Greek flag from Wikipedia
Water, water, everywhere in Greece, also in the Archimedes Museum. What's new to see in Greece? After the Acropolis and all that. Archimedes' Museum, in the centre of ancient Olympia, where you can see the spot where they light the flame which is carried to the modern Olympic games. That's the modern part and the link between old and new is fascinating. The modern museum is surrounded by broken bits of ancient Greece, walls and columns. There's a lot of that in Greece, every city has something, several. But most fascinating if you head south west of Athens, to the Kalamata airport and onwards, is the Archimedes Museum.
Archimedes you probably learned at school is credited with inventing the Archimedes screw which lifted water, a spiral rather like a corkscrew bottle opener but encased in a tube. Going upwards instead of down, to lift the water. However, Archimedes was a prolific inventor. A bit like Edison later in America, who was credited with inventing the light bulb but spent his life inventing things. Our Greek friends, Ancient world Archimedes uses water to do everything.
Semaphore
Most amusing to me is the semaphore. You probably know modern semaphore as signalling with flags using levers. Archimedes system was more primitive but quite amazingly simple and effective.
Archimedes realised that you only want to send twenty urgent messages. (Assuming you don't want to say, hello, I love you or come home darling, twenty miles up and downhill for dinner.)
You are sending simple messages, probably something urgent like: the city is in trouble, flee, dragons are killing everybody, the enemy is approaching, has reached us, is killing us, fire, we are flooded, send help immediately (as fast as you can within 3 days, 2 days if you can make it), storms over us will reach you soon, Gods are angry, I am dying, goodbye.
You (Archimedes) stood on one hilltop next to a large water container. Inside were the twenty vital messages written on something waterproof.
You signalled to the person on the next hilltop to start ladling out the water into a second container. When the message you wanted rose to the top and could be read, you signalled stop.
What about the removed water? You just tip the container of removed water so it fills up the bigger one again.
This relies on having somebody at the other hill to read. But that applies to all messaging and signalling.
If you are technically minded, you may be interested in pulleys and belts, perpetual screws and gears, bolts and nuts, sprockets and roller chains. If you are more interested in daily life and amusements, you might be amused by the 'cinema, the hydraulic clock, the catapult and the puppet-show (a bit like the clocks you see over town gates and on buildings in France and Germany and the UK in Cardiff, Wales, where the little figures move on the hour or every day at noon).
Three linked museums may interest you:
Archimedes' Museum
The Museum of Ancient Greek Technology
The museum of Ancient Greek Musical Instruments and Toys
www.kotsanas.com
Read my earlier and later posts on the Greek alphabet and Greek food and wine.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher, speaker.
