Let Audible help you discover new ways to laugh, be inspired, or be entertained. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com/drachinifel or text drachinifel to 500-500. Also, pinned post for Q&A :)
Definitely further experiments. And maybe get a university department (engineering/chemistry/history) to put together a siphon system to see if it would work as advertised.
Cheers ! A few notes: -One possible explanation of "burning more with water" could be simply that at that period, an incendiary liquid would likely contain some sort of oil, preheated to ignite better. Hot oil in contact with water makes quite impressive effects. Saw someone put wet fries into the deepfryer and create a 2m high mushroom orange fireball. -As I work in special effects for films, I strongly urge you, for the larger/more complex experiments, to get somebody who has experience with odd fire-tampering. As it's experimental, nobody will know "the good way", but the experience of seemingly safe things that went wrong is valuable. It's you who got me interested in naval warfare, and I'd hate to lose you.
Experimental naval historians live dangerously, but experimental rocket historians don't even exist :D There is a book about the history of rocket fuels, available online. It's called: "Ignition!" It will warm your heart, if you read it, and everything you know if you actually dared to try some of the stuff in there...
Sodium and potassium metal (and particularly the room temperature liquid alloys of the two) display exactly the described effects. Phosphorus is easier to produce chemically however…
@@allangibson8494 they do, but did they exist 1200 years ago? If you drop enough superheated oil in water, you probaply get a steam explosion. (like in a grease fire) Maybe thats what they described.
@@nos9784 Superheated oil would be more likely to give a Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion (BLEVE) - not a steam explosion, but it’s nastier cousin. An ignition source in the form of a tiny quantity of metal or phosphorus would ensure ignition. I suspect “Greek fire” was probably multiple different weapons with both a hand grenade and siphon using different principles being developed over centuries in great secrecy (and possibly being lost simply because it wasn’t written down).
Why does this remind me of some Mythbusters episodes? 'This is Blur, Blur is dangerous, you don't want to mix Blur, with Blank, it's very bad for you.' I want more visits to this unknown location. I like experimental archaeology. Or I'm a pyro, could be both.
@@jonathanstrong4812 build a man of fire and you can keep him warm for an evening. Set a man on fire and you can keep him warm for the rest of his life.
I've often thought that Greek Fire may have been a mixture of olive oil, turpentine, and linseed oil - all products readily available to them. Heated to just over 100°C linseed oil will spontaneously ignite in air, igniting the turpentine and olive oil. If the olive oil was treated with burnt lime the glycerine separates out leaving an even more flammable product similar to naphtha. It's how they make biodiesel from waste restaurant oil and grease.
Even if the ingredients are common, how do you know how to mix them? How do you distinguish 3 different types of "oil" to get the recipe from captured examples? If anything the combination and rather unexpected synergy of materials makes it more mysterious, IMO. But more straightforward methods like combining, oil+resin+sulfur+quicklime can also explain it. Ultimately even if people knew the individual qualities of these, likely not many had opportunity to experiment with them like this. Especially not while being sponsored by an empire to do so. Ultimately this established the Roman monopoly on "Greek Fire".
"What were you doing outside with your friend dear?" "Oh just some science love." The respirator - protector of both lungs, and facial hair. Very wise.
It looks about right to me. Don't forget the effect of scaling up, even a seemingly innocent mildly exothermic reaction on a small scale can get very violent when industrial quantities are used. As well as the direct damage the Greek fire would do, there would also be the effects of the heat radiation, which would tend to set things in the vicinity on fire as well, and probably cause the crew to abandon ship.
We’re here at the top secret Drach incendiary testing center, just off the A35…. A possibility I’ve thought of was that oil from a plant that was subsequently gathered to extinction was a necessary ingredient.
If it was crude oil or a derivative then as the Empire shrunk and lost control of its trade to the Italians the supply would also have shrunk. That said I don't know enough about the chemical differences to know if plant oil would have worked just as well or not.
As a chemist I figured greek fire was petroleum/animal fat/pine pitch based (or a mix of those) and fortified with sodium/potasium metal obtained via simple distillation from potassium/sodium salts. This would be a super flamable mix when heated and little "beads" of sodium, potassium (or worse, NaK alloy) would by activates by water and damn near impossible to put out. They would also hiss, pop and roar leading to the descriptions in the texts. A very small amt of metals mixed into the oil liquid wluld do a lot of damage i assume, throwing molten flaming metal, releasing hydrogen fires and flinging flaming liquid when they "pop"
It is impossible to separate alkali metals from their salts by "simple distillation". It is possible by electrolysing molten potassium hydroxide or molten caustic soda.
