Monday, June 23, 2008

4000-Year-Old Ropes

And nobody knows what they're made of.

Discovery News : Discovery Channel : Ancient Rope Found in Cave: "June 20, 2008 -- The ancient Egyptian's secret to making the strongest of all rigging ropes lies in a tangle of cord coils in a cave at the Red Sea coast, according to preliminary study results presented at the recent congress of Egyptologists in Rhodes.

Discovered three years ago by archaeologists Rodolfo Fattovich of the Oriental Studies University of Naples and Kathryn Bard of Boston University, the ropes offer an unprecedented look at seafaring activities in ancient Egypt."

2 comments:

Todd Mason said...

Historical fiction and sf, to say nothing of classic detection, is made of such stuff. The reed was felled by a virus or somesuch after too much monocultural cultivation...it was destroyed to keep it out of conquerors' hands...it was the target of some sort of political hysteria, as hemp is in this country...

Victor Gischler said...

My guess: Nylon.

VG