Question: What do the Egyptian pyramids, Britain’s cotton mills, the USS Constitution and the first Space Shuttle all have in common? Answer: They all depended on rope.
Rope has been around for so long that we tend to take it for granted, yet it’s no exaggeration to say that it has been associated with almost every major development in human civilisation. From creating buildings and bridges, to catching and taming animals, creating weapons, and of course playing a central role in farming, fishing and sailing. Rope also features in art, from the Ancient Egyptians through to Leonardo da Vince and right up to the present (viz Tomo Mori’s work). It’s even been used for mathematical purposes (by the Incas) – and don’t even get me started on the core rope memory system used by early computers…
“String,” as Spike Milligan wrote, “is a very important thing.”
The oldest piece of ‘string’ was discovered in a cave in France in April 2020. The fragment, just 6mm (0.24in) long and 0.5mm wide, was made up of three strands which were each twisted clockwise then grouped together and twisted anti-clockwise to make a cord – the principle of ‘laying up’ three-strand rope which survives unchanged to this day.