I very much doubt that the ability to create either metallic sodium or potassium was known in the ancient world. They simply did not have the chemical knowledge to do so. In fact, modern preparation of the metals is done by electrolysis. While my knowledge of chemistry is a bit weak, a quick search of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica does indicate a couple of non-electrolitic means, they seem unlikely to have been known to the Byzantiums, not in the least the difficulty in handling and storing the highly reactive metals. Potassium being particularly difficult to separate, as it spontaneously ignites when exposed to oxygen, and metallic sodium also oxidizes when exposed to air. Since chemistry, or rather alchemy, was generally based on trial and error, it is highly unlikely either metallic sodium or potassium could have been produced. Certainly not in any quantity.
I'm curious - what, and from where, are your Chemistry qualifications? Somebody teaches some VERY unusual Chemistry! Of course, there is another possible explanation...
I wonder at the reduced usage you mentioned later in the time period, I wonder if the empire lost (or suffered limited) access to one of the ingredients due to changing geographic boundaries. I would love to see the formula rediscovered, but I think a proper large scale test is likely to be impractical without access to fire suits and a lot of outside support. Murphy is likely to be waiting in the wings.
That was an idea I had too, since the Bronze Age civilizations went down because of similar reasons, in their case being a lack of a steady tin imports due to disturbed trading networks. They had to make do with local replacements, such as arsenic... Yes, arsenic and copper, a very healthy combination to say the least! But it gives you an idea how desperate the situation became very quickly. So guess it might have been the same for the Byzantines and producing Greek Fire: probably a lower quality Ersatz-material was used, which might have reduced it's effectiveness? We'll never know for sure I think.
We should have some maps of resource extraction during the early medieval period in the Middle East and India. Might be interesting to see what turns up, that's how they found out about those Middle Eastern Bronze Age civies.
@@thomasvandevelde8157 Even such a map might not include the needed resources - that said, combine a map of then-known and modern extractions, as well as near-modern historical operations.
Yep, a larger scale test would most definitely require professional pyroma- erm, firefighters, with specialised equipment on standby. Not to mention having a body of water where people are somewhat alright with having a small boat burned down with chemical fire.
I think you should involve your experienced military bomb disposal dudes, too. They will have ideas even your firefighters / haz mat folks might not have thought of or encountered.
That quicklime was known, and used for similar purposes, would seem to indicate to me that it is not the missing ingredient, or, if it was indeed used in the mixture, not the only missing one. If something relatively known were used, you'd figure that a) the recipe wouldn't have been lost and b) others would have figured it out. Something about the process of making it would need to be non-obvious, so that there is a secret to be kept.
I would tend to agree with you, but on the other hand, the mixture Drachinfel mixed up is pretty energetic. And just how many people in that time period were mixing together oil, pitch, sulfur and quick lime, and conceiving of a way to spray it on their enemies? I will admit I find it hard to believe the secret was lost, but many processes that the ancients used have been lost! The art of building large stone complexes such as the pyramids or transporting and erecting the Easter Island statues or the stones of Stonehenge for examples. We know they did it, but precisely how has been lost! Since Greek Fire was considered a military secret, the precise formulation could have been lost. A plague for example could have killed off the only people who knew the formulation.
Or IT was actualy blazently obvious but The exact rational were inportant and The greeks Made big fuzz around IT Go obscure that IT was relatively easy, and when The Line of succession of knowledge was broken EVERYBODY thought they Could Not Figuren IT Out?
While in the Army we were talking about this "weapon system", and we played with several recipes. Two things we added were olive oil and molten lard. Both burn nicely, and both would have been commonly available in the region at the time. Tar may also be an ingredient, as it was known at the time. Another possibility would have been heavy crude oil. It is a natural resource of the region, and would not have been of much use otherwise at the time.
I definitely think that there was an oil component as it explains a variety of the qualities of Greek fire described in the contemporary sources. The ability to burn on the surface of water, and the violent reaction when water is used to try to extinguish it, and how the best way to extinguish it was to smother it with sand are the main ones that come to mind. I imagine that some variety of vegetable oil or rendered animal fat would be more likely than crude oil simply because they would be much easier to aquire in the time periods Greek fire was used.
