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Ancient Technology
During the growth of the ancient civilizations, ancient technology was the result from advances in engineering in ancient times. These advances in the history of technology stimulated societies to adopt new ways of living and governance. This article includes the advances in technology and the development of several engineering sciences in historic times before the Middle Ages, which began after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476, the death of Justinian I in the 6th century, the coming of Islam in the 7th century, or the rise of Charlemagne in the 8th century. For technologies developed in medieval societies, see Medieval technology and Inventions in medieval Islam. Ancient civilizations Africa Technology in Africa has a history stretching to the beginning of the human species, stretching back to the first evidence of tool use by hominid ancestors in the areas of Africa where humans are believed to have evolved. Africa saw the advent of some of the earliest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civilization
A civilization (also spelled civilisation in British English) is any complex society characterized by the development of state (polity), the state, social stratification, urban area, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural language, signed or spoken languages (namely, writing systems). Civilizations are organized around densely-populated settlements, divided into more or less rigid hierarchy, hierarchical social classes of division of labour, often with a ruling elite and a subordinate urban and rural populations, which engage in intensive agriculture, mining, small-scale manufacture and trade. Civilization concentrates power, extending human control over the rest of nature, including over other human beings. Civilizations are characterized by elaborate agriculture, architecture, infrastructure, Innovation, technological advancement, currency, taxation, regulation, and specialization of labour. Historically, a civilization has often been understo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niger
Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state Geography of Niger#Political geography, bordered by Libya to the Libya–Niger border, north-east, Chad to the Chad–Niger border, east, Nigeria to the Niger–Nigeria border, south, Benin and Burkina Faso to the Benin-Niger border, south-west, Mali to the Mali–Niger border, west, and Algeria to the Algeria–Niger border, north-west. It covers a land area of almost , making it the largest landlocked country in West Africa and the second-largest landlocked nation in Africa behind Chad. Over 80% of its land area lies in the Sahara. Its Islam in Niger, predominantly Muslim population of about million lives mostly in clusters in the south and west of the country. The capital Niamey is located in Niger's south-west corner along the namesake Niger River. Following the spread of Islam to the region, Niger was on the fringes of some states, including the Kanem–Bornu Empire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armor
Armour (Commonwealth English) or armor (American English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat, or from a potentially dangerous environment or activity (e.g. cycling, construction sites, etc.). Personal armour is used to protect soldiers and war animals. Vehicle armour is used on warships, armoured fighting vehicles, and some combat aircraft, mostly ground attack aircraft. A second use of the term ''armour'' describes Division (military)#Armoured division, armoured forces, #Armoured fighting vehicles, armoured weapons, and their role in combat. After the development of armoured warfare, tanks and mechanised infantry and their combat formations came to be referred to collectively as "armour". Etymology The word "armour" began to appear in the Middle Ages as a derivati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iron
Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most abundant element in the Earth's crust, being mainly deposited by meteorites in its metallic state. Extracting usable metal from iron ores requires kilns or furnaces capable of reaching , about 500 °C (900 °F) higher than that required to smelt copper. Humans started to master that process in Eurasia during the 2nd millennium BC and the use of iron tools and weapons began to displace copper alloys – in some regions, only around 1200 BC. That event is considered the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. In the modern world, iron alloys, such as steel, stainless steel, cast iron and special steels, are by far the most common industrial metals, due to their mechan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gold
Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal, a group 11 element, and one of the noble metals. It is one of the least reactivity (chemistry), reactive chemical elements, being the second-lowest in the reactivity series. It is solid under standard temperature and pressure, standard conditions. Gold often occurs in free elemental (native state (metallurgy), native state), as gold nugget, nuggets or grains, in rock (geology), rocks, vein (geology), veins, and alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver (as in electrum), naturally alloyed with other metals like copper and palladium, and mineral inclusions such as within pyrite. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides). Gold is resistant to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloids (such as arsenic or silicon). These additions produce a range of alloys some of which are harder than copper alone or have other useful properties, such as strength, ductility, or machinability. The archaeological period during which bronze was the hardest metal in widespread use is known as the Bronze Age. The beginning of the Bronze Age in western Eurasia is conventionally dated to the mid-4th millennium BCE (~3500 BCE), and to the early 2nd millennium BCE in China; elsewhere it gradually spread across regions. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age, which started about 1300 BCE and reaching most of Eurasia by about 500 BCE, although bronze continued to be much more widely used than it is in modern times. Because historica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copper
Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orange color. Copper is used as a conductor of heat and electricity, as a building material, and as a constituent of various metal alloys, such as sterling silver used in jewelry, cupronickel used to make marine hardware and coins, and constantan used in strain gauges and thermocouples for temperature measurement. Copper is one of the few metals that can occur in nature in a directly usable, unalloyed metallic form. This means that copper is a native metal. This led to very early human use in several regions, from . Thousands of years later, it was the first metal to be smelted from sulfide ores, ; the first metal to be cast into a shape in a mold, ; and the first metal to be purposely alloyed with another metal, tin, to create bronze, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of the three-age system, following the Stone Age and preceding the Iron Age. Conceived as a global era, the Bronze Age follows the Neolithic, with a transition period between the two known as the Chalcolithic. The final decades of the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean basin are often characterised as a period of widespread societal collapse known as the Late Bronze Age collapse (), although its severity and scope are debated among scholars. An ancient civilisation is deemed to be part of the Bronze Age if it either produced bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying it with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or traded other items for bronze from producing areas elsewhere. Bronze Age cultures were the first to History of writing, develop writin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haya People
The Haya (or Bahaya) are a Bantu ethnic group based in Kagera Region, northwestern Tanzania, on the western side of Lake Victoria. With over one million people, it is estimated that Haya make up approximately 4% of the population of Tanzania. Historically, the Haya have had a complex kingship-based political system. Agriculture, particularly banana farming, is central to Haya economic life. They are credited with the independent development of carbon steel dating to 2000 years ago using pre-heating techniques. Etymology According to Hans Cory, the term ( Haya for fisher-people) was originally used to differentiate the Haya from the Banyambo of Karagwe. This distinction is said to be based on cultural differences, with the Haya economy predominantly oriented toward fishing and other industries on Lake Victoria and the Banyambo predominately engaged in pastoralism. Other sources on the origin of the term Haya cite oral accounts that state it derives from a goddess named Muhay ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blast Furnace
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being supplied above atmospheric pressure. In a blast furnace, fuel ( coke), ores, and flux (limestone) are continuously supplied through the top of the furnace, while a hot blast of (sometimes oxygen enriched) air is blown into the lower section of the furnace through a series of pipes called tuyeres, so that the chemical reactions take place throughout the furnace as the material falls downward. The end products are usually molten metal and slag phases tapped from the bottom, and flue gases exiting from the top. The downward flow of the ore along with the flux in contact with an upflow of hot, carbon monoxide-rich combustion gases is a countercurrent exchange and chemical reaction process. In contrast, air furnaces (such as reverberatory furnaces) are naturally aspirated, usu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carbon Steel
Carbon steel is a steel with carbon content from about 0.05 up to 2.1 percent by weight. The definition of carbon steel from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) states: * no minimum content is specified or required for chromium, cobalt, molybdenum, nickel, niobium, titanium, tungsten, vanadium, zirconium, or any other element to be added to obtain a desired alloying effect; * the specified minimum for copper does not exceed 0.40%; * or the specified maximum for any of the following elements does not exceed: manganese 1.65%; silicon 0.60%; and copper 0.60%. As the carbon content percentage rises, steel has the ability to become harder and stronger through heat treating; however, it becomes less ductile. Regardless of the heat treatment, a higher carbon content reduces weldability. In carbon steels, the higher carbon content lowers the melting point. The term may be used to reference steel that is not stainless steel; in this use carbon steel may include alloy st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swahili Coast
The Swahili coast () is a coastal area of East Africa, bordered by the Indian Ocean and inhabited by the Swahili people. It includes Sofala (located in Mozambique); Mombasa, Gede, Kenya, Gede, Pate Island, Lamu, and Malindi (in Kenya); and Dar es Salaam and Kilwa (in Tanzania). In addition, several coastal islands are included in the Swahili coast, such as Zanzibar and Comoros. Areas of what is today considered the Swahili coast were historically known as Azania or Zingion in the Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman era, and as Zanj, Zanj or Zinj in Middle Eastern, Indian and Chinese literature from the 7th to the 14th century.A. Lodhi (2000), ''Oriental influences in Swahili: a study in language and culture contacts,'', pp. 72-84 The word "Swahili" means people of the coasts in Arabic and is derived from the word ''sawahil'' ("coasts"). The Swahili people and their culture formed from a distinct mix of African and Arab origins. The Swahili were traders and merchants and readily absorb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
