It's easy to think of ancient civilizations as fairly primitive. After all, it wasn't long ago that we didn't have cars, phones, or even televisions, so ancient societies must have been pretty basic, right?
Well, believe it or not, these civilizations were actually responsible for inventing a number of technologies that are integral in our current day. So, what did the ancients come up with?
1. Central Heating
Thousands of years ago, while ancient Greece was a powerful nation, central heating was invented. This heating system consisted of flues or ducts, planted in the ground, which then carried the heat produced by fire into people's homes. Because the fires required for this process needed to be constantly kept alight, servants or slaves often had to monitor the flames and ensure their longevity.
Of course, these central heating systems were not available to any old ancient Greek. It was mostly the more affluent and powerful individuals who had access to this technology. A known example of ancient central heating being used is in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, a Greek temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis.
This certainly is a far cry from the sleek radiators and heated floors we have today, but the invention itself paved the way for more sophisticated central heating systems in the future.
2. Sewer Systems
Without sewer systems, we'd certainly be in a bit of a messy situation (to say the least). Well, around 2,500 years ago, the first sewer system was laid in Italy.
While many believe that it was the ancient Romans who invented the sewers, the reality is that the Romans simply continued to use the sewer systems created by the Etruscans. The Etruscans existed over what is now Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio. The Etruscan civilization existed for hundreds of years, but essentially faded entirely upon the establishment of the Roman Empire.
The sewer system created by the Etruscans consisted of underground tunnels, built from very finely carved rock. When the Romans discovered these sewers, they began to install them in many regions around the Roman Empire, and this is why many believe they invented the first sewer system.
3. The Steam Turbine
Today, steam turbines are used around the world to power compressors and pumps in machinery. But, the steam turbine is far from a modern invention. In fact, the first steam turbine was invented almost two thousand years ago by the ancient Greeks.
This rudimentary mechanism, named the aeolipile, was created by Heron of Alexandria, a Greek mathematician and engineer, in the first century AD. This turbine consisted of a hollow sphere that turned on a pair of hollow tubes. These tubes received steam from a heated cauldron below and allowed the sphere to spin.
While this was a far cry from the huge steam turbines used today, it laid the foundations for the development of this incredibly useful technology.
4. The Battery
While many may think the battery is a fairly recent invention, its most rudimentary version was actually invented almost two thousand years ago, though it is not known exactly when. Archaeologists believe that this mechanism was either invented during the reign of the Parthian or Sasanian Empires, in the second or third century AD.
The artifact was discovered in 1936 in Khujut Rabu in Iraq and consists of a copper tube, a rod of iron, and a basic ceramic pot. This, of course, looks nothing like the modern-day lithium-ion battery, and this has led to a lot of conflicting opinions over its proposed use.
The most common proposed use of this mechanism is for electrotherapy, but there are many other researchers and scientists that disagree. Some believe it was used to store ancient scrolls safely, with others claiming that no legitimate archaeologists believe this artifact could have ever been used as a battery due to its lack of circuitry. In any case, the jury is still out on whether or not this object is the world's first battery or not.
5. The Compass
Until the invention of the SATNAV, people were reliant on the compass for navigation and travel. A compass relies on the planet's magnetic field to decipher which direction is north, south, east, or west. And, it was thanks to the Vikings that the basic concept behind this device was created.
While the Vikings did not invent the common magnetic compass, they did invent a system that categorized the horizon into eight different sections, called an attir. A set of prominent stars were used to create these navigational points, such as the Northern Star, otherwise known as Polaris. This system laid the basic foundations for later navigational systems, and the invention of the traditional compass.
6. The Alarm Clock
If your alarm clock got you up for work yesterday, you might want to give a nod to the ancient Greeks. In the third century BC, an ancient Greek inventor and mathematician named Ctesibius noticed that Greek civilians were finding it hard to remind themselves to wake up, eat, or head out to events. This is when he decided to develop a device that could remind people of the time.
This mechanism used falling pebbles hitting a gong to create an alarm sound, with the drop of the pebbles being triggered by a water clock that kept track of the time.
However, many attribute the invention of the alarm clock to Plato, a famous Greek philosopher who lived and died before Ctesibius was even born. Plato created his own version of the water alarm clock in 427B.C, almost 200 years before Ctesibius's invention. What we do know is that Ctesibius went on to improve his invention, and changed the unpleasant gong sound to one that resembled birdsong and bells. So, maybe we have both of these ancient geniuses to thank for the current alarm clock.
The Ancient World Was More Advanced Than You'd Think
While the world today looks very different from that of the ancients, we cannot deny that they pioneered some ingenious inventions that live on in our current day. While there is still so much we don't know about ancient civilizations, one thing we can be sure of is that they were as curious and eager to advance as we are today.