Cotton Gin WI
- Thread starter AwanRiel
- Start date
- What if?
bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
- Location
- Wichita, Kansas
I'm not really sure there's a strong use for it at this time? As the Republic Rome is still in its infancy as a massive imperial market for luxury and imports, and even in their highest demands for cotton they had equally vibrant markets for silk, wool, linen, even blends of silk or linen with cotton. Plus even if the Republic allohistorically conquered Carthage and Egypt a lot faster and integrated its neighboring cotton-producing hubs, they would always be in competition with the excellent Indian cotton exported to Rome. Unlike Rome in India cotton was a massive money-maker cultivated in huge amounts, so there improvements to the process would pay dividends... which is why by ~500 CE India had already developed a cotton gin that fit their needs- a simple handheld roller. Any mechanical gin would be so expensive in metal and skilled artisanry as to only be a one-off toy for the ultrarich and social circle of its inventors, much like Hiero of Alexandria and his steam Aeolipile.
Flectarn
Uphold Kali Akuno Thought
- Location
- Queen City of the Ohio
- Location
- the details
The Romans were building things like harbors, stadiums, and aqueducts out of unreinforced concrete (The Pantheon, for example, has the largest unreinforced concrete dome ever built, and it's almost 2,000 years old). The main reason they didn't build steam engines like the simple early ones used to pump water out of mines: slaves were cheaper.
I'm sorry, but that's fundamentally incorrect. Just because they could build large things out of stone and concrete doesn't mean they could build small things out of metal. It deeply, deeply underestimates the amount, quality, and precision of metallurgy required to create even a basic steam engine usable for work. The bulk of the metal in a Newcomen engine is cast iron, which didn't make it into the west in significant quantities until the 15th century; that's not even getting into the valves.
As to the original point, a Roman cotton gin: the picture above doesn't adequately show the fine metal parts- interlinked teeth and metal wire- that made it workable for mass-processing of short-staple cotton.
Plus, as @bookwyrm says above, there wasn't any cotton in Rome to gin. The stuff grew in India and the cloth was imported.
There does seem to be a way to get to the spirit of the question if not the exact details. Long staple cotton was introduced into Egypt in the 7th century so it being introduced earlier would not be impossible at all. Also the dual roller cotton gin invented in the 13th century in India would not require metal at all as the two worm gears could be made of wood and it was made for long stable cotton. Worm gears were originally worked out in about the 3rd century bc in Greece so they were around for about half of the history of the roman republic in the original time line.