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A thought crossed my mind – after the discovery of how to make fire, how did ancient peoples, well make fire? I imagine that people such as the Greeks and Romans would have borrowed a flame from the domestic hearth to light other fires that they needed, and that a continually-burning hearth was located somewhere in the city center that they could draw from. However, what if they were out traveling? Did they use the typical camping method of rotating a stick with the help of a string? Or was there some other way?
Several methods can be used for firemaking : by friction (hand drill, bow drill, fire plough) by percussion (marcasite, pyrite). It's also possible to make fire by using firesteels (since Iron Age) and fire piston. Which one in particular was the most common way to make fire during Ancient Greece ? Dunno … :(Try here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/games/ironage_life/index_embed.shtml
Well, according to that BBC animation, the way they did it in the Iron Age was the same method that you build a campfire with when you have nothing else.
STREPSIADES: At the drug seller’s shop have you seen that beautiful stone you can see right through, the one they use to start a fire?SOCRATES: You mean glass?STREPSIADES: Yes.SOCRATES: So what?STREPSIADES: What if I took that glass, and when the scribe was writing out the charge, I stood between him and the sun—like this— some distance off, and made his writing melt, just the part about my case?*
Aristophanes, Clouds
How to make fire using the Neanderthal inside you?I've practised it a few “decades” ago and it's really easy to do. Of course, with practice you can make a fire as easily as by using a lighter.Ingredients– a flint stone- a piece of marcasite- dry tinder fungus- dry grassHow to proceed?– hit the marcasite with the flint stone above the fungus- hit until a spark falls on the fungus- once the spark falls onto the dry fungus, blow softly it until smoke comes out and the fungus starts burning- when enough fungus is burning, insert it inside a kind of nest made of dry grass and keep blowing slowly from under until flames start- once it's on fire, keep “fuelling” it until the requested size to start cooking your mammoth steakA short vdo from Maine showing it: Flint on Marcasite
