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Underground > Temple >

Ancient Machines

All Acting Regiment

08:46 / 05.03.06

I'm looking to discuss "pre-modern descriptions of engines, machines, aircraft, etcetera", and I've put this thread in the temple because a lot of old mythic/religious texts refer to such things. Also there's various chariots of this or that god to think about, and of course the Chariot from the Tarot.

Firstly, does anyone have any links to any information about things like this; secondly, do you think these things are real or more likely meant as a metaphor for "spiritual" movement, and thirdly, do you think there is any paradigm-shifting value in considering that what we think of as modern phenomenon may well have existed before our time?

iconoplast

15:06 / 05.03.06

It's a differential gear from ancient Greece.

Pyewacket The Elder

16:40 / 05.03.06

There is a very entertaining article in the Fortean Times this month that claims that the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle constituted an ancient electrical charge generator. Dunno if I believe that but it appears feasible according to my limited understanding of these things. The article will no doubt appear on the Fortean Times web site once the next issue comes out. Here is an entry at Wiki:

Ancient Batteries

Nietzsch E. Coyote

04:28 / 16.03.06

Baghdad Batteries

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

05:26 / 16.03.06

Dendra arc lights

I love ancient technology. Though this all seems to be very serious, and I have yet to see anything theoreticaly Vril batteries.

I'm really amazed sometimes, well a lot of the time really, about how far we've come, technologically speaking, in the last century. We've gone from gas lamps to Light Emitting Diodes. From steam ships and rail roads to supersonic jets, space shuttles, and electric-powered cars. ANd from Difference Engines and calculating cylinders to this laptop I'm currently typing on (though the laptop's really an innovation of the last 15 years or so...but still).

Perfect Tommy

19:34 / 18.03.06

Perhaps too far afield, but I have read someone comparing Qin's Terracotta Army to a legion of robots. Alternatively, you could look at them as artificial 'life', which I scarequote because they were supposed to be animated in the afterlife.

Isadore

05:24 / 19.03.06

Speaking of ancient robots, the story of the golem of the rabbi in Prauge is always interesting, though likely impossible to verify.

The ancient Greeks had steam engines back in the day, or so I hear; they just didn't consider them useful, and so the engines were used for toys and such. Try looking up Heronas of Alexandria.

(I really need to find better references!)

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