Lost Inventions That Prove the Past Was More Modern Than We Think
We tend to imagine technological history as a steady, linear climb—a relentless march from the Stone Age to the Space Age. Each generation, we assume, builds methodically upon the last, culminating in the sophisticated world we inhabit today. But what if this view is wrong? What if history is less like a straight line and more like a series of brilliant, isolated flashes of genius, many of which were snuffed out and lost for centuries? The past is littered with innovations so advanced they challenge our assumptions about what our ancestors knew and what they were capable of. This exploration delves into several forgotten inventions that prove our ancestors were, in some ways, startlingly close to our modern world, their achievements lost and then painstakingly rediscovered. ...