What technologies and the skills to use them are lost in the past? The Antikythera mechanism suggests that ancient technology was more sophisticated than we imagine. We have lost the secret of medieval stained glass, Damascus steel and Greek fire, that kept Byzantium safe for centuries. We can no longer make Stradivarius violins or Roman concrete that lasted so much longer than our concrete lasts.
What drugs and medicines did the ancients discover in plants that we have lost? What did Helen use in the Odyssey to drug her dinner guests? What herbs did the medievals understand and use? What did the wortcunners know that we have forgotten?
And what about the basic skills of primitive people? Could you make fire using only sticks and leaves? Would you be any good at flintknapping? Could you spin thread using a drop spindle?
This week we discuss how people lived and worked with long forgotten skills that, someday, we may need to recover.
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