Undiscovered Roman inventions

[Jan Gronvik]

Are their any yet undiscovered or unmentioned inventions within the Roman Empire that you think we will find evidence of in the future?
Or maybe we will never find those evidence but it is still possible or likely that they had the knowledge of and used certain kinds of technology?

Examples:
- Practical applications of the Heron aelopile?
- telescope?
- windmill?
- compass?
- wheelbarrow?
- others, such as...

 

[carlton_bach]

The likelihood of the wheelbarrow is pretty high. As to the others, I remain skeptical. Roman technology was good, but it wasn't ASB.

What I think we will see filtering through in years to come is the realisation that technology and social organisation in Roman times was a lot more pervasive than most people believe today. Roman archology for the past decades was drawn that way by two developments: One, the influence of a minimalist school that held the ancient world must be understood as an exploitative system in which all we view as its culture was enjoyed by a tiny minority, skimming the tiny surpluses of a vast mass of impoverished serfs or slaves. And two, the findings of archeological research into the "barbarian" peoples on its borders that we continually find to have been far more sophisticated than was previously thought. Romans, studied by the same archologists, turened out not to have been too different from their barbarian neighbours (not surprisingly, given they were neighbours). Whenever evidence of the sophistication of Roman technology turned up, it tended to be viewed as a one-off thing, or even taken for granted. Very few archeologists studied the Roman world by the methods used to study Germans or Britons (we are only now seeing the first large-scale study of latrine sediment from Roman Italy). I fully expect us to get a very different image of Roman society in its core areas.

For one thing, I would like the minimalists to show us some evidence of the 90%+ huddled masses that allegedly inhabited the Roman world without leaving any appreciable archeological record.

 

[Gimple]

I could see some rudimentary magnet on a string type compass having been used by Roman military officers.

 

[jayel]

I could see some rudimentary magnet on a string type compass having been used by Roman military officers.

Lodestone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodestone

 

[carlton_bach]

I could see some rudimentary magnet on a string type compass having been used by Roman military officers.

What would the point have been? Roman armies did not do land navigation by scale maps as far as we can tell. It would be an interesting phenomenon, sort of like the electrical charge of amber, but not likely useful to anyone.

 

[david green]

I believe the Romans had railways. They might have been able to produce some sort of primitive steam engine.

 

[Doctor Imperialism]

I believe the Romans had railways.

Um, what? Why would the Romans have railways? And if they did, then why havent we found them yet?

 

[anon_user]

Perhaps he means railways in the sense of roads with grooves for carts?

 

[Gimple]

I believe the Romans had railways. They might have been able to produce some sort of primitive steam engine.

Must be the latest twist to the story.
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp

 

[MattII]

Perhaps he means railways in the sense of roads with grooves for carts?

That's more-or-less what it was. The Diolkos (as it was called) predates the Romans though, being constructed across the Isthmus of Corinth in around about 600 BC, although there's sketchy evidence that the romans exported the idea, based on some excavation in Malta and a few other places around the Empire.

 

[Cook]

Is someone seriously going to tell me that a civilisation that had the single axle chariot and a lot of slaves didn’t use something resembling a wheelbarrow on construction sites?

 

[Jan Gronvik]

- Practical applications of the Heron aelopile:
Maybe in the temples to move some gizmo to baffle the spectators.

- Telescope:
Lenses made of glass have been found and some of them could have been used to magnify gems to engrave them. To arrange lenses to make a telescope or a microscope would have required a leap of thought by the Ancients.

- Windmill:
A model and a sketch made by Heron showing a type of fan/windmill driving an organ. I don't know of any documented practical uses, but the obvious one would have been grinding grain, like in the Middle Ages. But the Romans already had watermills for that and other uses.

- Wheelbarrow:
There is a notation of something resembling a wheelbarrow in an old Greek document, but AFAIK no remains of grecoroman wheelbarrows have been found, maybe because it was completely made of wood.

