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oh, thank you, my dear mr bingley! i speculated above that ancient cables might have been made from linen. I know (well i read the works of those who do know) linen was cultivated in ancient times by the eygptions, --as was cotton. secondly, linen's property of being strong when wet would, as well as its ability to resist rotting make it a natural choice for cables, or any thing for boat (sails, etc).
Hemp was also available to the old world, and its a good choice too, but i don't know how long hemp has been cultivated.
still, having the words related leads me to beleive that i was right to speculate that linen might have been the fiber used!
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There was a program I caught a little of yesterday about Archimedes' having caught fire a Roman ship. A group of experimenters were trying to figure out how this may have been done with mirrors. They duplicated materials that would have been used in such a ship, a veritable floating tender box, and hemp was one of the materials used to 'caulk' seams, followed by a painting on of tar to seal the hemp in the seams.
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From Britannica Online: Hemp originated in Central Asia, and its cultivation for fibre, recorded in China as early as 2800 BC... And about linen:
Fibre, yarn, and fabric made from the flax plant.
Flax is one of the oldest textile fibres used by humans; evidence of its use has been found in Switzerland's prehistoric lake dwellings. Fine linen fabrics have been discovered in ancient Egyptian tombs. The fibre is obtained by subjecting plant stalks to a series of operations, including retting (a fermentation process), drying, crushing, and beating. Linen is stronger than cotton, dries more quickly, and is more slowly affected by exposure to sunlight. Low elasticity, imparting a hard, smooth texture, makes linen subject to wrinkling. Because linen absorbs and releases moisture quickly and is a good conductor of heat, linen garments feel cool to wearers. Fine grades of linen are made into woven fabrics and laces for apparel and household furnishings. Helen, this writer doesn't say where she got her info., but it sounds likely to me:
To make rope, the ancient Egyptians used reeds and fibre from date palms, as well as grass, papyrus, flax, and camel-hair. But the rope was used not for binding together bolts of cloth or sheaves of any sort; rather it served as a means for gangs of slaves to combine their strength so they might move the enormous stones necessary for construction of the pyramids and other great monuments. The ropes were thick as a wrist; once the stone was set on a sledge with rollers, men, often nearly 200 at a time, could haul it by pulling on four or more long and many-stranded ropes. The Egyptians also used rope for rigging their boats, creating it from strips of leather as well as palm and papyrus fibres. http://www.barcelonareview.com/19/e_bfl.htm
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Here's a link to the history of rope making--with a point being made about the length of the rope being determined by the level of machines available during any historical period. When there weren't machines to aid in rope production and rope making was limited to hand twisting and braiding, the ropes were short and of limited use in seafaring. The writer on the site points out that even when ropes could be spliced [before the time of rope-making machines], the rope was twice as thick at the splice point and couldn't be used effectively for shipping. http://www.rope-maker.com/ropehistory.html
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simple rope:
take a length of fiber (i have done this with silk sewing thread) at least 8 times longer than rope or cord desired.
fold in half.
fix one end (i use a cup hoop screwed into the wall)
in the loop at the other end, insert a dowel (a pencil will do
turn the dowel (for ever!)
(in advanced versions, you can use a auger or a power drill on low.. i screwed a second cup hook into a scrap of wood, and set wood into augers chuck..Use auger or drill to turn the yarn)
Eventully the yarn will start to kink.. resist this, (by keeping tension on the yarn
finally (you need help here) grasp twisted yarn at center (half way between the two hooks/hook and dowel and fold (bring the two hooks together..)
--in the egyptian version, you place a short length of rope, with a weight attached to center, and as it kinks, you let it-- and continue twisting. until the whole of yarn is double twisted. (this works if you have a 2 men working. and a pit of some sort. (for the cable to fall into.. and it has to be as deep as your rope will be long!
both men twist, the center point kinks, and fall, the men walk toward each other.. you can see how this would limit the length of the rope or cable .
as you release tension (by folding and bringing starting point and end point together, the cord will twist on its self, --starting at the center. it makes a neat strong cable. (that resists untwisting!)
Rope walks employ the same basic method, only they use gear driven machines, (even if man powered) an the rope walk often has bends, (to facilitate the folding)
Dr bill send me instructions for a third, more advanced method, one that more closely resembles how cable is made today.. i'll copy and post later.
i have made 4+ feet of twisted cord at a time, (it takes about 1 hour) and used it to trim 12 inch square embroidered pillows (and to make matching tie backs for drapes)
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In reply to:
still, having the words related leads me to beleive that i was right to speculate that linen might have been the fiber used!
I said the words (bussos (m) and bussos (f)) were similar in form, not that they were related. You might think 'tow' (pull) and 'tow' (coarse flax) were related but they're not.
However, I looked up linen in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, and found that tow is a byproduct of the process of making linen from flax (at the hackling stage)and was used in Greek and Roman times for rope-making. They did have a reference to Pliny's Natural History. I'll see if I can track it down.
Bingley
Bingley
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Am I the only one who thought the chronology here from WW's site was a bit odd:
In the Middle Ages (from the thirteenth century to the eighteenth century), from the British Isles to Italy, rope was made using a "rope walk" method.
Bingley
Bingley
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OP
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Well, uh, Bingley, it was Mr. Roper's site, but, no, I hadn't noticed. He didn't say what he meant to say, I guess.
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>but i don't know how long hemp has been cultivated.
Prolly just as long as we've had high priests and priestesses.
TEd
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but i don't know how long hemp has been cultivated.
Prolly just as long as we've had high priests and priestesses.
yeah, but...
the variety of hemp that is good for fiber is the tall stalky weed.. (it grows 8 to 10 feet high!) and the short, bushy, early flowering type is better for, well "medicinal" purposes. hemp fiber plants do well in more northern climates. (its a big fiber crop in canada!) medicinal plants like more sun and milder weather, (the tropics).
no doubt there is over lap in where they can grow.. and perhaps the plants were less distinctive in times past, but fiber hemp is really smokable. it has almost none of the 'active' ingredient associated with its cousin.
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