Hi,
I didn't know how else to phrase this question. I am aware that Greek and Latin were used as the language to record much scientific research over hundreds/thousands of years.
Has all this knowledge been translated by now? Are there still engineering/scientific mysteries of Roman and Greek constructions and methods that we do not fully understand? If so, is it possible that they may still be found in untranslated texts?
I'm asking this partially because it seems to me that Latin and Old Greek are no longer heavily emphasized in schools today. Is this because we have gotten all the knowledge out of older texts by now and it's just not useful anymore ( in the realm of physical sciences, that is...not linguistics, religion, poetry, and assorted histories).
I came to think about this when reading about things such as the Antikythera mechanism (quasi- steam engine in ancient Greece) and when I was reading about Roman concrete ( as well as taking a look at De Architectura). I was also looking at this interesting post on Quora (https://www.quora.com/History-Is-there-such-thing-as-Lost-Technology-or-is-that-a-myth).
A lot of the information on this seems rather bland, fringe with litte evidence, or just invented. Is there any serious research or attempts to try to restore "lost technology"?
tl;dr
What kind of ancient methods/techniques do we not understand?
May any of this still be in untranslated texts?
How useful is this to the promotion of technology today?
THANKS!
EDIT: Preferably trying to find out more outside of "Damacus Steel", "Greek fire", and "Roman Concrete". These seem to be the only three I can find information about, but I find it over and over again. There has to be something else outside of these three inventions, right?
You've got a lot of questions going on here! I'll try to answer a few.
Just for clarification, the Antikythera mechanism is an astrological calendar.
The disappearance of Greek and Latin is unrelated to the utility of old texts. Latin was the common language of education until the late 19th century. Up to this point, dissertations and medical treatises were often written in Latin, and many classes were taught in Latin. The national languages gradually took over, and by the early 20th century, Latin was dead as the language of education.
Greek and Latin stuck around because they were one of the foundations of a classical education. That was true until the mid-20th century, when the surge in college admissions resulted in more vocational training and less critical thinking and brain development.
Everything in Greek and Latin that we can read has been read. Not necessarily translated, but accessible and legible to classicists everywhere. There are charred scrolls from the library of Philodemus at Herculaneum that are finally being read with the aid of advanced imaging techniques. But he was a philosopher, and they're all boring (in my opinion) philosophy.
When it comes to the mixing of ingredients and modes of manufacture, there are bound to be things that we can't fully replicate. Just like looking at a picture of a cake and not knowing what's in it. Or testing the organics embedded in a cooking pot to identify the ingredients, but not knowing the recipe. It doesn't mean that we don't understand or can do better. It just means that that's inaccessible information.
So I'd say that the pursuit of lost technology is more of an academic exercise. There were brilliant people with incredible understanding of how the world works. But we generally can (and have) done better than what they've done. Our version of Greek fire is (probably) basically napalm. We can make better (or at least as good) sword blades, and our building materials are better or as good.
We can learn more about them and their technical skills, their capabilities, and their methods. And that information is interesting. But we're unlikely to discover technologies that we haven't thought of or heard of ourselves. Especially not in a philosopher's library.