Long before SCUBA diving, and long before diving was considered to be a fun way to spend a few hours or even an entire two week vacation, people were spending time under the water in what we today would consider extremely dangerous and primitive circumstances. Let's take a trip back in time now, and learn about what the first divers experienced.
Diving at the Dawn of Time
Since humans first inhabited the earth, they surely entered the water in search of food; fish, shellfish, and crustaceans were definitely on early human menus. From artifacts, archaeologists have been able to discover that the people of Mesopotamia collected oysters for their wealth of pearls, and that was about 4,500 years ago. By the third century BCE, people in Greece's Thebes were free diving for pearls, and in short order, so were people in China.
Sponge divers plunged down to depths of about 100 feet in Homer's day, around 1000 BCE. Tethering themselves to the surface, and tended by minders, they used some ingenious methods, both for diving and for equalization. These divers poured olive oil into their ears, and held oil in their mouths during descent, all the while, maintaining air inside their lungs; they held heavy stones on the way down, then cut as many sponges as they could on that single breath. Then, their minders would haul them back up to the surface, never mind a safety stop.
Early snorkels were fashioned from reeds, and by the days of Alexander the Great, crude diving bells were used by workers clearing harbor space. The Spartans and the Athenians deployed combat divers, and even the great Alexander used a diving bell to observe his workers.
By the first century BCE, the major trade routes of the Mediterranean region hosted a bustling salvage industry, with fee structures dependent on the depth of the wrecks in question. The salvors were paid with a percentage of the goods they recovered; sometimes, when diving to depths of 25 feet or greater, they could make a commission of fifty percent. In shallow water where they could stand, their share was reduced to a still generous ten percent, and in moderate depths between 12 and 25 feet, they got a respectable one-third of the take. When you stop to consider the number of wrecks still in existence today, it is easy to understand how these early salvage divers must have made a very good living; still, it is incredible to think about what a capacity they must have had for holding their breath.
Today's pearl divers, often women, have roots steeped in ancient history, too. Collecting seafood and oysters for pearls was a common task assigned to women around the world. The Ama divers of Korea and Japan, the Yahgan Indians of Cape Horn, and the Mayans of Central America all employed free divers.
Diving during the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution
In Europe, throughout the middle ages, free divers were used to sink battleships during times of strife, and they sometimes even delivered supplies to cities under siege.
During the third crusade, a major technological advance was made by an Egyptian nicknamed Issa. While serving in the navy of the Sultan Saladin, he constructed an underwater breathing apparatus with a pair of bellows. Maintaining his depth by weighing himself down with heavy stones, he managed to swim past Christian sentries to deliver supplies to the city of Acre. Unfortunately, he met his demise when a Crusader spotted him and shot him with an arrow.
During the Renaissance, inventors created a number of different apparatuses for breathing beneath the water's surface; Leonardo da Vinci even sketched fins and goggles, items which would not be used by divers until much later in history. Next time you're diving, take a minute to appreciate your gear; it would have been considered a form of magic thousands of years ago.