I know that it's commonly said that the Arabs invented algebra. It's also commonly said that they invented distillation.
These concepts date from the Medieval era, when the West was struggling to regain knowledge lost in the Dark Ages, after the fall of Rome, when their primary source of lost knowledge were Islamic institutions, for example, in Umayyid Cordoba, Spain.
We now know that, while it is completely accurate to say that Europeans first learned many things from the Arabs, and believed that the Arabs invented them, it's not so.
Simply not so. They were the Westernmost promulgators of ancient knowledge that was carried back and forth from Western Europe to Korea, Japan, China, Mongolia, Vietnam, Cambodia, India, etc. etc. etc. If something was invented in one place, it was carried everywhere else.
That is, in my eyes, the best argument in favor of empires, but human beings being what they are, they engage in free trade in peacetime and in wartime. Some even prosper better in wartime. (Mq hates it when I argue that last bit.)
When I learned that the oldest known alembic is a 5000 year old clay pot still in a museum in Pakistan, it seemed likely to me that the technique of distillation has been around for far longer than that. What are the odds that archeologists found the first one?
The Indus River culture, like almost all high cultures, flourished within a short distance of running water, in their case, the Indus River and the coastal areas of Pakistan and India. The shore has advanced significantly inland since then, and much of it is now underwater. Everything they find in our lifetimes is a gift towards our understanding. |
