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If you think that the world's greatest inventions came from the fevered minds of solitary geniuses, think again. As you scan this list of the 10 inventions that changed the world, note how many of them perfected workable designs. 10. Plow Compared to some of the gleaming, electronic inventions that fill our lives today, the plow doesn't seem very exciting. It's a simple cutting tool used to carve a furrow into the soil, churning it up to expose nutrients and prepare it for planting. Yet the plow is probably the one invention that made all others possible. No one knows...

Wheels are the archetype of a primitive, caveman-level technology. But in fact, they're so ingenious that it took until 3500 B.C. for someone to invent them. By that time -- it was the Bronze Age -- humans were already casting metal alloys, constructing canals and sailboats, and even designing complex musical instruments such as harps. The tricky thing about the wheel is not conceiving of a cylinder rolling on its edge. It's figuring out how to connect a stable, stationary platform to that cylinder. "The stroke of brilliance was the wheel-and-axle concept," said David Anthony, a professor of anthropology at...

Humans existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters and gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in winter. The 2 most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into 2 distinct subgroups: Liberals and Conservatives. Once beer was discovered it required grain and that was...

On September 19, 1997, the New York Times announced the discovery of a group of earthen mounds in northeastern Louisiana. The site, known as Watson Brake, includes 11 mounds 26 feet high linked by low ridges into an oval 916 feet long. What is remarkable about this massive complex is that it was built around 3400 B.C., more than 3,000 years before the development of farming communities in eastern North America, by hunter-gatherers, at least partly mobile, who visited the site each spring and summer to fish, hunt, and collect freshwater mussels... Social complexity cannot exist unless I it...

World's oldest wheel found in Slovenia, claim archaeologists Archaeologists claim to have unearthed the world's oldest wheel in Slovenia. Experts estimate that the wheel is between 5,100 and 5,350 years old. That makes it just 100 years older than the previous record-holders from Switzerland and southern Germany. The wheel, which is made of ash and oak, has a radius of 70 centimetres and is five centimetres thick. It was found buried beneath an ancient marsh settlement near the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana. Dr Anton Veluscek, from the Archeological Institute at the Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences, was part of...

Just a simple question to kick-around unless someone knows for sure? I'm watching the Nativity Scene the other day (Good movie, by the way) and I notice that the villagers around Mary, Joseph and family have pull carts with solid, wooden wheels. I guess I've always assumed this type of wheel came first as far as history goes... Then I started thinking about other movies like Gladiator, The 10 Commandments, various other "BC" movies and notice that they've got wooden, spoked wheels...Even though all of these movies took place much, much earlier in history than the Nativity Scene. The only...

The little slave room contains three beds, a ceramic pot and a wooden chest.Pompeii archaeologists said Saturday they have unearthed the remains of a "slave room" in an exceptionally rare find at a Roman villa destroyed by Mount Vesuvius' eruption nearly 2,000 years ago.The little room with three beds, a ceramic pot and a wooden chest was discovered during a dig at the Villa of Civita Giuliana, a suburban villa just a few hundred metres from the rest of the ancient city.An almost intact ornate Roman chariot was discovered here at the start of this year, and archaeologists said...

To the west of the Temple of Zeus was a modest fifth-century B.C. facility where the Olympian athletes bathed... A 5-foot-deep swimming pool, measuring 79 feet by 52 feet, lay adjacent to the baths; this pool also dates to the fifth century B.C. In the third century B.C. a palaestra was added... a large open-air courtyard enclosed on all four sides by a colonnade, which was surrounded by rooms. The Greek word "palaestra" means "the place of wrestling," so wrestling and other events were probably practiced in the courtyard. In the second century B.C. a large gymnasium was constructed to...

A nailed-shut amulet uncovered in Turkey in the 1930s, written in Jewish Aramaic and newly translated, pleads for help from Balaam's ass at the track A 5th century ‘curse’ tablet written in Jewish Aramaic from Antioch, Turkey, which was recently deciphered by Tel Aviv University doctoral student Rivka Elitzur-Leiman. (Princeton University) When a typical nailed-shut 5th century curse scroll was uncovered by the University of Princeton in a 1930s excavation under the hippodrome in the city of Antioch (now in Turkey), the team of archaeologists didn’t realize what a unique find they had in hand. It would take almost another...

Chariot racing goes back thousands of years and so do attempts to fix the race... Now it turns out that not only did ancient Greeks and Romans exhort the deities to ruin their rivals' beasts: Jews were hexing the horses too and betting on their favorites. The first-ever evidence of Jewish cursing in sports was found in a rolled-up metal tablet that had been located in ancient Antioch by Princeton University researchers in the 1930s – and had been left rolled up until now. The tablet, about 9x6 centimeters in size, dated to about the 5th or 6th century C.E.,...

