I’m not thinking of putting this to the test, but it serves to illustrate the advancement of modern ropes.
Yet rope is one of the oldest of human tools, used long before recorded history. Drawings in Egyptian tombs from 6,000 years ago show rope that would have been used to haul the massive blocks that went into every pyramid. And evidence of rope goes back a lot further even than the Egyptians. Fossil fragments have been found in caves; carbon dated from 17,000 years ago. If you killed a large deer, which then needed two men to lug it back to your cave, you might tie its legs to a strong tree limb and carry it between you. ‘Tie’ being the operative word here, probably with some tree creeper or fibrous grass. Individually this might not be strong enough, but it could be made stronger by simply winding two or three strands together, and you’d have a rope. Originally, this was exactly how ropes were made, by intertwining various plant fibres. The Chinese were the first to perfect the superior hemp fibres to make rope, around 2,800BC.
This story is from the November 2020 edition of Practical Boat Owner.
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This story is from the November 2020 edition of Practical Boat Owner.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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