Reedpunk: a fictional timeline

This idea is derived and extended from a suggestion by a friend of mine (“reedpunk” is named after Egyptian papyrus reeds, by analogy with steampunk).

Papyrus fragment of Euclid’s Elements

287 BC: Archimedes is born in Syracuse

285 BC: Ctesibius is born in Alexandria

*275 BC: Pyrrhus of Epirus utterly defeats the Romans at the Battle of Beneventum

265 BC: Euclid dies in Alexandria

246 BC: Ptolemy III begins his war of conquest

*230 BC: Ptolemy III completes the reconquest of Alexander’s empire

Ptolemy III

*220 BC: Ctesibius establishes a slave-powered pneumatic message delivery service to aid Ptolemy’s government

One of Ctesibius’ pneumatic tubes

222 BC: Ctesibius dies

Museum in honour of Ctesibius, the “father of pneumatics”

*212 BC: Archimedes avoids death in an accident, and moves to Alexandria

The Library at Alexandria

*210 BC: Archimedes completes a large slave-powered astronomical computer, based on the Antikythera mechanism

Fragment of Archimedes’ mechanical computer

*200 BC: Archimedes, the father of Egyptian computing, dies in Alexandria

Archimedes

© 2012

Update here.