Why did so much technology that was common in the Roman Empire did not make it into the medieval age?

484 views

Examples like aquaducts, sewage, advanced architecture, etcetera

In: 121

16 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

One explanation I saw once was how we’re very non-descriptive when writing stuff down and that things change to affect our preconceptions.

Take food for an example. A cake recipe requires eggs. We, today, know that “eggs” mean chicken eggs, but imagine 1000 years in the future, chicken eggs may not be that common anymore. Maybe the common egg is quail. Our recipes just say “eggs” so if someone from this future finds the recipe, tries to make it, and sees “add 3 eggs”, they’re probably going to assume quail eggs, not chicken eggs. And they won’t know where they went wrong when it doesn’t turn out properly.

Roman Concrete was a victim of this. We knew it required water. We kept trying to use fresh water over and over to no avail. That’s because what the Romans meant by “water” was actually seawater. In modern times we assume “water” as fresh water; the opposite was true during the Roman era.

This may have, over time, cause certain technologies to get lost because preconceptions change, and our lack of detail would firce people to use THEIR preconceptions, slowly making certain technologies no longer work.

You are viewing 1 out of 16 answers, click here to view all answers.