King Tut's Chariot a Marvel of Ancient Engineering 124
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."
bwahahahahaha (Score:5, Funny)
. '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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I leave work in nine minutes :-)
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Suddenly it's twitter [twitter.com] in here...
Re:bwahahahahaha (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like a slow, loose, and greasy event!
Re:bwahahahahaha (Score:5, Funny)
I see your ability to craft a joke is far inferior to ancient Egyptians's ability to craft chariots.
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"Oh ultranova...if only you knew how correct you are." -my wife
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Oh Pojut, I always waver on whether or not I want to friend you. I like your site and you can be funny on occaison. But then you pull a Your Mom with an Oh Snap and... well...
You can see where I'm torn, yes?
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I too sometimes feel that way about myself -_-;;
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There is a time and a place.
And it's usually Friday Night at the bar, not 2:45 Tuesday afternoon on Slashdot.
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Does your wife know you're doing things with Alberto Rovetta's mom? And, seeing how Prof. Rovetta seems to have just turned 70, with his mother presumably being older, that you apparently have a thing for older women?
I guess that would explain your need for advanced lubrication principles...
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Dad? Is that you?
and that's why (Score:1, Funny)
I would expect nothing less... (Score:5, Funny)
from our pyramid building, cat worshipping, space travelling, interstellar overlords.
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Re:I would expect nothing less... (Score:4, Informative)
There. Fixed that for ya! ;-)
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There. Fixed that for ya! ;-)
Cat worshipping Goa'uld lords??
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Engineering, sure. But could they explain all these complex concepts using chariot analogies?
- RG>
Pimp my ride (Score:1, Funny)
kinematics, dynamics and lubrication principles
What a chav. King tut, with the worlds first height adjustable suspension.
Um, Not? (Score:2)
King Tutankhamun, the pharaoh who ruled Egypt more than 3,300 years ago, rode full speed over the desert dunes on a Formula One-like chariot, according to new investigations into the technical features of the boy king's vehicle collection.
They were the Ferrari of antiquity. They boasted an elegant design and an extremely sophisticated and astonishingly modern technology,"
Did you look at the picture? The wheels are out of round. That thing had a worse ride than a shopping cart with metal wheels. And how fast could a horse pull a chariot over 'the desert dunes' without ejecting the occupant?
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Lets see how round your tires are after 3300 years.
FTA
Even at speeds of about 25 miles per hour on Egypt's irregular soil, King Tut's chariots were efficient and pleasant to ride.
I seriously doubt that 25MPH over a sand dune will eject the occupant.
Re:Um, Not? (Score:5, Informative)
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 [nytimes.com].
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You're repressing the thought that there are no sand dunes at all actually in the river. You're in de-Nile.
*RIMSHOT*
Re:Um, Not? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Um, Not? (Score:5, Funny)
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I guess he was more like Xzibit of his time.
FTFY.
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...makes me wonder if his accident didn't involve a busted chariot wheel which was replaced after he died...presumably so Tut could use it in the afterlife.
The article definitely says the other tire is "newer," not "new." But that's still fun to imagine.
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Live fast, die young and leave a good looking sarcophagus?
HOLY AMAZING! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Dancin' by the Nile, the ladies loved his style.
Rockin' for a mile, he ate a crocodile.
Born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia, King Tut.
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Gotta love Steve Martin!!
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He's an Egyptian!
vid link [nbc.com] for those who've lived deprived lives.
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Dancin' by the Nile, the ladies loved his style.
Rockin' for a mile, he ate a crocodile.
Born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia, King Tut.
Wow, and he wasn't even old enough to use Burma Shave.
Re:HOLY AMAZING! (Score:5, Informative)
Light is easy, light and strong is sophisticated. Also, the article alludes to springs and shock absorbers, a step up in engineering from just building a light and strong cart.
Re:HOLY AMAZING! (Score:4, Informative)
That's nice but the engineering behind the pyramids construction impresses me (and many others) more.
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..and you'd still have to convince enough people to go along with it to pull it off.
And that's what slave labor is for. :)
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Ok, ok, trick question. It really isn't either. It seems to have attempted to be informative, though. The problem is it lacks any substance whatsoever. It's all grandoise claims about how technologically advanced these chariots were without any evidence. Other than the 3d rendering (uhhh, why not a photo?!), of course, that looks like something a caveman could have made. You know, if he had the wheel.
I can appreciate that this thi
Re:HOLY AMAZING! (Score:5, Informative)
>Other than the 3d rendering (uhhh, why not a photo?!)
I would bet that it is related to the fact that the article doesn't feature Zahi Hawass chiming in.
It's funny how much control Hawass has on what is said and shown about Egyptian antiquity.
Now you'll notice that you rarely, if *ever*, see anything in Egypt without Zahi Hawass telling you what to think about it.
Re:HOLY AMAZING! (Score:5, Funny)
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!
The patent/copyright finally ran out on the chariot thing about 200 years ago, leading to the Industrial Revolution.
When the patent/copyright runs out on "magically levitating giant stone blocks into pyramid shapes" sometime in the future, I think we're going to have a heck of a lot of fun.
Re:HOLY AMAZING! (Score:4, Funny)
When the patent/copyright runs out on "magically levitating giant stone blocks into pyramid shapes" sometime in the future, I think we're going to have a heck of a lot of fun.
There's no particular mystery to how they did it - without magical levitation.
