Masood Ali
Supporting Actor
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2002
- Messages
- 921
I'd say music.
Wasn't beer invented by the Egyptians something like three thousand years ago?No, Ancient Simmerians (Not to be confused with the Cimmerians of the hyperborian age) brewed primitve beer roughly 10 to 15 thousand years ago. I say primitve because they didn't have carbonation or ICE-versions of beer.
The Egyptians did invent the first (currently historically known) monotheistic religion.
Assuming fire isn't an "invention", clearly the Knife would be most important. It led to the creation of other tools, which lead to future inventions including soap (Can't make soap without fire and a container of some sort....Hmm, need tools to make a container to boil soap-fats in).
Assuming you want the "most important" invention that isn't 50,000 (creationism...Ha!) years old.... Biological Warfare. Guns don't kill people, Influenza, polio, mumps, measels, anthrax, and tuberculoisis kill people. Just ask the 20,000,000 dead native americans who died before 1610, or the Neanderthal of northern Europe.
Yes, Germs (especially the animal-based ones) paved the way for conquest, travel, idea-spreading, stolen technology, farming (how do you think wheat got so common?), religious doctrine, civilization, and so forth.
Don't believe me? Read "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond. (My favorite book).
As Lillian Gish said, no other invention has had such an impact on a civilization.Guess Lillian never heard of the plow. Or indoor plumbing. Or the birth control pill. Or the smallpox vaccine. Oh hell, even the computer.