful
to the sacred. In Egypt, the brilliant
treasures of the pharaohs still glitter after 3,000 years. From ancient Greece, the
solid gold death mask of the great
warrior-king Agamemnon has lost none of its shine. In ancient temples,
mausoleums, and palaces, we have discovered treasures
beyond imagination. But what is the most valuable? What was the most
expensive, most desired, most precious treasure
in the ancient world? The ancient world has
given us many treasures. Perhaps most surprising
of all, that if we want to find the most valuable thing,
we need to look under our feet on the seashore for a small,
stinky sea snail that gave us Tyrian purple. [waves crashing] NARRATOR: Tyrian purple is named
after the ancient city of Tyre in the eastern Mediterranean. The Tyrians discovered
a natural fabric dye that became the most desirable
luxury in the Roman world. Tyrian purple was the most
expensive commodity the Roman Empire knew, something in
modern-day terms the equivalent of $2,000 per gram. That meant that it was certainly
not available to everyone. In fact, only the richest could
afford even the smallest amount of it. NARRATOR: The color was
coveted with a passion by the ruling classes of Rome. Clothes dyed with the color
proclaimed power and wealth. The price of a single
gram is $2,000, equal to the cost of almost
4 ounces of solid gold today. Tyrian purple was such
an important commodity for the emperor Nero that,
according to Suetonius, he banned anyone
else from wearing it. Tyrian purple is made from
a sea snail, a small mollusk that you find along the
shores of the Mediterranean. NARRATOR: But how can a
small common shellfish be so expensive? The answer lies in the
complicated and time-consuming process necessary to convert
the mollusk into dye. This will give
very little purple. You need 10,000, 12,000
for 1.4 gram of colorant. NARRATOR: The formulas and
the manufacturing technology were lost for centuries. Tyrian purple was a
complex thing to make, and so the real
specialists, the experts, would have kept their processes,
their styles of making that color, close to their hearts-- a secret which they would have
taken with them to the grave. And so the secret of
how to make this color has been lost for
many, many centuries. Too often, academics studying
aspects of the ancient world will sit in the library and rely
on what the texts tell them. We have to recreate the
processes that they went through, and in doing that,
we can understand exactly why this purple was of such
value to the ancient world. NARRATOR: "Ancient Discoveries"
has traveled to Provence in the south of France, one
of the heartlands of the Roman Empire, to rediscover the
secret of how to make the most valuable commodity in history. Inge Boesken Kanold is an artist
specializing in ancient dyes and pigments. Through close study of ancient
European texts and years of trial and error, she has
rediscovered this mysterious and forgotten process. Inge's first step is to acquire
a type of shellfish called a murex trunculus. [speaking french] NARRATOR: It is not
a common seafood but is occasionally cooked
and eaten in France and Italy. It can be bought at a simple
fish stall for $20 a pound. She begins the laborious task
of cracking open the shells one by one. For our experiment, Inge will
crush over 9 pounds of murex to dye just one
small piece of wool. But where does the
purple color come from? At first glance, the flesh of
the murex is white in color with no trace of purple. The answer lies in the colorless
liquid secreted from a gland inside the shell
that must be removed from each individual snail. This is the hypobranchial
gland, the purple veil, which will produce the color. I cut it out with
all the rest around, and I put it in the plate. NARRATOR: The glands Inge cuts
out are initially colorless. But they react to
oxygen and light, so the process of creating
Tyrian purple begins. The laborious process
has to be done by hand. The smallest trace
of dye is so valuable that Inge puts the leftover
water from the broken shells into the jar to make sure that
not a milligram is wasted. After days of scraping
out the shells, the result is a jar of
rich, deep purple liquid. If I dip cloth
into this, the cloth will be just dirty looking
and there is no stable purple on it. NARRATOR: Another naturally
occurring chemical is needed to bind with the
color and fix it to the fabric-- human urine. Over the next 10 days, Inge
heats the mixture in a boiler at approximately 50 degrees. She adds urine until the right
alkaline level is achieved. But how would the ancients have
known when the purple dye was ready? By smelling it, by
licking it, tasting it, and by looking at it, there
are signs which will show that. It's all the senses which
are used in order to know. They didn't need this. NARRATOR: Inge constantly
monitors the solution for 10 days, just as the ancients did. Will she succeed in
creating the dye that was used to color the
robes of the wealthiest sections of society? Purple became the color
for the nouveau riche, the people, the movers
and shakers who wanted to show that they were part
of the top, top class of Roman society. It was the ancient
equivalent of Gucci or Prada. NARRATOR: But just
as Rolex and Prada have to contend
with fakes today, ancient dyers were
victims of counterfeiters. As time goes on,
fakes start to emerge-- from animal fats, from
vegetables, from minerals. So real purple had to
try and guard its value against the fakes of
the ancient world. NARRATOR: How did
Roman high society know they were getting
the real thing? The answer once again
lies in its fishy origins, and it isn't very pleasant. The color purple
wasn't just a color. It had a smell attached to it. And in fact, some of
the sources describe it as one of the foremost foul
smells of the ancient world. And so we're left
with a quandary-- why this most expensive, luxurious
color that only emperors would wear at certain times would
also have this smell that was so repulsive. But that smell, however
bad it might be, was associated with the
luxury of the color. And so though it may have
smelt bad, it looked damn good. NARRATOR: Back in Provence,
10 days have passed and the vat is ready. Now Inge can discover
whether she has succeeded in making the most expensive
commodity yet known to man. Our wool sample must be dipped
in the dye several times. According to Pliny, you should
leave it at least five hours. But I leave it overnight. And usually I have good results
after three times dying. NARRATOR: To make
