A New Course in Ancient Engineering

Supported by a grant from the Kern Family Foundation, Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan, in 2004 introduced a new course designed by a classicist but aimed at students preparing to become professional engineers. Entitled "Ancient Engineering," its purpose was two-fold: to give students a sense of historical perspective by showing them how engineers have contributed to the development of society since humanity's earliest days and to inspire them to address boldly the challenges of the twenty-first century by presenting them with classic examples of practical initiative, ingenuity, and determination drawn from some of civilization's most glorious epochs. The university's hope was that by appreciating the challenges faced by their predecessors and the impressive successes they had achieved, students would go on to become better engineers. Furthermore, because the visionary engineers of antiquity were famous for "thinking big," Lawrence Tech students would, it was hoped, become daring modern entrepreneurs in keeping with that ancient legacy.

The development and implementation of this course by myself, a classicist, was an innovation in its own right. Of the almost 10,000 classroom and distance-learning courses in the American Society for Engineering Education's database, there was at the time not a single course listed on the subject of ancient engineering. Worldwide, only seven universities offered courses that focused on ancient technology: the University of Bristol in England; the University of Victoria in Canada; and, in the United States, Bucknell University, the University of Missouri, the University of New Mexico, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Texas Tech University. Additionally, the University of Wales Swansea offered a course called "History of Ancient Technology and Engineering." But the creation of a course devoted exclusively to ancient engineering would be a "first."

On one level the course was designed as a survey of civilization from prehistory to the latter days of the Roman Empire. The first half of the course examined the work of Stone Age, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian engineers; the second half of the course examined the engineering achievements of ancient Greece and Rome. Students studied the formative principles of each major culture. These included the prehistoric struggle to survive; the Mesopotamian hunger for prosperity and stability; the Egyptian quest for immortality; the intellectualism of the Greeks and their passion for perfection; and the pragmatism of the Romans and their commitment to urban life. My students then learned how those values and beliefs, combined with available material and human resources, defined the projects ancient engineers devoted their talents and energies to. In the process, the class also observed the positive social impact of engineering accomplishments. In addition to becoming acquainted with practical innovations like irrigation systems, paved roads, bridges, and aqueducts, students also learned about the marvelous mechanical inventions of the Hellenistic period and the many monumental wonders of the ancient world, including the Great Pyramid, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Parthenon, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, Hadrian's Wall, and the Baths of Caracalla.

The main textbook for the course was L. Sprague de Camp's delightful The Ancient Engineers (New York 1993, first pub. 1960), supplemented by J. G. Landels' Engineering in the Ancient World, rev. ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2000). Lectures were illustrated with color slides and videos drawn from the Discovery Channel (www.discovery.com), the Learning Channel (www.tlc.discovery.com), the History Channel (www.HistoryChannel.com), and Nova (www.publicvideostore.org).

At the end of the course, students were invited to present homemade models illustrating ancient engineering principles in action. This proved to be the most illuminating part of the course as student teams grappled with some of the very problems of design that their predecessors had faced to achieve the results they desired. Projects included making an Egyptian-style "shaduf" to lift water effortlessly from a reservoir using a basket, a lever, and a counterweight; constructing a leaking "sandbox" that succeeded in gently lowering a miniature sarcophagus to the floor of its "crypt"; designing an Archimedean screw-pump that, when twisted, raised beans from a storage bin; and building a downsized Roman "onager," or catapult, that accurately...