Reuters is about a year or more late on this story, History Channel covered this a while back.
It also went into the water clocks and other mechanical devices.
Actually the water clock in that special is mostly intact, in athens, near the acropolis.
It is actually quite stagering how much knowlege was delayed due to the dark ages. Imagine where we would be if we did not lose those 1000 years or so.
textbooks refer to babbage's differential machine, or even the eniac as the world's first computer. When I beg to differ, I cite the Antekythera (or however ya spell ti) mechanism. opens a few eyes as to just how smart we really can be.
Reuters is about a year or more late on this story, History Channel covered this a while back.
This is actually brand new work; they wheeled in a sophisticated portable X-Ray machine and discovered new engravings and stuff. If I recall correctly, it's going to be formally publicized in a conference on Nov 30th or Dec 1st; this is just the hype leading up to the announcement.
It was during the Dark Ages that Islam was concocted and conquered most of the ancient world.
Those years weren't lost. Plenty of good work was done during that time. It was during the Middle Ages that the church invented, for all practical purposes, the modern university.
We're about to lose another 1000...
"Imagine where we would be if we did not lose those 1000 years or so."
My guess is that we would all be already dead.
There could be a thousand years of darkness ahead.
Technology kept chugging along but it was practical technology rather then play toys for the very rich.
Lots of practical technology was squashed back in Ancient times. After all if you came up with a water powered machine that spun thread then what would the peasants do?
Labor saving was not on their list of things that were desirable. By their way of thinking it would result in a bored unemployed workforce.