It's interesting to pull a few blocks off a pyramid. You find inscriptions on them that say things like:
"We DID IT! - Tiger Team Eight."
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_This_ post is Offtopic, but RTFA, RTFP. Milan is in Italy, they seem easily wowed by shiny speedy things, not so good at the stuff the parent was referring to... and no, I'm not taking my first Offtopic tagging personally:)
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Well, they did sleep on hard surfaces, without a pillow. So, their "awesomeness" sort of takes a hit.
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That and I know for damn sure the Egyptians were not the first instance of man using "lubrication principles".
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Evidence? Sure. All Around Us. It's called people :)
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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!
Well, it is pretty amazing if your Egyptology worldview accepts things like:
* geometrically perfect granite sarcophagi, which modern machinery tools would be hard pressed (if even able) to replicate, were made by slaves - who used basalt chisels.
* The pyramids, which have no scientific or explicable cultural explanation as to their function were constructed by slaves using pulleys, and crude tools - despite their geometric perfection, astronomical and astrological representation, and demonstration of very
Re:HOLY AMAZING! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Not really recently.
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The moved away from pyramid burials because the burial chambers were too easily looted. Tut's chamber was not a cave, it was a small chamber taken over from a less important person. Tut died suddenly and young and had not yet prepared an elaborate chamber of his own.
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Yes, because it is highly plausible that they were fictional characters from a TV sci fi series.
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No, you completely misunderstood what I was saying. It was a somewhat hyperbolic statement, but yeah... *whoosh*
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>Moving thousands of tons of rock without machinery is easy
Especially that they recently proved that all the stones used for building the pyramids were mixed like cement instead of what some noob proposed with pushing these huge blocks of rock up a slanted slope....they cut open one of the rocks, and saw swirls within the main field, suggesting man made materials, and most definitely the contents were poured into place.
Huh? (Score:1)
...he was chauffeured around the desert in one of the earliest-known high-performance vehicles.
I seriously doubt he ever went faster than his horses. So what does "high-performance" mean? It didn't wear them out so quickly?
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
Sure.
Lower rolling resistance means more speed per horsepower and less fatigue per horse.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Really really old news (Score:1, Informative)
Modern Marvels on History channel already covered this years ago
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Nothing really exists until it passes by the rolled-up theater program pressed to the eye of /.
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Exaggeration of Ancient Greece that is .... (Score:5, Interesting)
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
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It is a travesty that the Great Library was burned down; who knows what kinds of Egyptian treasures were to be found there...
Re:Exaggeration of Ancient Greece that is .... (Score:5, Informative)
Tragedy, not Travesty. It's a tragedy that it burned down. It's not, however, a travesty, unless you consider the irony in the fact that the fire was set by the Romans in an effort to limit the communication of their enemies. Even then, though, the fire was set on docked ships, it's just that it got out of control and spread to the docks themselves and then the city of Alexandria... the library itself was not intentionally burned down: it was an accident.
Travesty (Score:2)
That word doesn't mean what I thought it meant. *facepalm*
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I think it even goes beyond that. I'm constantly reading these stories about how sophisticated ancient civilizations were compared to our previous belief, and even about mankind's more-ancient ancestors. I'm convinced that our ancestors were much more advanced in nearly every way than we give them credit for.
I suspect that some of that is that we want to believe we've developed beyond our views of our 'primitive' ancestors, and that desire helps to keep us from seeing the truth. Imagine what will be left
Wait, you can't crash a comforatable car? (Score:2)
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I think you need to go back and read the article again. It said that there's a 50/50 chance that this was the chariot that Tutankhamun fell from when he broke his leg.
It was instead mentioning other factors in Tut's health that could have led to his death... the fact that he had malformed bones in his feet, and the fact that he had apparently been suffering from malaria. That he fell off the chariot and broke his leg isn't really in question... that it was an infection from the broken leg and not, say, succ
Just like modern Porche owner (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like more evidence for that small penis theory.
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/UnNews:King_Tut_had_a_small_penis [wikia.com]
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after embalmment and 3000 years there is shrinkage, significant shrinkage!
Ancient Egypt had good engineers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ancient Egypt had good engineers (Score:5, Interesting)
And they used slaves to do it all
Using slaves to compute the first 5 digits of PI and do integral calculus, eh?
Fast-forward 3000 years, these slave are called engineers - and the "masters" are no longer called kings but MBA (some owing Ferrari-es too).
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Maybe because we are discussing ferrari-es and not engineers!
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until I read your whole post, I thought somehow you knew about Logopolis, Oh never mind, poor human
For this, I need to fast-forward more than 3000 years. BTW, master, do you own a Ferrari?
Yours, who.
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Egyptians go home. (Score:5, Funny)
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?
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"Where's your hot rod now, Moses?" (Score:2, Funny)
Xizbit "a" (Score:2, Funny)
Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
"They boasted an elegant design and an extremely sophisticated and astonishingly modern technology,"
I find the premise of the article arrogantly modern. "They" didn't boast modern technology at all but rather demonstrated the of the state of the art in Egypt 3000 years ago. Perhaps the appropriate view is that today's engineering despite all its plastic and glitter has not advanced significantly beyond that of ancient Egypt in some areas. I do wonder why it is that we do so often equate ancient with stupid
Hyksos chariots? (Score:2)
Could it be that Hyksos had world's best chariots?
Metallic hinges (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
The Real Sign of Ignorance (Score:2)