~Inventions from the Middle East~
“Prehistoric Asian Inventions”
Source: Szczepanski, Kallie, About.com Guide. “Prehistoric Asian Inventions: 10,000 - 3,500 B.C.” About.com.
http://asianhistory.about.com/od/asianinventions/tp/Prehistoric-inventions.htm . Accessed August 2010.
Wheat
“Humans have probably gathered the seeds of wild grasses for food for millennia. At some
point, someone in the Middle East realized that they could save some of the grass seeds, and
plant them. This allowed people to grow a food supply in a place of their choosing. The first
archaeological evidence of cultivated wheat comes from Abu Hureyra, a Fertile Crescent site
in modern-day Syria.”
Domestication of Sheep and Goats
“Sheep and goats were the first livestock animals to be domesticated. They are less
dangerous than wild cattle and horses, and are also very useful. Humans get wool, skins, milk,
and meat from these animals. The first domesticated sheep and goats were probably raised in
Mesopotamia, in the Fertile Crescent.”
“Domestication of the Cat”
“Early domestic cats have long been associated with Egypt, where the animals were
worshipped. However, recent evidence shows that the cat was probably domesticated even
before dynastic Egyptian times, in the Middle East. Cats are not useful pets for nomadic
hunter/gatherers, since they are very territorial and dislike moving. Settled farmers, on the
other hand, need cats to protect their stored grains from rodents. So, unlike dogs, cats were
not domesticated until people settled down and turned to agriculture.”
“Domestication of Cattle”
“Cattle likely were first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East around 8,000
B.C., although a different species of African cattle may have been tamed even earlier. Wild
cattle were extremely dangerous, so it seems likely that the first domestic cows were captured
as calves and hand-raised, perhaps after their mothers were killed by human hunters.”
“The first
amazing
represent
Weaving
known woven cloth comes from a cave at Nahal Hemer in Judea. While this
linen cloth is the earliest yet found, it is too finely-woven and sophisticated to
the human race's true first attempt at weaving!”
“Ancient Asian Inventions”
Source: Szczepanski, Kallie, About.com Guide. “Ancient Asian Inventions: 3,500 - 1,000 B.C.” About.com.
http://asianhistory.about.com/od/asianinventions/tp/Ancient-Asian-Inventions.htm . Accessed August 2010.
“Once the most basic inventions had been created in prehistoric times…humanity was free to create more
luxurious goods….”
“First written language”
procsilas on Flickr.com
“Creative minds all around the world have tackled the problem of capturing the
stream of sounds we call speech, and rendering it into a written form. In regions
as diverse as Mesopotamia, China, and Meso-America, different solutions have
been found for this intriquing riddle. Perhaps the first people to write things down
were the Sumerians, living in what is now Iraq, who invented a writing system
based on syllables around 3,000 B.C. Much like modern Chinese writing, each
symbol in Sumerian represented a syllable or idea, which could be combined with
other symbols to form entire words.”
“Man-made glass”
Amy the Nurse on Flickr.com
“The Roman historian Pliny tells us that the Phoenicians discovered glass-making
around 3,000 B.C. when some sailors lit a fire on a sandy beach on the Syrian
coast. The sailors did not have any stones on which to rest their cooking pots, so
they used blocks of potassium nitrate (salt peter) as supports, instead. When they
woke up the next day, they found that the fire had fused silicon from the sand with
soda from the salt peter, forming glass. Naturally occuring glass can be found
when lightning strikes sand, and also in the form of volcanic obsidian. The Phoenicians thus likely recognized
the substance produced by their cooking fire. The earliest known glass vessel is from Egypt, and dates to
about 1450 B.C.”
Soap
soapylovedeb on Flickr.com
“Around 2,800 B.C., Babylonians (in modern-day Iraq) discovered that they could
create an effective cleanser by mixing animal fat with wood ashes. They boiled the
two ingredients together in clay cylinders to produce the world's first known bars of
soap.”
“Irrigation Canals”
Hasan Iqbal Wamy on
Flickr.com
“Every farmer knows that
rain can be an unreliable source of water for crops.
To solve this problem,
the farmers of both Sumer and China began to dig
irrigation canal systems
around 2,400 B.C. A series of ditches and gates
directed river water out
onto the fields, where thirsty crops waited.
Unfortunately for the
Sumerians, their land had once been a sea bed.
Frequent irrigation drove
ancient salts to the surface, salinating the land and
ruining it for agriculture. The once-Fertile Crescent became unable to support crops by 1,700 B.C., and the
Sumerian culture collapsed.”
“Cartography (map-making)”
Map House of London / Getty Images
“The earliest known map was created during the reign of Sargon of Akkad, who
ruled in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) around 2,300 B.C. The map depicts northern
Iraq. Although map-reading is second nature to most modern-day humans, it was
quite an intellectual leap to conceive of drawing vast areas of land, at a much
reduced scale, and from a birds-eye point of view.”
“The oar”
mason bryant on Flickr.com
“It comes as no surprise that the sea-faring Phoenicians invented the oar.
Egyptians began using paddles to move up and down the Nile as early as
3,000 B.C. The Phoenician sailors took the same idea, and gave it added
leverage by fixing a fulcrum (the oarlock) to the side of the boat, and sliding the
oar into it. Today, oars are used mainly in recreational boating. Until the
invention of steamboats and motorboats, however, oars were still very
important in commercial and military sailing. Even when sailing ships were the technology of the day, people
still rowed out to their ships in smaller boats... propelled by oars.”
“Classical Asian Inventions”
Source: Szczepanski, Kallie, About.com Guide. “Classical Asian Inventions: 1,000 B.C. - 500 A.D.” About.com.
http://asianhistory.about.com/od/asianinventions/tp/Classical-Asian-Inventions.htm
. Accessed August 2010
“The Mirror”
“Humans have probably used still water as a mirror since self-awareness began in the
mists of prehistory. Later, shined pieces of obsidian or plates of metal became popular
reflectors. However, the first modern mirrors, made of glass backed with metal leaf, were
invented in Lebanon around 400 B.C. Since the Lebanese invented glass, it seems fitting
that they also created the first mirrors. According to Roman historian Pliny, the first
mirrors were manufactured at Sidon, and consisted of a sheet of glass backed by lead,
and later gold, silver, or copper leaf.”
“Modern number
system”
Photodisc / Getty
Images
“The numbering
system used today in the western world was first developed
around 500 A.D. by
the Indian mathematician and astronomer, Aryabhata I. His
system was
improved upon around 600 by Arab mathematician Muhammad
ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, who introduced the "positional zero" -- that is, zeros used to indicate multiples of 10.
This system soon replaced the cumbersome Latin system of Roman numerals for most applications. Once
scholars could easily distinguish between 1, 100, and 10,000, modern math and science advanced by leaps
and bounds.”