Construction and Engineering Awards 2026 Low Technology Construction Inventor of the Year 2026: John Foster For the average person, lifting any more than about 25kg is difficult. With this thought in mind, it seems almost impossible that man was lifting megalithic loads in prehistoric and ancient times, and yet, as shown by Stonehenge in England or the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, this was certainly the case. Historians have long argued how, with low technology, they did it. However, using his low-tech invention, the Archimedes Jack, John Foster believes he may have figured it out. Humans living thousands of years ago had almost nothing available to assist them in building with large blocks of stone. Of the six machines we know of, the wedge was no help, the screw was almost definitely not invented, ramps required some means of low friction to work well and were thus very dangerous, and both the wheel and axle (or crank) and the pulley were equally hazardous as ropes break. This leaves just one, the lever, whose value has long been missed. It is true that the lever alone is not enough. It was Archimedes, the Ancient Greek inventor behind the Archimedes Jack’s name, who boasted: "Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the world." He forgot to mention that the world would have moved less than the width of an atom! The solution is the Archimedes Jack, a seventh "simple" machine that uses levering technology but takes it to a new level. Combining the lever with another ancient technology, the sand prop, and giving it a new function, this solution sees the lever able to be operated repeatedly in a linear direction. The result is that loads are lifted further—quickly, safely, and more efficiently. As John explained: "The synergy of the lever and sand props surpasses the capability of each separate part." Inspired by the work of one of Ancient Greece’s many pioneering minds, particularly on levers and displacement in fluids, the namesake Archimedes Jack is a machine made primarily for efficiently lifting loads vertically. It utilises gravity to operate and stands as an ergonomically efficient solution, with each worker using a lever to apply effort equal to no more than their bodyweight. This means that a single worker can raise loads of over a tonne by one metre within ten minutes. More can be done with multiple jacks and multiple workers. The thing that differentiates the Archimedes Jack from other low-technology machines is its use of sand, which behaves like a solid when contained and compressed but still remains fluid-like when vented from the bottom of the container used in the sand prop. When the sand prop is lowered with a load applied (its original concept), the load support prop can sink into the sand. To raise the load, the support props must simply be slightly longer and submerged in the sand beforehand. These are simply placed under the load, and the levers pivot. A second pivot on the lever, under the load, allows lever strokes to be repeated. When the worker’s bodyweight is applied to the lever (gravity works in their favour here), the load is raised. Gravity again works in a person’s favour when either support prop is raised, meaning the sand used as load support can flow downwards into the void under the prop. John added: "Displacement in liquids is reversible While the discovery of positive displacement has fuelled scientific progress, negative displacement has offered little to no benefit" He continued: "Negative displacement in sand is a key mechanism; when a prop is raised, its position is virtually irreversible." These support props will lower only when sand is vented from the container. The weight of these support props (gravity again) and the lever (with or without the load) can then be lowered. The sand that was vented can then be used to refill the space between the support props and the containers, ready for the next lift cycle. This makes sand an active component in lifting the loads. With a full-scale version of this machine able to be built to function using the technology we know was available in the ancient world, John suggests that a version of this tool may have been used by the Egyptians to build the pyramids. Many other tasks also become possible. Hypothesising how exactly this technology could have been used to build everything from the Great Pyramid to the other 138 or so across Egypt, John commented: "A regular stepped ramp with an Archimedes Jack on each level could raise blocks of several tonnes with minimum human and material resources." Interestingly, this method also aligns with the brief records of the pyramids made by the historian Herodotus. Despite levers having long been overlooked as a way of raising large loads over significant distances, John Foster is framing them as vital in the building of prehistoric and ancient civilisations, embodied by the Archimedes Jack. More on both this low-technology innovation and John’s research can be found below. Contact: John Foster Email: [email protected] Web Address: https://archimedesjack.com/ Archimedes Jack Technology (The Seventh Machine) “Gravity is not a problem, it’s the solution!”
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