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King Tut's Chariot a Marvel of Ancient Engineering
astroengine writes "King Tutankhamun, who ruled Egypt over 3,000 years ago, looks as if he was chauffeured around the desert in one of the earliest-known high-performance vehicles. Tut's chariots surpass all monumental structures of the pharaohs in engineering sophistication. Discovered in pieces by British archaeologist Howard Carter when he entered King Tut's treasure-packed tomb in 1922, the collection consisted of two large ceremonial chariots, a smaller highly decorated one, and three others that were lighter and made for daily use. 'These vehicles appear to be the first mechanical systems which combine the use of kinematics, dynamics and lubrication principles,' said Alberto Rovetta, professor in robotics engineering at the Polytechnic of Milan."
. 'These vehicles appear to be the first mechanical systems which combine the use of kinematics, dynamics and lubrication principles
I combined your mom's use of kinematics, dynamics, and lubrication principles with my mechanical systems last night.
OH SNAP!
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The fact that they realized all those years ago that soft is more comfortable than hard, slippery is faster than sticky and light is less work than heavy is amazing! And that easily makes these chariots "surpass all monumental structures of the pharaohs in engineering sophistication." Moving thousands of tons of rock without machinery is easy compared to slopping fat on a stick!
Whale
And how fast could a horse pull a chariot over 'the desert dunes' without ejecting the occupant?
Well, that's why he is called "The Boy King" and not "The King Who Reached a Ripe Old Age." He got tossed from his Mach Five Chariot, while still young, broken his leg, and died from an infection.
Ferrari chariots? I guess he was more like James Dean of his time. Except James Dean had a Porsche Chariot.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Egypt isn't all sand dunes. Near the Nile it's pretty light on the sand dunes, and 4600 years ago could have been even less sand-duney.
They even had paved roads.
Sure.
Lower rolling resistance means more speed per horsepower and less fatigue per horse.
in modern western philosophy, literature and science, we are all thought about how great the greek civilization was, how they invented most of the concepts we use today, and ideas and principles, how glorious it was in that cesspit of ancient history, this and that.
....
however, when one takes up history as a hobby, and reads up by himself/herself, it is a soon made discovery that for centuries before and during the climax of ancient greece, greeks went to egypt to study. the schools and learning in egypt encompassed practically everything, classified in two different school genres : school of life taught matters related to physical world - medicine, architecture, geometry and so on, school of death taught matters related to the otherworld. one finds out that a goodly number of the greek prominent figures, at least those who could afford it, went to egypt to study, or studied material transferred from egypt.
it is an even more stunning discovery to find out that, most of the spiritual and philosophical concepts we use in everyday life today, even extending to some customs, originate from egypt.
but, due to the most free material that is being free of church influence that was available in renaissance and baroque being ancient greece material that the byzantine scholars brought from istanbul when they fleed the ottoman conquest, western literature and science has developed by a misplaced influence of greece. which is quite natural actually, because until the end of 18th century, there wasnt any awareness of existence of a civilization like egypt.
what is appalling though, is, that still goes on
Well, Egyptian Consumer Reports noted that "The Tut Chariot, made by Toyota, is prone to unexplainable sudden acceleration. However, it gets good hay mileage. And depending on the whip you use, it can do 0-60 in under 3 minutes."
Sounds like more evidence for that small penis theory.
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/UnNews:King_Tut_had_a_small_penis
I recently saw the travelling King Tutankhamen exhibit and got to reading a bit about their technology. Besides being able to organize and motivate well enough to build the Great Pyramid, which required cutting, transporting, and installing twelve 3 ton blocks per hour, every hour, for 20 years, they knew about prime and perfect numbers, the Sieve of Eratosthenes, first-order linear equations, and summing linear and arithmetic sequences. They knew about pi and calculated it to about five digits, and could calculate the surface area of hemispheres and the volume of frustrums, which means they could do integral calculus (although they didn't realize that's what they were doing.)
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
The tallest horse skeleton from that period barely passes the horse/pony barrier (by 3cm) The average horse of the period was 1.3m tall and the bones suggest that it weighted about 30% less than the light riding horses of today. It probably would not have be able to go very fast or very far with a rider. Yes, people rode them sometimes, but mostly they were used in chariots.
In a race between a rider and Tut's chariot, I'd definitely bet on the chariot, even with a driver in addition to the Pharaoh.
No good deed goes unpunished...
Yeah, but apart from the Great Pyramid, prime and perfect numbers, the Sieve of Eratosthenes, linear equations, sequences, pi, surface areas and volumes, what have the Egyptians done for us?
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
In the Cairo museum, next to the Tut's collection (it may be part of it, I'm not sure, I was there years ago), I saw a foldable bed frame with metallic hinges. I thought that was the technological high-point of the museum, I haven't seen anything like that from the same time frame anywhere in the world.