Re: До XVII...
>От римского времени таких жалоб нет, следовательно, их было меньше. Я исходил из этой логики.
От римского времени много чего нет, а самое главное письменных источников. До нас дошел объем источников в тысячи раз меньший, чем из Средневековья. Особенно не хватает хозяйственных документов. У нас остается только археология, которая, тем не менее, за 30 последних лет продвинулась в этом вопросе очень далеко. Вплоть до того, что подтвердила подлинность поэмы Авсония или позволила разъяснить пассаж Аммиана о водяных мельницах около Амиды, в которые раньше просто не верили.
Adam Robert Lucas. Industrial Milling in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds. Technology and Culture 46, 2005, pp. 7-9:
In their efforts to depict the European Middle Ages as an important transitional phase on the road to modernity, proponents of the industrial revolution thesis continued to conceptualize the classical period and its non-European contemporaries in Enlightenment terms. They disparaged the technological achievements of the Greeks and Romans and argued that Chinese and Islamic civilizations were outstripped by Europe both economically and technologically in the second half of the Middle Ages. Thus was medieval European exceptionalism emphasized with respect to both its cultural progenitors and its rivals.
This conception looks increasingly problematic when subjected to close scrutiny. An examination of the claim that the Romans and their contemporaries made little use of the water mill when compared with medieval Europeans is a logical place to start.
Over the past two decades, a number of classical archaeologists and historians have demonstrated that Roman use of waterpower was far more widespread and innovative than was previously thought. This research has been in the context of a more favorable assessment of Roman technological achievements more generally. Archaeological evidence compiled by Örjan Wikander from over forty Roman-era sites suggests that the verticalwheeled water mill was in widespread use throughout the Roman Empire from at least the first half of the second century C.E., and that it was a preferred technology for some industrial applications. Ausonius’ reference to sawmills used for cutting marble on a tributary of the Moselle in the late fourth century C.E. is now accepted as authentic. Other literary references and recent archaeological evidence from Byzantine-era Ephesus indicate that waterpowered sawmills were widely used in some parts of the former empire until the seventh century, and probably later. Michael Lewis has recently presented some persuasive evidence for the Roman use of waterpowered forge mills. The remains of large anvils with what can only be described as mechanically produced deformations have been excavated at a number of iron mining sites in Roman Iberia, Britain, and Gaul. They strongly suggest that the Romans were using cam-operated recumbent or vertical stamps in the manufacture of iron, and that the mechanisms involved were probably waterpowered. The large number of finds indicates that the technology was regularly used from as early as the first century C.E., as were waterpowered pestles, an alternative to waterpowered grain mills. Walter Horn’s arguments for waterpowered pilae in the seventh-century plans for the monastery of St. Gall find some support in this context. All of this suggests a very early and widespread use of the cam.
If we look more generally at a list of the technological achievements of the Hellenic Greeks and Romans, it is far longer and more impressive than some scholars have suggested. These achievements include: the chain of pots and the compartmented waterwheel for raising water; the doughkneading machine; the olive-crushing mill; the vertical- and horizontalwheeled water mills; new olive presses; the reaping machine; horizontal looms; the barrow; riverboats; a range of wheeled vehicles; more effective hoists; better aqueducts, with water towers and lead pipes; hydraulic pumps; the use of brick and concrete in construction; a considerable variety of war machines; and the mass production of tiles, molded pottery, and bread.
Вот еще посмотрите: http://vif2ne.ru/nvk/forum/files/Ildar/(141128205510)_Andrew_Wilson_The_uptake_of_mechanical_technology_in_the_ancient_world.docx
>Да, я тоже отметил, что, с одной стороны, как бы намечалась техническая революция, а, с другой стороны, все явно катилось а тартарары.
Ну, в конце 3 века удалось падение остановить еще более чем на 100 лет.
