How our ancestors made things

Most people don’t realize just how clever our ancestors were and often just view them as primitive people, but it’s no coincidence that 700-year-old castles have stronger mortar in between their stones that’s in better condition than the cement in a house built 150 years ago. If you take a walk around an ancient site like a castle there will usually be signs for the visitors that show how the inhabitants lived, with scenes of people in glamorous clothing drinking wine while people played instruments in the background. The puzzling thing is how people who didn’t even know what electricity or machinery was managed to build such creations. Here’s a list of some of the most common items used and how our ancestors created things.

Paper

The earliest appearance of paper is from 3000 BC when the Ancient Egyptians first discovered how to make it by weaving strips from the papyrus plant together to form a fine fabric. Most people think that paper comes from tree pulp but this wasn’t commonplace until the 1800s when manufacturing was advanced enough to mass produce it from this source. The earliest papers were made from old cotton and linen sheets mixed with some kind of fibrous plant matter, like sandalwood or certain types of reed. The fabric sheets and plant fibers would be ripped into the smallest pieces possible and then placed in a large container with some water, for the next few hours the mixture would be pounded together, usually by someone with a wooded pestle-like club who would spend hours constantly hitting it. The mixture would then be poured out onto a tray, spread very thinly, and left to dry. If just enough water was used and there was enough material to make it thick enough, it would dry into rough paper which would then be scraped up and cut into sheets by hand.

Soap

The Babylonians are credited as being the first people to invent soap around the year 2,800 BC. It has been used all over the world in countless civilizations and even by remote tribal groups who all seem to use similar recipes. This early form of soap was made with three main ingredients which were animal fat, water, and an alkali which was normally wood ash. The animal fat is rendered and turned into what we know today as lard, while it was still hot and liquid it would be watered down slightly and mixed with wood ash which is a strong alkaline, the ingredient that gives the soap the ability to break down dirt and remove oils. Flowers and perfumes were added to the mix to give it a nice smell and there are many variations of soap from different cultures, but the core recipe is watered-down animal fat mixed with an alkaline.

Beer

(An iron age brewing pot uncovered at a dig in Britain)

People have been making beer in Britain since the Bronze Age and they aren’t going to stop making it any time soon. This early form of beer was much weaker than it is today because people didn’t have access to any kind of sugar-producing plant and had to rely on the natural sugar content of the grain. To make beer you start with dried grain, usually Rye or Barley and heat it to a simmer in some fresh water. The heating process helps to kill other types of yeast and sterilize the mix, as well as helping to start the breakdown of the grain. Hops and other flavorings would be added which would contain their own type of yeast, the fermenting process would be visible after a few days in the form of small bubbles constantly rising. The mix would then be left until it stops bubbling when it would be filtered through some cloth and is then ready to drink. This early form of beer was always flat and fizzy alcoholic drinks are a relatively new invention.

Wine

Grapes and other berries contain much more natural sugar than grain does, which made the process as simple as mashing a ton of grapes and straining the liquid out into a barrel where it would be left to ferment. Wine was much more common in the warmer countries because fruit could grow easily and produce higher levels of natural sugars. If you leave pure fruit juice for long enough in a warm area it will eventually ferment and become alcoholic, something that people who could easily grow fruit knew only too well. There are many methods of making the same thing but fruit juice can be left as it is and will turn into wine. This beverage was so common in the areas of the world that fruit could easily grow to the point where it wasn’t even considered a higher-class drink, in Ancient Rome one of the most common breakfasts for the peasant class was bread dipped in wine.

Fabric

Linen

Linen comes from a plant called Flax which is a tall grass-like plant. When it matures the stems are cut and the tops removed to leave a long central stem made up of many long fibrous strands. These are pulled off and dried before being spun together to make a string which then goes on to the weavers who turn it into a Linen sheet. The seeds of Flax can be pressed to produce cooking oil and is a good preservative for wood, sometimes being called linseed in other countries and used to treat the handles of knives and gun stocks.

Cotton

Cotton comes from a small flowering plant that creates large clumps of cotton buds on its stems. These are picked and spun into string before being woven into a sheet, the process after the picking part is the same as linen, though perhaps done a bit more delicately.