Experimental archaeology is fun! Greek Fire = Pine Resin + Quick Lime + Naphtha (+Sulphur)... Maybe - of course without the recipe we are making educated guesses. If you do a follow up might I suggest seeing how much of the Naphtha can be replaced with hot olive oil, and if successful is the resin required? I'd also suggest trying dehydrated or highly concentrated urine and / or table salt - but be very, VERY careful indeed! Reasoning: -Greek Fire is something that could be made in quantity in the ancient world. -The 'secret recipe' needs to be practicable if hard to replicate and non-obvious. -It would also be good if the bulk ingredient(s) are very easily available, stable, and preferably waste products. -If the odd red herring could be spread around your enemies so much the better. So (pending experimental results) I might expect the ingredients could be: -Olive oil in a large, sealable, metal boiler with a valve and pipe. Burns like blazes when hot, floats on water, and sticks well to most things. When ready for battle: -Add a good dollop of quick lime for extra nastiness in the presence of water. -Dump in a load of concentrated or powered urine plus/minus salt for some added wallop. -Throw in some water to help raise a bit of steam to pressurise the boiler..? -Fasten down the lid and start heating your pot to build up pressure for the hose. -When ready to 'fire' light up and open the valve to hose down the enemy. -Rinse and repeat when you run out of mixture or pressure. Olive oil would be in plentiful supply, floats on water, sticks to stuff, and burns like blazes when hot. When heated along with the quick lime you'll start making a basic soap that will thicken the mixture, make it stick better, and help mix all the ingredients - resin may not be needed at all. The Urine +/- ordinary salt should make for a fantastic roaring fire and horrific burns along with the quick lime. Large quantities of urine would be, er, on tap in a city like Byzantium but you would have to know to collect and concentrate it then add it to your mixture. That would serve to keep the recipe from other powers and may explain why Greek fire wasn't always available in quantity - cooking urine is unpleasant and you need to remember to keep a fairly fresh supply on hand in volume. Um, it wouldn't take too much imagination to consider the likelihood of someone adding charcoal and sulphur to the above and the explosive consequences. But that might be stretching credibility too far. In the absence of experimental results at this point I suspect Naphtha as an ingredient is a rumour - possibly because it's properties were known and might have been considered by those who might try to recreate it, and possibly seeded as misinformation by the Byzantines. Some of the properties of Greek fire could be the result of olive oil and quick lime forming a soap as the pressure pot is heated - at the time that would be an unexpected consequence of the process only discovered by accident, so helping to maintain the secret - capturing a Greek fire ship would not serve to reveal said secret even if fuelled and ready to go. It would be very interesting to see if the above speculation would perform as I expect.
Back in the day when I worked at a youth camp, we would light our "magical" Indian Council fire with a paper cup taped to a plank, in the cup was glycerin (hair gel) and above it was a trough with potassium permanganate. The trough was ties to a twine leading into the tepee and at the right moment someone would pull the trough out drop in the potassium into the gel. Made a nice shooting flame to light the wood which had been coated in diesel fuel.
You need to grind the potassium permanganate to a fine powder; otherwise especially in cold or wet climate, it'll take some time. Sodium peroxide on the other hand will start that campfire with the addition of a few drops of water. - which was better for the effect on the kids. You can have some decent fun with Lycopodium spores, a blowgun (any tube will do) and an open flame ... 😁 Red phosphor plus nitrates, grinded to fine powders, are also good for some clever tricks. But you need to be really careful when mixing since the mixture goes off on light impact. Two or three grams can easily make you "Mike Four-Fingers". Good old chemistry was such a fun 😂
See if you and a few professionals and enthusiasts can cobble together a scale Roman flamethrower Dromon and head out to set something on fire for the Emperor!
Ha. Man, I really liked your actual inclusion of an IRL example. You always produce quality and remind me vividly of my favorite history teacher ever in high school that got me 100% interested in history because it turns out the speaker/ teacher of history matters an incredible amount in the quality of information passed along. TY for another great vid
These older-world videos are always so interesting. The WWI/II-era and even age of sail stuff always feels very "familiar", in that even in the early-ish age of sail we still had, at least generally, countries/etc similar to today, or at least easily recognizable as an earlier version. But once you go back this far, it's always fascinating seeing the same physical map of the world, but with borders and countries that could be some alternate timeline if I didn't know better. The video on the Barbary states was an excellent example of these two things sort of mixing together too.
Older world ... hmmm I used to frequent a pub in Ghent that was build between the first and second crusade ... The basement of the Dukes Castle ( Ghent) is build around 850 ad ... it is still there ... The old world is before mankind walked the Earth ... or before we knew how to write (open to discussion on that)
@Drachinifel - three thousand cheers for the practical experiment part! Brings back memories. Also, interestingly, the pressure and heat part of the mixing made me think… napalm. Nafta + quicklime + sulphur + resin… well, then, add some palm oil to it and all of a sudden, mixing this in under pressure and heat, you may get something quite close to a crude relative of napalm, no?