Archaeologists have uncovered a small - but vital - clue to the use of a chariot in Moray. The piece for a horse harness was found during the latest dig at an Iron Age site at Birnie, near Elgin. Dr Fraser Hunter, of the National Museums of Scotland, said it was further evidence of the high status of its inhabitants. Excavations would have been unlikely at Birnie if not for the discovery of Roman coins 10 years ago. Glass beads that may have been made at Culbin Sands, near Nairn, in the Highlands, a dagger and quern stones for making...

Ultra millionaire sponsorship deals such as those signed by sprinter Usain Bolt, motorcycle racer Valentino Rossi and tennis player Maria Sharapova, are just peanuts compared to the personal fortune amassed by a second century A.D. Roman racer, according to an estimate published in the historical magazine Lapham's Quarterly.According to Peter Struck, associate professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, an illiterate charioteer named Gaius Appuleius Diocles earned “the staggering sum" of 35,863,120 sesterces (ancient Roman coins) in prize money.Recorded in a monumental inscription erected in 146 A.D., the figure eclipses the fortunes of all modern sport stars,...

(ANSA) - Rome, July 15 - The ancients' version of Formula 1 could once again enliven the Italian capital, with a series of high-speed chariot races. The historical society Vadis Al Maximo hopes to stage a major event next year, which would reproduce the thrills and spills of competitive charioteering, beloved of both the Romans and Greeks. ''The event would last three days, starting on October 17, at the same period when the race took place in Roman times,'' explained Vadis Al Maximo head, Franco Calo. ''If possible, we hope to involve charioteers from all over the world''. The initiative...

JERASH, Jordan (AFP) - The sun bears down and dust swirls as Roman centurions, followed by armour-clad legionnaires and bruised gladiators, tramp out of the ancient hippodrome to the trailing sounds of a military march. [Blocked Ads]In the seats all around, 21st century spectators in modern-day Jordan cheer and applaud the spectacle before them -- a one-hour show held in honour of Julius Caesar, and part of Jordan's newest tourist attraction. Starting mid-July, visitors to Jordan can plunge into the past, reliving in a unique location just north of the capital Amman some of the high moments that made the...

The sun bears down and dust swirls as Roman centurions, followed by armor-clad legionnaires and bruised gladiators, tramp out of the ancient hippodrome to the trailing sounds of a military march. In the seats all around twenty-first century spectators in modern-day Jordan cheer and applaud the spectacle before them - a one-hour show held in honor of Julius Caesar and part of Jordan's newest tourist attraction. Starting mid-July visitors to Jordan can plunge into the past, reliving in a unique location just north of the capital, Amman, some of the high moments that made the Roman Empire. The setting is...

Excavators have discovered a large four-wheel ceremonial chariot at a villa near Pompeii, an ancient city in southern Italy. Excavators found the bronze and tin chariot almost fully intact, with wooden remains and the imprint of ropes, according to an announcement on Saturday from the Archaeological Park of Pompeii. "It is an extraordinary discovery for the advancement of our knowledge of the ancient world," said the outgoing director of the park, Massimo Osanna. "At Pompeii vehicles used for transport have been found in the past, such as that of the House of Menander, or the two chariots discovered at Villa...

Roman triumphs, those vast and glorious celebrations that followed Roman military victories, are beloved of Hollywood directors and epic novelists alike. The vision of the conquering hero riding in a chariot car pulled by a quadriga of white horses with his soldiers marching behind, leading a train of captive enemies through cheering throngs of grateful citizens, scattering coins and good will all around while colossal statues and monuments loom overhead and a humble slave whispers in his ear, “remember thou art mortal” — it is an irresistible scene full of vibrant colors and superlative contrasts. For the record, I thoroughly...

On the north coast of Africa lie the ruins of a city that came within a hairbreadth of defeating the might of Rome. Now archaeologists digging at the famous Circus of Carthage have revealed a startlingly advanced system to cool down horses and chariots during races... Key to the discovery of the clever cooling system at the Circus of Carthage, the biggest sporting arena outside Rome, was the detection of water resistant mortar... The discovery was made at the spina, the median strip of the circus, around the ends of which the charioteers would turn during races. The spina would...

Archaeologists in Rome have discovered the foundations of a second triumphal arch of Roman Emperor Titus, which was thought to be lost to history, the Telegraph reports. The arch once stood at the entrance to ancient Rome's chariot-racing stadium, the Circus Maximus. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus was emperor of Rome from 79 to 81 A.D. Even though he responded quickly with aid when Vesuvius erupted barely two months into his reign in 79 and is credited with completing the Colosseum in 80, it is the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and his victory against the Jews...

<p>Hundreds of graffiti messages engraved into stone in the ancient city of Aphrodisias, in modern-day Turkey, have been discovered and deciphered, revealing what life was like there over 1,500 years ago, researchers say.</p> <p>The graffiti touches on many aspects of the city's life, including gladiator combat, chariot racing, religious fighting and sex. The markings date to a time when the Roman and Byzantine empires ruled over the city.</p>