Silk

Silk comes from the cocoon of the silkworm which builds them to hide inside while they turn from a worm into a moth. The worms are fed on the leaves of the white mulberry tree and when they are big enough will naturally make themselves a cocoon. After it’s been completed someone will come along and cut the top of the cocoon off and remove the worm, the cocoon is then put onto a machine and the end of the silk strand is pulled off in one continuous string. It takes between 400 and 700 cocoons to make 1 kg of silk so this process was usually only done by people wealthy enough to afford the initial set up.

Mortar

Mortar was used in everything from ancient castles and cathedrals to homes in Europe right up to the mid-1800s. Castles that are 1000 years old are still standing after being fixed together with this material and it was mass-produced across all of Europe. To make mortar you start with limestone and smash it down into fist-sized pieces which are then put into a kiln. The kiln is heated and when the temperature reaches 900 °C the carbon dioxide burns out the rock and turns it into something called quicklime, or Calcium Oxide if you prefer. The white-hot chunks of quicklime are then scraped out of the kiln and put into cold water to make them more brittle and also convert them into Slaked lime, or Calcium Hydroxide. The rock is then left to dry before being smashed into a powder which is effectively your mortar base, water and sand would be added to make it into a putty and this was then smeared onto the stones of anything built before the 1700s. For a more in-depth look at the making process have a look at our Medieval mortar recipe.

Under water setting Mortar

Both Alexander the Great and the Romans frequently used underwater-setting mortar to build docks and harbor walls. The process is the same as making regular mortar but at the point where the Slaked lime and sand are being mixed, volcanic ash would be added which adds a strong alkaline to the mix and gives it the ability to set underwater.

Bronze

Bronze is a mixture of tin and copper at a ratio of 10% to 15% tin and the rest copper. The alloy is stronger than either of the metals on its own and was the primary metal used by most of the world for about 2000 years. It was probably discovered by accident as both metals have melting temperatures low enough to reach in a roaring fire and doesn’t require the use of a bellows. Tin melts at 231.9 °C which is exceptionally low for a metal, but copper doesn’t melt until 1,085 °C which is still achievable in a big enough fire, especially if coal or charcoal are present. Copper and Tin ore can be placed on a large rock and a fire built around it, after the fire is finished there should be a large chunk of bronze in place ready to be smithed into a tool or weapon.

Iron

This metal is much more common than copper or tin but no one could work out how to melt it. The usual methods for making bronze didn’t work on iron and left nothing more than a charred clump of ore. It wasn’t until around 800 BC that people in Britain learned how to make iron and reach the necessary melting point, and it all came down to the use of the bellows. Iron melts at 1,538 °C which is far too hot for any normal fire no matter the size, the only way to reach this temperature is to constantly blow large amounts of air into the smelter to feed the coals. The iron would run out the bottom into a mold made in the earth or would simply sit in the bottom of the smelter and need to be lifted out. The initial smelting of iron is called pig iron and contains a very high carbon content which makes it very brittle. To remove this it would either need to be re-smelted or smithed for a very long time to remove the carbon.

Steel

The Iron Age ended with the invention of steel but it wasn’t the British who invented it for themselves. The Romans are believed to be the first to produce steel and brought the technology to Britain in 43 AD, but it took years for it to spread around the country. Steel is made by taking iron and smelting it in a furnace several times to remove all the impurities and create pure iron. It is then mixed with a very low carbon content, usually less than 1% which changes the chemical bonds and turns it into a whole new metal.

Tar

This substance is necessary for water-proofing wood and is the reason that people could make sea-faring ships. Tar normally comes from pine trees which have very high levels of it, the next time you walk past a wooden telegraph pole made from pine, have a look at the bottom where it meets the pavement and you should see tar that’s seeped out during the hot summer months. To make tar you take pine wood, preferably the roots as they contain the highest quantity of tar, and chop them into small pieces. They are then placed into a metal container and heated without having direct contact with the flames as the tar will ignite and burn off. After the wood gets hot enough the tar will melt out and run out a side pipe from the container into a bucket.

Toothpaste

People didn’t really have toothpaste as we know it today, but they did clean their teeth. Early records of teeth cleaning involve simply wiping your teeth with some kind of cloth soaked in mint oil. Both the Egyptians and Romans had their own versions which included ingredients like crushed oyster shells, powdered ash from burnt animal hoofs, burnt eggshells, crushed bones, soaps, and perfumes. Toothpaste, as we know it today, wasn’t made in its minty white paste form until the mid-1800s.