Infrastructure
5 inventions in this category
Aqueduct
Cities can survive bad rulers longer than they can survive bad water. An aqueduct was the wager that a settlement could outrun its local spring by imp...
Public bath
The Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro was not an innovation but a culmination. By 2600 BCE, the Indus Valley civilization had developed urban infrastructure...
Reservoir
The Indus River was less predictable than the Nile or the Tigris-Euphrates. Its floods came irregularly, sometimes not at all, sometimes devastatingly...
Rock-cut stepwell
Northwestern India's monsoon climate creates a cruel paradox: torrential rains for weeks, then bone-dry conditions for months. The water table in Guja...
Self-acting hydraulic ram
Pumps usually demand payment in fuel, muscle, or machinery. The self-acting hydraulic ram found a loophole. If water is already falling downhill, stop...