Ancient Greeks help build better computer networks

Davey Winder
Monday, 04 August 2008 19:11

Your IT - Home IT

The University of Leicester in England is launching a major programme to help develop a new paradigm for future global computing environments. In order to improve code and data mobility over wide area networks the boffins will, err, study Ancient Mediterranean crafts-people from the late bronze age through to classical times...

You might be forgiven for wondering just what the traditions, techniques and technologies of crafts-people from Ancient Greece who lived between 1500 and 200 BCE could have to do with the development of something so cutting-edge as global ubiquitous computing.

Yet a University of Leicester-led project, working with teams from the Universities of both Exeter and Glasgow in the United Kingdom, has just been awarded UKP £1.75 million from the Leverhulme Trust to investigate just that.

'Tracing Networks: Craft Traditions in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond' received the award for its theme of networking. Combining archaeology, archaeological science and computer science to investigate not only ancient cultural networks but to apply that knowledge to modern computer networking concepts.

Looking at these ancient networks across the Mediterranean region, encompassing Greek, Punic and other peoples, the research will focus on crafts-people of the period. It will ask how, and why, their traditions, techniques and technologies changed during that time and managed to cross cultural boundaries.

Professor Lin Foxhall, Deputy Head of the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at Leicester as well as principal investigator of the project, says that they will look at objects ranging from cooking wares and coins to wall paintings and loom weights.

"We trace the links between the people who made, used, and taught others to make them" she says, adding "For example, making a cooking pot isn't so easy - how do craft workers come up with good 'recipes', shapes, and firing techniques for making convenient heat-resistant pottery. "Where do they source their materials and sell their wares; and how do the recipes themselves travel, change, and improve?"

And just what the heck has any of this got to do with Wide Area Networks, data mobility and global ubiquitous computing? All will be revealed on page 2...

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