What if Gunpowder was discovered in Ancient Egypt?

How would this influence the developement of guns ? what would they look like especially when the Romans get them ?

The Greeks, according to some theories had a steam engine, but did not know what to do with it.

Alsdo, Chinese had gunpowder,and it didn't help against the Mongols
 
Its going to be a lot easier and can be carried out on a larger scale.

But what exactly will they do with it? Considering that their technology is otherwise the same (at the point things start changing), what was possible OTL in say the 18th century might not be possible.
 
But what exactly will they do with it? Considering that their technology is otherwise the same (at the point things start changing), what was possible OTL in say the 18th century might not be possible.

Not immediately. But from what robertp is saying about the basic elements of gunmaking being present, then while development would be necessary it seems to me to be possible. It would take a long time, and just as in OTL involve a lot of exploding barrels and trial and error. But this is ancient Egypt we're talking about here, this is thousands of years. So yeah, if the Egyptians stumble upon gunpowder what was possible in the 18th century wouldn't be immediately possible, but after a while what was possible in 9th century China might be possible, and then what was possible in 14th century Europe might be possible. Since this is happening over a millenia ahead of schedule, even if it's a much longer development arc it may still change everything militarily speaking.

Sure, it might end up being ignored or used sparingly like Greek Fire, but there's no guarantee on that either.

People are right in saying that gunpowder isn't a magic weapon for the Egyptians, it's likely to get out and be used against them eventually.
 
The Greeks, according to some theories had a steam engine, but did not know what to do with it.

Sure they did. They used it for opening temple doors and for party tricks. They didn't have the metallurgy to make much more with it.

Alsdo, Chinese had gunpowder,and it didn't help against the Mongols

The Mongols used gunpowder as well, that's why. There were a fair few centuries between the discovery of gunpowder and the Yuan dynasty.
 

edtorockio

Banned
It seems much more likely to me that had the Egyptians discovered gunpowder it would take someone else to utilize it to any real effect. That’s what usually happens in history anyway.

I see a Chronology like this:

GPY 1 (gunpowder year)
Egyptian farmer-aided by his eldest son, is experimenting to come up with a better fertilizer discovers gunpowder. Dies in first man-made explosion.

GPY 2.
Son of Egyptian farmer is apprenticed by priests

GPY 8
Son, now a priest after years of training is trying to impress higher up priests and remembers the experiment with his father years back. Learning from his father has his subordinate mix the substances together... Nothing happens.

GPY 9
Nothing still happening.

GPY 12
After much praying to the gods and many failed attempts the Son finally manages to mix the proper ingredients together. He dies in the 2nd man-made explosion. Servant survives and believes it was an act of the gods.

Servant studies the problem and after accidentally spilling kerosene (or other oil like substance that evaporates) onto the mixture learns how to mix it properly without killing himself. Due to the effects of the vapors in the air the servant begins hallucinating and believes the new formula a gift from the gods.

GPY 13
Servant presents gunpowder to priests and tells them he has been given a gift from the gods, shows them the gunpowder and effectively fails to get it to detonate until he drops it from his hand and a tiny amount sparks off the ground and it explodes, sending all shaking in their tunics.

GPY 14
Servant is now High Priest and under strict guidance takes two apprentices, training them on how to make gunpowder…

GPY 110
Gunpowder now used in ceremonies across Egypt. Commonly shaped into small cakes for ease of transport.

GPY 131
Egypt invaded by someone else “Country X”…. (help me out here) Someone who was an enemy or plausible enemy of Egypt with advanced metallurgy skills. Perhaps the Greeks?

Gunpowder (and some priests) taken back to homeland and is looked at with Awe AWEEE!!!! And Oooohhhs!

Gunpowder cakes are determined fun to shoot fire arrows at.


GPY 135
Gunpowder cakes first wrapped in linen and dipped in oil with a wick at the end. Light them, toss ‘m and watch them explode.

GPY 136
If Gunpowder cakes are fun to shoot at with fire arrows, and linen wrapped gunpowder cakes are fun to set on fire and throw… MUCH BIGGER Gunpowder cakes wrapped in linen and set on fire then hurled from a catapult is even MORE FUN! Except that the force from the catapult is so great that often the linen wrapped gunpowder cakes burst open, catch fire right above the catapult and explode, not always but sometimes.

Need a better way to make things blow up.

GPY 137
A young soldier watched a catapult with a loaded Linen Bomb do something odd. The catapult’s mechanism got stuck and the linen bomb went off while still in the cup of the catapult. The cup directed the blast of the linen bomb upward…. Err mostly.

