Varför tog inte Julius Caesar ånglok till Gallien?

Among prehistoric rocky outcrops and behind the dusty façades of antiquity lies a world of ingenuity, bold experiments and mechanical dreams. This evening’s talk explores ancient inventions – extraordinary marvels ranging from clever little devices to astonishing giants.

In particular, we look at how nature’s most elusive creatures could inspire technological creativity and how humans tamed the shadows long before the solutions we now take for granted. We also examine some persistent myths in which ancient knowledge has been misrepresented in popular culture. Join us for a lecture on humanity’s enduring inventiveness – ingenious, forgotten and misunderstood.

Richard Holmgren is an archaeologist specialising in the Eastern Mediterranean. He pushed his first wheelbarrow in the Valley of the Kings and, since the early nineties, has worked on excavations by the Dead Sea, in the rock-cut city of Petra and at Pompeii in Italy, as well as searching for Columbus’s ships in the West Indies. Richard’s presentations for a wider audience are familiar to us from the Sveriges Radio programmes “Sommar” and Vetenskapsradion Historia, as well as SVT’s documentary “Mysteriet vid Djatlovpasset”.