Ancient
Greece & You
Joe Greenwald, Champlain Valley
Union High School, VT
Making Tools
Knowledge
If we were to only use wood,leather, stone,
and metal tools, we would be much more limited in what we could
do. We could no longer travel long distances in short amounts
of time because we wouldn't have the materials nessesary to build
the vehicles we need to travel long distances like airplanes
and cars.
We would also no longer be able to communicate
as well as we do now because there would be no phone lines, and
the mail would take much longer to reach its destination then
it does today. Having no way of communicating well over long
disatnces and no quick way of traveling these distances.
Abacus:
For both the laborer and the entrepreneur the abacus allowed
for larger and more accurate transactions of goods and money.
The impact the abacus had on the Greek economy was that now the
government could more easily keep track of tax money and debts.
In modern times we no longer use the abacus as way to making
calculations. Today we use calculators which are similiar to
an abacus because they are used to make quick calculations instead
of having to figure it out in your head.
Spindle:
The spindal made it very easy to turn raw wool into string, which
in turn allowed for quicker manufacturing of clothing. Because
of the easy use of the spindal not as many workerss were need
to turn out a certain amount of wool. This also meant that they
could make a lot more wool. Of course, this meant more money
was flowing which can only make an economy stonger. Today the
spindal has also been fazed out by a nother invention that does
the same work just faster. Today machines are reponsible for
spining wool, people no longer take part.
Chariot:
The chariot was the greek's version of the car. It allowed an
entrepreneur to travel quickly to a meeting or to any other event.
Chariots were often expensive making it hard for the common laborer
to afford one. For the economy of Greece, the chariot got money
flowing as a form of entertainment and travel. The chariot modern
day predisesor, the car, in another form of intertainment and
transportation, it just gets the job done faster then the chariot
could ever have.
Wax Scratcher:
The wax scratcher was the greek's equivilent to a pen. Students
in classes would use this tool to write in wax. This tool did
not affect the economy very much directly. The were only used
in schools making there sales not very high. But the wax scratcher
did help educate the young boys on many things including the
economy. In todays society we no longer have use for the wax
scratcher, and more and more we are becoming less dependent on
writing tools ingenral with the advances we are making in computers.
Oil Lamp:
The oil lamp would have been very important in Greek society.
It would allow work to get done in the evening and at night.
Insteed of going to bed the entrepeneur could stay up and do
work by lamp light. The oil lamp would make it so that the day
didn't end when the sun went down. Now days we no longer use
oil as a source of light because of our discovery of electrisity.
Oil lamps are still used, but only for show, and not by the genral
public.
