Temple of Apollo, built ca. 540 BC by the ancient greeks Temple of the Greek god Apollo, built ca. 540 BC, Corinth, Greece. Credit: Following Hadrian/CC BY-SA 2.0 Recent research shows that ancient Greeks used a primitive type of lifting machine to move heavy stones before they began using cranes 2,500 years ago. It is commonly believed that the foremost discovery of the ancient Greeks in building technology is the crane. Yet, enormous stone structures were known to have been built in Greece at least 150 years before the use of cranes themselves. Cranes first appeared in the late sixth...