'Caesar's superglue' find

The Scotsman ^ | 05 Dec 2007 | The Scotsman

[BGHater]

ARCHAEOLOGISTS in Germany have found a 2,000-year-old glue Roman warriors used to repair helmets, shields and the other accessories of battle.

"Caesar's superglue" - as it has been dubbed by workers at the Rhine State Museum in Bonn - was found on a helmet at a site near Xanthen on the Rhine River where Romans settled before Christ.

Frank Welker, a restorer at the museum, said: "We found the parade cavalry helmet had been repaired with an adhesive that was still doing its job.

"This is rightly called some kind of superglue because air, water and time have not diminished its bonding properties. We haven't mixed up a batch ourselves yet, but we can thoroughly reccommend it - it lasts, after all, for 2,000 years."

The adhesive was made from a mixture of bitumen, cattle fat and bark pitch.

[BGHater]

I wonder if they had a battlefield glue like we used in Vietnam for wounds as well.

[BGHater]

Glue ping.

[SatinDoll]

Furniture made in China sure could use that glue. Stuff tends to fall apart.

[crazyhorse691]

“This is rightly called some kind of superglue because air, water and time have not diminished its bonding properties. We haven’t mixed up a batch ourselves yet, but we can thoroughly reccommend it - it lasts, after all, for 2,000 years.”

---

Who would have guessed that my wife's secret meatloaf recipe was handed down from the Romans?

[lesser_satan]

...at a site near Xanthen on the Rhine River where Romans settled before Christ.

I wasn't aware that Christ ever settled at a site near Xanthen on the Rhine.

[DeaconBenjamin]

Xanthan gum?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

A certain irony, as I recall from the History Channel that one of the biggest problems with the Me-262 was the poor quality of German adhesives.

[doc1019]

Ecclesiastes 1:9 … nothing new under the sun.

[TexGuy]

I wasn't aware that Christ ever settled at a site near Xanthen on the Rhine.

It says it right there in black-and-white. "... where Romans settled before Christ." Must have got there only a few days prior! *snicker*

[traderrob6]

Gorilla Maximus.

[PAR35]

I wasn't aware that Christ ever settled at a site near Xanthen on the Rhine.

Wonder if it is close to Xanten? Lots of Roman stuff there.

[MHGinTN]

Lamp oil being a pH germ killer was used in ancient times without knowing it killed germs because they didn’t know germs existed. Wounds healed and people lived when they used the lamp oil.

[BGHater]

That, and Honey worked wonders.

[VOA]

The adhesive was made from a mixture of bitumen, cattle fat and bark pitch.

Facetiously, wait till we find out the Romans were making an
adhesive that was made of "Buckyballs" (those 60-carbon spheres).

OK, it probably doesn't make "Buckyballs"...but I suspect research
on this old glue is the start of a number of PhD theses!

[FreedomPoster]

And they’ll be more useful than 99.99% of all Womyn’s Studies PhDs.

[toddlintown]

“a site near Xanthen on the Rhine River where Romans settled before Christ”

Christ had a place on the Rhine? The things you learn on FR.

[chasio649]

Use some Gorilla glue...i like the stuff.

[Fairview]

Use some Gorilla glue...i like the stuff.

It's okay for some applications but it turns yellow, and it expands horribly. Also, it does not hold porous things that are going to get wet--for instance, it will let go of wood if the wood gets wet, even briefly.

[ikka]

Well there would be a lot of carbon in the ingredients specified.

Romancrete is also quite strong, as strong or stronger than some modern forms of concrete.

[skr]

LOL!