Search Results: Handmade products

The arrival in Europe of the printing press with moveable metal type in the 1450s CE was an event which had enormous and long-lasting consequences. The German printer Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1398-1468 CE) is widely credited with the innovation...

When it comes to ancient history, Pakistan contains its fair share of treasures, one of the prominent of these being the ancient metropolis of Taxila. It is a city of the Gandharan civilization, sometimes known as one of its capitals, whose...

Mesopotamian inventions include many items taken for granted today, most of which were created during the Early Dynastic Period (2900-2334 BCE) or developed from achievements of the Uruk Period (4100-2900 BCE). The Sumerians are credited...

In the 13th century, astonishing quantities of spices and silk passed from the Far East to Europe. Exact amounts are not known, but spice popularity in both cuisine and medicine reached its historical peak during the Middle Ages in Europe...

In many depictions of Vikings, whether in film or other media, a group is often seen gathered around a flaming pit while an animal of some type – usually a boar – turns on a spit above. While the people of Scandinavia certainly...

Ptolemaic Egypt rapidly established itself as an economic powerhouse of the ancient world at the end of the 4th century BCE. The wealth of Egypt was owed in large part to the unrivalled fertility of the Nile, which served as the breadbasket...

Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) was an English manufacturer and inventor who designed and created pottery of all kinds. Noted for his jasper stoneware, Wedgwood was also innovative in how he set up his factory works, for embracing new technology...

Johannes Gutenberg (l. c. 1398-1468) was the inventor of the printing press (c. 1450) who seems to have developed the device from wine and oil presses of the time. Gutenberg’s printing press not only revolutionized book making but literally...

The prosperity of the majority of Greek city-states was based on agriculture and the ability to produce the necessary surplus which allowed some citizens to pursue other trades and pastimes and to create a quantity of exported goods so that...

The Baroque era, which lasted from roughly 1580 and 1780, was a time of enormous contrasts: Opulence and innovation, on the one hand; death and crises, on the other. Ongoing religious wars and the opening of global trade networks led to mass...