WITHOUT ANCIENT GREECE WE MAY NOT HAVE THESE THINGS

URBAN PLANNING

Despite the fact that most people believe urban planning is a

relatively modern innovation (from the last two centuries),

Hippodamus, the ancient Greek architect and urban planner,

is considered by most historians to be the “father of city planning”

for his design of Miletus. His plans of Greek cities were

characterized by order and regularity in contrast to the

intricacy and confusion common to cities of that period,

including Athens. He is seen as the originator of the idea that

a town plan might formally embody and clarify a

rational social order.

WATERMILL

The earliest evidence of a watermill can be found in the wheel

of Perachora, estimated to have been created during the third

century BCE in Greece. However, the earliest recorded proof

we have for the existence of a watermill comes from the Greek

engineer Philo of Byzantium, who mentions in one of his works

water wheels that people frequently used in Alexandria

during the Hellenistic period.

HELIOCENTRISM

Way before Copernicus, several Greek astronomers had noticed

that Earth revolved around a relatively stationary sun at the

centre of the solar system. Many notable scientists such as

Philolaus, Heraclides of Pontus, Seleucus of Seleucia, Aristarchus

of Samos, and Hypatia had proposed a heliocentric system

almost two thousand years before Copernicus.

PLUMBING

The ancient Greeks set a high standard for themselves in

promoting physical and mental fitness. This was a concept

reflected in their approach to exercise and cleanliness.

Athens required many aqueducts to bring water from the

mountains and in order to do that they developed highly

extensive plumbing systems for baths and fountains, as well

as for personal use within homes. The water supplies were

directed to storage cisterns, which in turn fed a multitude of

street fountains, some of which are still in use today.

ODOMETER

This omnipresent instrument is another contribution of the

ancient Greeks. It was used to measure the distance between cities

and is believed to have been first used systematically by

Alexander the Great’s bematists Diognetus and Baeton to

measure the distances of routes travelled.

MAPS

Anaximander, one of the most important pre-Socratic philosophers,

is credited with the invention of maps and cartography. Despite

maps being produced before his time in Egypt, Lydia, the Middle East

and Babylon, they focused exclusively on sole directions, roads,

towns, and borders. Anaximander’s innovation was to represent the

entire inhabited land known to the ancient Greeks.

LIGHTHOUSES

Before the development of clearly defined ports in ancient Greece,

mariners were guided by fires set on hilltops. Since raising the fire

would improve visibility, placing the fire on a platform became a

practice that led to the development of the lighthouse. The most

famous lighthouse of antiquity was the Pharos of Alexandria, which

was built during the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt around 280–247 BCE

and designed by the Greek architect Sostratus of Cnidus.

CRANE

During the sixth century BCE the Greeks invented a way to lift

heavy stone blocks onto emerging temple walls, which we know

today as a crane. Holes drilled into the stone suggest ropes were

attached to the blocks so it could be pulled up.

COINS

The first coins were developed independently in Iron Age Anatolia

and Archaic Greece around 600–700 BCE. In this way the Greeks

became the first to develop coins of different sizes and materials

depending on their value which were then used to buy or

trade goods.