The Mechanical Triumphs of the Ancient Egyptians by F.M. Barber

Author:F.M. Barber [Barber, F.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Ancient, Egypt, Social Science, Archaeology
ISBN: 9781136207228
Google: vZ-AAAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-08-21T01:18:23+00:00

FIG. XII. FINISHED CASING STONES

In my opinion the humble shadoof, fig. ii., affords exactly the kind of machine used by the Egyptians. Replace the pole and bucket at one end of the beam by a rope-sling for a stone; replace the ball of mud at the other end by a rope-basket or net into which small stones can be thrown, and we have a machine whose every feature and principle we know them to have been acquainted with, and which they could make as strong as wood and rope, without iron, would allow, fig. xiii. Some writers on Egypt refer to the crude forms of rope which the early Egyptians must have had, but this is a mistake. Even the South Sea Islanders make good rope, and it may also be said that rope making marks the first stage of civilization where man improved upon the thong, cut from the raw hide or sinew of an animal. In the Babylonian expedition of the University of Pennsylvania in 1892 there was found under the temple of Bel, the ruins of a drain with a key-stone arch, and in it a vase of terra cotta with a rope pattern on the exterior. The vase Dr. Hilprecht places at 5000 B.C., and also the arch and the weight of authority nowadays supposes the Egyptians to have come from that part of the world. The pictured boats in the tomb of Ti, V. Dyn., and especially those of Queen Hatasoo, figs. iv. and v., show an immense amount of knowledge of rope making and rope using. Several ancient specimens of rope made from the fibre of the date palm have been found in Egypt; but it is not surprising that more have not been discovered, for “dry rot,” that peculiar enemy of ropes made of vegetable fibre, must have been very prevalent in that country. Undoubtedly they must have had still stronger ropes of raw hide and human hair, which were much in use by all ancient nations, women’s hair being particularly in request for the twisted ropes of catapults, on account of its fineness and strength. Even to-day one can see in the new Hongwonje temple of Kioto, Japan, great coils of rope whose fibre has been contributed voluntarily by pious women throughout the Empire. The ancient Egyptians had also the knowledge of the use of many rope supports for a weak spar, as is shown by the multitude of lifts on the slender lower yard of Queen Hatasoo’s boat. This kind of support would be necessary in the case of the shadoof lifting machine to enable it to lift a weight of five or six tons, and it could never have been able to do much more than that, for wood and rope have their limits, and this simple form of lever is a very poor one mechanically, the strain on it being double the weight to be lifted. The fore and main yards of an old fashioned frigate could lift from

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