a batch of color to dye a modest garment requires
thousands of murex shells. The same piece of textile
must be dipped again and again to achieve the desired
shade of purple. An extraordinary number of
these little sea creatures must have been sacrificed
to clothe and style the most powerful
and wealthy of Rome. Even by following
the precise formula, there is no guarantee that we
will create the right shade of purple dye we
are looking for. Once the wool is out of the
active vat, it goes into water. And after about half an
hour, it should be ready. Now we'll see whether the
vat was active and effective. Let's see. And here we are. It is purple. NARRATOR: In recreating this
complex manufacturing process, "Ancient Discoveries" has
produced enough purple dye to color two grams
of natural wool. The Romans spent a fortune on
purple because it was beautiful and proclaimed wealth. Despite its foul
odor, the ancients embraced it as the greatest
symbol of high status. Our next discovery was
also a luxury item. Originally, it was used
for entertainment-- a mechanical play thing. But it would initiate a
technological revolution using principles of physics that led
to the development of today's jet engine. [engine roaring] [dramatic music] "Ancient Discoveries" has
uncovered a groundbreaking mechanical device that was
invented over 2,000 years ago. It was the first example
in history of a machine that today powers our planes
and takes us into space-- the jet engine. [engine roaring] The jet engine is the
symbol of the modern age, because it's the principle
power plant for commercial, military aviation,
and spacecraft. NARRATOR: The prototype of
this technological masterpiece was invented in the first
century AD 2,000 years ago. It ran on steam, a power
source not exploited again until the Industrial
Revolution of the modern era. Our journey begins in the city
of Alexandria in ancient Egypt. ADAM WOJCIK: Alexandria
was a very special place in ancient times. It was a hotbed of activity
for scientists and engineers. The sort of people that
were attracted there were the great
thinkers of the time. NARRATOR: It was a center
of innovation and learning, containing the largest
library of the ancient world, and home to many of the
greatest minds of antiquity. One of them was an engineer
by the name of Heron. Alexandria attracted men like
Heron, one of the most famous engineers of ancient times. NARRATOR: Heron was considered
the greatest experimenter of history. He was responsible for many of
the most celebrated inventions of the ancient world. He laid the basis for the
science of pneumatics, in other words, the action
of air under pressure. He was one of the first
people in Western history to understand that air was a
physical substance that could be harnessed to exert a force. In one of his experiments,
he designed a toy that demonstrated this insight. It was far more
than a party trick. Heron had created the
prototype of a machine that has changed our world today. Heron called it the
aeolipile, the ball of Aeolus, the Greek god of the wind. Following closely Heron's
original drawings, ancient model maker
Richard Windley has reconstructed the aeolipile. The machine is powered by steam. Water is heated in a
boiler, creating steam that is forced through the
copper pipes that support the engine. So what's happening now
is the heat from the fire is generating the steam. The steam is coming up this
tube here and coming out of each of the nozzles. Now, the action of the steam
projected out of the nozzle is producing a force
equal and opposite in the other direction, which
is what's actually giving us the rotational force. It's a wonderfully simple
but elegant device. NARRATOR: Elegant and simple
as it is, Heron's device is the forerunner of the
intricate piece of machinery that is the jet engine. How did Heron's aeolipile evolve
into one of the world's most powerful machines? The key is in the
scientific principle which underlies both
groundbreaking inventions-- a principle first described
by the physicist Isaac Newton in 1687. He called it his
third law of motion. Newton's third low of
motion is, for every reaction, there's an equal and
opposite reaction. NARRATOR: It is this principle
that underlies the physics behind jet propulsion. Heron used it to
power his aeolipile. In the aeolipile, heat
underneath the boiler causes water molecules to
vibrate and expand into the gas we call steam. Expansion creates pressure. Under pressure, the steam has
nowhere to go but up the pipes and out of the tiny
hole in the nozzles. The force of the exhaust creates
an equal and opposite reaction, which drives the
nozzle forwards. JONATHAN LUCAS: The
aeolipile was free to rotate, so as jet force was
escaping from the sphere, then the reacting force was
capable of rotating the sphere around its supports. NARRATOR: The same
principle applies to a jet. It is an internal combustion
engine powering a turbine that compresses air and forces it
out of a nozzle at the back. This drives the machine
forward in exactly the same way as herons device. This principle mechanism
is to take an air-fuel mix and accelerate that by
burning it through a nozzle. And by sending that
through a nozzle, we create a force or a thrust,
which is the principle of jet propulsion. NARRATOR: The use
of a jet of gas to propel an object is the
same principle that applies to the modern jet engine, first
designed by inventor Frank Whittle in the 1930s. Frank Whittle was the first
person to actually patent the first designed jet engine. [jet whooshing] NARRATOR: We can only imagine
what Heron of Alexandria would have felt if he knew
that his invention was the forerunner of a
machine that in a later age would change the world. If we take a power
plant of this size, which is capable of producing
lots of force, and if we attach that to
the wing of an aircraft, then the reaction
force from rearward will propel the
aircraft forward. NARRATOR: The physical
laws discovered by Heron over 2,000 years ago continue
to inform engineers working at the forefront of jet
engine technology today. Heron's aeolipile remained
a scientific curiosity for 2,000 years. What other ancient discoveries
will be exploited by engineers in our modern world? As we consider the technological
advances of the present, we acknowledge the debt
we owe to the past. From the world's most expensive
luxury to the first jet engines, the accomplishments
of the ancient world's record breakers continue to
challenge our own imagination and ingenuity. [music playing]