 

[carlton_bach]

Is someone seriously going to tell me that a civilisation that had the single axle chariot and a lot of slaves didn’t use something resembling a wheelbarrow on construction sites?

Yes. That someone is called Lynn White and his word was considered gospel for nigh-on thirty years.

Of course it is perfectly possible for a civilisation to not invent something that, in retrospect, seems blindingly obvious.

 

[Gimple]

I would think leaps in philosophy, religion, writing, theater and liquor.
Romans took their entertainment seriously. Since there empire had a lack of playstations, cable TV and Internet they needed to be constantly innovative.
They had their gladiators of course, but to think alcohol would be restricted to beer and wine. I mean wouldn't some Roman alchemist thought up to concentrate the alcohol and add flavors to it.
How about philosophy? We already know that Constantine took the three main cults plaguing the empire at the time consolidated them through himself in the mix and created Christianity. But you think about it, there must have been some trials with other philosophies over the years. Rome had access to so much. Philosophies from Greece to Egypt, Persia to Phoenicia, Africa to Arabia, all showed up in Rome. Most Romans must have experimented. With so much time on their hands between gladiator bouts and shows at the amphitheater they must have stood on stools and proclaimed their world views in droves.
The Romans while their religion has some Greek origins where a lot less sophisticated in that realm. Many of them took more stock in household deities then any major powers in the sky. Way to many were just plain atheists and had no time for the gods. No wonder that at some point they lost faith in empire. I am sure many an emperor tried to rekindle faith as a form of control.

 

[Jan Gronvik]

Distillation as a chemical method was known in Alexandria in the first century AD.

And they must have known about Buddhism and Hinduism through their voyages to India.

 

[Gimple]

Distillation as a chemical method was known in Alexandria in the first century AD.

And they must have known about Buddhism and Hinduism through their voyages to India.

If they figured how to distill alcohol as a beverage...no wonder the barbarians wanted their secrets.

 

[Abgrund]

Yes. That someone is called Lynn White and his word was considered gospel for nigh-on thirty years.

Of course it is perfectly possible for a civilisation to not invent something that, in retrospect, seems blindingly obvious.

Is it really? If they had the single axle chariot, it is 100% likely that, fairly often, someone is going to find it amusing to make a slave or two drag him around in his chariot. That's already a wheelbarrow, just moving backward from the usual arrangement. It's easier to believe that no Roman depictions or descriptions of a wheelbarrow have survived, than that they never used any.

 

[Gimple]

Is it really? If they had the single axle chariot, it is 100% likely that, fairly often, someone is going to find it amusing to make a slave or two drag him around in his chariot. That's already a wheelbarrow, just moving backward from the usual arrangement. It's easier to believe that no Roman depictions or descriptions of a wheelbarrow have survived, than that they never used any.

hyperteria monokyklou

 

[Cook]

Yes. That someone is called Lynn White and his word was considered gospel for nigh-on thirty years.

Of course it is perfectly possible for a civilisation to not invent something that, in retrospect, seems blindingly obvious.

This isn’t a case of inventing anything; this is a case of application. I have serious problems picturing them building the Colosseum in Rome and miles of aqueducts and no-one saying, ‘you know what’d be useful around here; a really small cart.’

Do we have any drawings or accurate descriptions of Roman Engineering? By accurate I mean the purchase orders for supplies? Scribes and scholars seldom hang out at construction sites, generally turning up for the Emperor’s ribbon cutting ceremony if at all.

 

[carlton_bach]

Is it really? If they had the single axle chariot, it is 100% likely that, fairly often, someone is going to find it amusing to make a slave or two drag him around in his chariot. That's already a wheelbarrow, just moving backward from the usual arrangement. It's easier to believe that no Roman depictions or descriptions of a wheelbarrow have survived, than that they never used any.

It's actually pretty likely we have those descriptions. They just tended not to be interpreted that way - or looked at much. There is an article on the subject (unfortunately, I have it on my old hard drive).

However, it is easily possible for an invention not to happen that, in retrospect, would make life easier. How long did it take the Western world to come up with the paperclip?