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Blood Power to Steam Power – Part 2

26 Aug

In my last post, I talked about my visit to the Mayan exhibit at the Minnesota Science Museum. This puzzling civilization was controlled by priests that obtained their power by blood sacrifices.For nearly four millennium they stood as one of the most advanced  cultures on earth. The reason for their decline is still a mystery.

The day following my trip to see the Mayan exhibit, I volunteered in a gardening Q&A booth at a small country town festival (threshing show) near my home. One of the key elements of this show was a historical accounting and progress of the steam-powered engines and specifically the farm tractor.

Coal-Fired Steam Tractor

1923 Case No. 11 Coal-Fired Steam Tractor

The festival grounds were covered with booths and exhibits of steam engines dating back into the 19th century. There were steam engines that would fit in the palm of your hand and steam engines that ran full-sized sawmills.

Cutting logs into boards

Cutting logs into boards – Note the blade on the left and the size of the man in the center.

There was even a stem engine that ran a ringer washer.

No more hand cranking the ringer.

No more hand cranking the ringer. Watch your fingers!

In the eighteen hundreds, steam ran everything from Eli Whitney’s cotton gin to the Mississippi Queen-styled river boats. In short, the steam engine powered the industrial revolution. Most steam engines were powered by either wood or coal. The smell of a coal burner is unmistakable. The potential for the fires getting out of control or the boiler explosion from over-pressurization made early models somewhat dangerous to operate. However, the hiss…pop…hiss of a steam engine is very cool. And a hundred or so all running at the same time sounded like a really strange symphony.

So, for those of you writing historical fiction, steam punk, or historical fantasy, don’t forget to include these amazing machines in your story. Realism is what we are all after and there isn’t much that is more grounded and gritty than a good old-fashioned steamer, grinding and puffing in the background. Maybe it’s a turn of the century steam shovel working in a strip mining operation or a high-speed steamer headed for the Yucatan. Whatever you choose. these machines will help you bring your story to life.

 
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Posted by on August 26, 2013 in Musings and Odd Thoughts, Other Strangeness

 

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Blood Power to Steam Power – Part one

19 Aug
A Mayan City Center

A Mayan City Center  Photo credit to http://www.civilization.com

Blood sacrifice, Ritual beheadings, and games where the losing team captain is sacrificed to the gods, this is where my weekend started. No, not at the local parent/teacher association meeting. The domestic CEO and I went to the Minnesota Science Museum’s Maya Exhibit.

I have always been fascinated by the history and depth of this culture. Visiting the locations of these once powerful city-states has always been on my bucket list.

The juxtaposition of sheer intellect capable of tracking the stars and predicting celestial occurrences and the brutality of blood lettings and human sacrifice make this culture puzzling. The Mayan calendar and their pyramid-shaped temples are probably the most recognizable of the remains of this vast civilization that spanned from 1800 BC to 1450 AD..

However, their advances in medicine, dentistry, art, and agriculture remind us that this was a culture that supported tens of thousands of people without the benefit of ‘modern’ technology.

Two areas that really jumped out at me were the dental inlay work were gems and precious stones were placed into holes drilled into a person’s teeth using a simple bow-drill. Ouch! The part of the exhibit I found fascinating was a map that was created using laser photography from a low flying airplane to map the Maya city of Caracol in Belize. It revealed the existence of thousands of previously unknown roads, agricultural terraces and suburban housing settlements. The size of this city was awesome. The fact that the Mayans did not have horses or other means of travel other than by foot added to the magnitude of their way of life.

The two and a half hours we spent at the exhibit only fueled my desire to visit the actual sites. This trip has certainly moved up in priority on my bucket list.

From a writer’s viewpoint, the possibilities for story lines is truly endless. Obviously, historical fiction and fantasy are easy genres to leverage. However, so would romance, mystery and horror. Now I have to go back and watch, Mel Gibson’s action-adventure movie, “Apocalypto”, Just to see how the director recreated this marvelous culture.

In my next post, we’ll travel forward in time from the Mayans to the industrial revolution and my visit to a local festival that celebrates steam power.

 
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Posted by on August 19, 2013 in Musings and Odd Thoughts

 

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