Naturalis historia
by Pliny the Elder · first published 1469
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I enjoy reading Wikipedia. Naturalis Historia is the world's earliest known encyclopaedia, and I think it's worth reading "lest we forget" the lessons from classical antiquity.
on “Pliny the Elder, “The Natural History”, Book I (79)” ↗…milk into adulthood." Growing up in Geneva, the cultural importance of local French and Swiss cheeses from the Alps and Jura is significant, and dates back to Roman times, according to Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia [2]. A lot was happening about 6000 years ago. Cuneiform script was invented about 3200 BC. Egyptian hieroglyphs are from 3400 BC. Noam Chomsky suggested a cosmic ray shower that suddenly delivered language…
on “Study suggest Neolithic Britons processed raw milk to reduce its lactose content” ↗…water mill for sawing stone in his poem Mosella from the 4th century AD. They could easily have adapted the technology to crush ore using tilt hammers, and just such is mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia dating to about 75 AD, and there is evidence for the method from Dolaucothi in South Wales” “They also used reverse overshot water-wheel for draining mines, the parts being prefabricated and numbered…
on “Why no Roman industrial revolution?” ↗…fact that food is more easily swallowed if taken with a small amount of salt. Pliny the Elder translated an ancient antidote for poison with the words 'be taken fasting, plus a grain of salt'. > Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, 77 A.D. translates thus: > After the defeat of that mighty monarch, Mithridates, Gnaeus Pompeius found in his private cabinet a recipe for an antidote in his own handwriting; it was to the following…
on “Where the Sugar Babies Are” ↗…referre. > “The laser, among the most precious gifts of Nature, used in numerous medical applications: to describe all its uses in combination with other things, endless is the task.” > — Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia XXII.il There is a slight problem in that a lot of the people who read it and accept the misdirection that we're talking about modern lasers, seem to not know who Pliny the Elder is or when he wrote,…
on “The mystery of the lost Roman herb (2017)” ↗…Romans used to dye sheep purple. To show off to other Romans, they used the then super-expensive purple dyes, the ones they used on woolen togas of high social rank, on whole sheep. Pliny wrote about it in Naturalis Historia. - "I myself have seen the fleece upon the living animal dyed purple, scarlet, and violet,—a pound and a half of dye being used for each,—just as though they had been produced by Nature in this form,…
on “Montana Man Pleads to Federal Charges for Efforts to Create Giant Hybrid Sheep” ↗