He seeks out his brother, the bell maker’s advice. His brother thinks it is silly but he has a medium sized bell that came out wrong that he has to melt down and recast that his brother can use, it just doesn’t sound right.

In his haste, the young soldier failed to remove the hammer of the bell before loading it up with gunpowder cakes. The bell is set half way in the ground (its too heavy to hold up and they are trying to blow stuff up fast, digging a hole is quicker that mounting it on a platform).

They shoot a lit arrow into the bell and BOOM. They find the hammer 50 yards away buried in the ground. The bell is ruined but they are intrigued by what they saw.

GPY 150
The young soldier is now a general, he regularly invites friends over to watch things blow up (literally straight up into the air) as he launches small objects into the air.

GPY 200
“Country X” is invaded by “Country Y” that witnesses the fire-power of “Country X’s” gods and their fire bells. The cycle continues…


Plausible? This is my first real posting here.
 
But what exactly will they do with it? Considering that their technology is otherwise the same (at the point things start changing), what was possible OTL in say the 18th century might not be possible.

Well, if I'm building a dam, and I need rubble to fill it with but all I have is a big rocky hill somewhere, gunpowder would be a handy shortcut to making rubble. Or if I want to excavate quickly in stony ground, gunpowder would be a handy thing to have. All assuming the gunpowder exists and that someone has figured out what it can do. And that's without any otherwise advanced technology.

So even if we stipulate that metallurgy and chemistry take no other sudden leaps, we can see that the existence of just basic blackpowder would be a huge deal,
 
Well, if I'm building a dam, and I need rubble to fill it with but all I have is a big rocky hill somewhere, gunpowder would be a handy shortcut to making rubble. Or if I want to excavate quickly in stony ground, gunpowder would be a handy thing to have. All assuming the gunpowder exists and that someone has figured out what it can do. And that's without any otherwise advanced technology.

So even if we stipulate that metallurgy and chemistry take no other sudden leaps, we can see that the existence of just basic blackpowder would be a huge deal,

Point.

This could be interesting.

Ed: I don't know about your dates, but...

"If Gunpowder cakes are fun to shoot at with fire arrows, and linen wrapped gunpowder cakes are fun to set on fire and throw… MUCH BIGGER Gunpowder cakes wrapped in linen and set on fire then hurled from a catapult is even MORE FUN! Except that the force from the catapult is so great that often the linen wrapped gunpowder cakes burst open, catch fire right above the catapult and explode, not always but sometimes.

Need a better way to make things blow up."

This seems very appropriate for how it evolves as a weapon. Which is to say, with a lot of problems and pyromaniacs.
 
Cannons, again, are not viable until the advent of metal casting and even then it's unlikely to get em' to work.
 
Cannons, again, are not viable until the advent of metal casting and even then it's unlikely to get em' to work.

But someone is probably going to think "This could be better than the catapult method."

Though its likely to be more "Catapult method too unreliable, other methods insufficiently useful." and it gets forgotten as a war weapon until someone with better metal casting rediscovers it.
 
Point.

This could be interesting.

Ed: I don't know about your dates, but...

"If Gunpowder cakes are fun to shoot at with fire arrows, and linen wrapped gunpowder cakes are fun to set on fire and throw… MUCH BIGGER Gunpowder cakes wrapped in linen and set on fire then hurled from a catapult is even MORE FUN! Except that the force from the catapult is so great that often the linen wrapped gunpowder cakes burst open, catch fire right above the catapult and explode, not always but sometimes.

Need a better way to make things blow up."

This seems very appropriate for how it evolves as a weapon. Which is to say, with a lot of problems and pyromaniacs.

Except that black powder needs to be compressed or it just burns fast. Perhaps a small pottery vessel filled with the stuff?
 
I am sorry,i am new here,if this is some forum inside joke, please explain
It is sort of an inside joke, because it's mentioned so often here, yet had so very little potential. The aeliopile was much more like a tea kettle than a steam engine. It might have led to something useful in a few centuries.
 
Or if Hero had been just that little bit more thorough (he worked with piston pumps, it would only have been a matter of reversing where the power went in and came out). Of course, the metallurgy of the day wasn't good enough for anything really practical, but a small, second-generation proof-of-concept might have been possible. But again, the slave-based economy and the price of metal would probably have scuppered any attempt at practical implementation for a few centuries at least.
 
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