Classical Studies 2700B
[The announced topic for this lecture (Tuesday, 9th February, 2010) is Machinery; however, there is a fair-sized section of Water Supplies to complete first. Thereafter, Machinery will be discussed.]
Machinery
Introduction: this section is quite short because we have already looked at Construction (and the machines involved; though please pay attention to the section in Landels about the crane with the single-beam jib and the device called the “carchesion” on pages 92-98). In addition, since war machines are part of the prescription for the second half of the course (that is, Chapter 5 in Landels), these devices will be considered in class later.
Since the previous lecture was on water supply, it is convenient to start a consideration of machines with water-driven devices: the shaduf; the Archimedian screw pump (the cochlea in Latin); other water-lifting devices: this leads to pumps generally (Landels chapter 3); water mills and the question of “undershot” versus “overshot” wheels (see the “ambiguous case” of the multiple Roman mills at Barbegal near Arles in S. France), which also connects with pumps, in the form of a “water wheel reversed”: this sort of thing and other bucket and chain lifting devices are described in Landels pp. 69-75. Other types of mill for grinding grain. Also, “force pumps”.
Air-driven machines. First, Hero’s “steam turbine” (Landels pp. 28-33): was such a thing ever built as a full-size working model? Probably not (maybe even just a design on papyrus). Next, using air pressure, there is “temple magic” (water poured by statues before a sacrifice; automatically opening temple doors). It can, of course, also be argued that the commonest “air-driven machines” in the ancient world were ships; these will, however, be discussed in a later lecture (on Transportation).
The “reaping machine”: invented in
Finally, the strangest device of all, the “Antikythera computer”, discovered in a shipwreck off the S.
coast of