Small Inventions? They Changed How People Lived in the Hellenistic Age

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Knowledge and technology have advanced throughout history in uneven spasms. The Neolithic dawn (eighth to seventh millennia B.C.E.a) was one such time. The Italian Renaissance (14th century C.E.) was another. Between these two spikes in the graph was the Hellenistic period (336–44 B.C.E.),b in many ways greater than both. The Italian Renaissance, for example, was distinguished by advances in knowledge (and a burst of extraordinary creativity in the arts), but this only laid the foundation for an industrial revolution 200 years later. By comparison, the Hellenistic period witnessed a full industrial flourishing. Only when we view the Hellenistic […]

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Footnotes

B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era) are the scholarly alternate designations corresponding to B.C. and A.D.

I define the Hellenistic period as extending from 336 B.C. (the death of Philip II of Macedon and the ascension of his son Alexander the Great) to 44 B.C. (when Augustus consolidated his power over the Roman world).

Endnotes

See, for example, John Onians, Art and Thought in the Hellenistic Age: The Greek World View, 350–50 B.C. (London, 1979), which has a good bibliography; M. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World, 3 vols. (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1952); Helmut Wilsdorf, “Technische Neuerungen in der Phase des Hiederganges der Polis,” in Hellenische Poleis Krise—Wandlung-Wirkung, 4 vols., ed. Elisabeth Charlot Welskop (Berlin, 1974).

L. Sprague de Camp, The Ancient Engineers, (New York: Ballantine, 1988–1960]), p. 116.

M. I. Finlay, “Technical Innovation and Economic Progress in the Ancient World,” Economic History Review, Second Series, 18 (1965), pp. 29–45, quote on p. 41.

Ann Killebrew, “The Pottery Workshop in Ancient Egyptian Reliefs and Paintings,” in Papers for Discussion, ed. Sara Groll (Jerusalem: Hebrew Univ., 1982).

Ruth Amiran, Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land (Jerusalem: Massada, 1963), p. 26.

Juliusz Ziomecki, “Die Keramischen Techniken im Antiken Griechenland” RAGGI 6, Jahrgang Heft 1/2 (Basel, 1964), pp. 9–12.

A. Rieth, “Die Entwicklung der Drechseltechnik,” Jahrbuch des Archeologischen Institutes Archeologischer Anzeiger (1940), p. 617.

Il Museo Civico Di Agrigento Palermo (1964), pp. 34–35.

Richard Hubard Howland, The Athenian Agora Volume IV, Greek Lamps and their Survival, (Princeton NJ: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1958), pp. 5 and 130.

10.

D. M. Bailey, “Pottery Lamps” in Roman Crafts, ed. D. Strong and D. Brown (London: Duckworth, 1976), pp. 94–95.

11.

One striking example is the so-called Ephesos Lamp, dated to the early second century B.C.E. Examples were found in quantities as far apart as Athens (Howland, The Athenian Agora, p. 166) and at various sites in Palestine. See Houston R. Smith, “The Household Lamps of Palestine in Intertestamental Times,” Biblical Archaeologist 27 (1964), p. 112, fig. 8; and Nahman Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1980), p. 88.

12.

J. H. Iliffe, “Imperial Art in Transjordan, Figure and Lamps from a Potters Store in Jerash,” Quarterly, Department of Antiquities, Palestine 11/1–2 (1944), pp. 1–26 and Plates.

13.

Jan Gunneweg, Isadore Perlman, Joseph Yellin, “The Provenience, Typology and Chronology of Eastern Terra Sigillata,” Qedem 1 (Jerusalem: Hebrew Univ., 1983), pp. 3–4.

14.

James Mellart, The Neolithic of the Near East (London: Thames and Hudson, 1975), pp. 179 and 186.

15.

Gladys Davidson Weinberg, “Hellenistic Glass Vessels from the Athenian Agora” Hesperia 30/4 (1961), pp. 380–392; “Hellenistic Glass from Tel Anafa in Upper Galilee” Journal of Glass Studies (JGS) 12 (1970) pp. 17–27; “Notes on Glass from Upper Galilee,” JGS 15 (1973).

16.

Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem, pp. 189–191.

17.

John Boarman, J. Doerig, W. Fuchs, Max Hirmer, The Art and Architecture of Ancient Greece (London: Thames and Hudson, 1967), p. 460, plate XLV.

18.

Philipe Bruneau, “La Mosaique Grecque Classique et Hellenistique” Archelogia (Arpol) 27 (1976), pp. 12–42. Also Onians, Art and Thought, p. 12.

19.

Bruneau, “La Mosaique Grecque,” p. 26.

20.

Luciana and Tiziano Mannoni, Marble: The History of a Culture (New York: Facts on File, 1985).

21.

Wilhelmina F. Jashemsk, The Gardens of Pompeii (New Rochelle, NY: Chratzas, 1979), pp. 42–43, and others.

22.

Sharon L. Gibbs, Greek and Roman Sundials (New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 1976).

23.

Benjamin Mazar, “Excavations Near the Temple Mount” Qadmoniot 5, No. 3/4 (1972), p. 82 (in Hebrew).

24.

Antje Krug, Heilkunst und Heilkult Medizin in der Antike (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1985).

25.

E. Kuenzel, Medizinische Instrumente aus Sepulkralflunden der roemischen Kaiserzeit (Bonn: Rheinland Verlag, 1983).

26.

Hans Eschenback, “Die Arzthaueser in Pompeii,” Antike Welt 15, Jahrgang 1984 Sondernummer.

27.

Fritz H. Heichelheim, Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Altertums (Leiden, 1938), p. 365, note 33, p. 1096.

28.

J. G. Landels, Engineering in the Ancient World, (Berkeley: Univ. of Calif., 1978), pp. 75ff.

29.

J. Lorge Perrot, “De ses Origines Hellenistique a la Fin Du XIIe Siecle,” Thesis (Paris: CNRS, 1965).

30.

J. Deneauve, “Orque et Lampes Romaines,” Revue De Louvre (1962) pp. 149ff.

31.

Melinda Kaba, Die Roemische Orgel von Aquincum (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiado, 1976).