Drach, you need to get the nerds at Cambridge's chemical and mechanical engineering schools perhaps in combination with Oxford's Ancient History department to make you a siphon and their attempts at Greek Fire. See how long it takes for the police to show up and break up your little Byzantine LARPing group like when the police broke up the LARPers at the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
"In this video, Drach demonstrates the importance of not being on fire." I like this Mythbustery type of video Drach, and would like to see a bigger demonstration/experiment, but please make sure you take the right precautions and get some expert help with bigger stuff!
I suspect the hissing sound was due to the heat of the flames causing the water in the wet ash and wood to turn into steam and whistle as it escapes. I have heard logs burning in the fire pit whistle many times (especially if it was softwood). Also, you didn't mention it, but during the test of sulfur in naphtha, there was a blue flame as soon as it was ignited. Sulfur burns with a blue flame (as seen in the sulfur flows at Kawah Ijen--en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ijen#/media/File:The_blue_fire_of_Kawah_Ijen_1.jpg).
IMPRESSIVE!!! Excellent demonstration of an enhanced flammability using a mixture of ingredients. I am impressed that such a small volume produced so much flame for such a long time.
Just a thought: quicklime would be an interesting thing to add regardless of the effect on the burning part as it would make the flames much brighter, ref. “limelight”.
The fact that the histories listed "vinegar" specifically for a counter will be driving me nuts for a week at least. Looking forward to seeing how you solve for that. Yes, commenting before I got too far in so I can get back to listening without being distracted by it.
If quicklime was a component then that would produce an alkaline chemical fire. Vinegar is acidic, meaning it would neutralise the alkaline. Considering it's also liquid, it would serve to smother the flames somewhat.
I always imagined the projector to be steam powered. Two siphons dumping into a heated chamber with an elongated neck. Water in one, Greek fire in the other. The water would create a blast of steam that would heat, vaporize, and react with the Greek fire.
History + experimental ancient chemistry = one of the most interesting videos yet on this channel. 👍. Definitely look forward to another video on this topic as long as you can do it without burning yourself up!
Great stuff. I was teaching in Cmabodia. The kids wanted to know something naughty so I showed them how to make an anti tank mine out of a pan scrub. This is always popular.
I'm not sure I want to encourage Drach to keep conducting experiments with this stuff, but if you ever get an opportunity to do a scale test with a siphon on a recreated galley or something similar then I would definitely love to see it!
I like Drach the chemistry teacher. Very good indeed. Please do some scaled up testing - also it would be very interesting to find out whether your mixture was as difficult to extinguish with water as the historical reports suggest.
interesting experiment, but a small note for the future. if you have any form of burning liquid on water, there is a chance it sending flaming droplets in any direction. i would highly recommend wearing safety glasses. in chemistry we have a saying "don't risk your eyes, as the first mistake costs you depth perception and the second will turn you blind".
Great video. I think a fun next step could be collaborating with Todd Cutler on making a siphon. I think he is the right kind of crazy to help recreate a medieval flame thrower.
Awesome video and solid experimental technique! DEFINITELY a larger test is merited, preferably on a body of water and some small wooden boats....you know, for science and history. (Definitely not because we're pyros.)
Wow this like most every video of yours was fantastic but the experimentation towards the end was really fantastic I would have been very curious to know if the quick lime could have actually achieved a high enough temperature in contact with water to ignite the pre heated mixture but I feel as you probably also did that exploring that question was unreasonably hazardous especially after the initial mishap with the complete mixture I and I'm sure many others would be very interested in more experimentation maybe on a larger scale just be careful if you do it looked like you already lost a bit of hair on one of these haha
Very interresting! I haven't considered Greek Fire since college history 40 years ago. At the time we were told it was self igniting, and was considered extremely mysterious! It turns out not to be as "mysterious" as alleged, although it's vanishing from Naval and Siege Warfare seems odd! Perhaps the lack of skilled craftsmen to create the siphons had something to do with it. The Arabs were quite good alchemist, and would have thought the Turks or the Arabs would have figured out the recipe. From your experiment, I wonder how varying the amount of pitch and sulfur would have changed things. And would melting the pitch, then adding the sulfur, before adding the naptha worked better? And what was it you used as "naptha"? The commercial variety which is akin to gasoline? I would think the Greeks would use something more akin to light petroleum.
@@20chocsaday Sunflowers are a largely North American plant with only a few species in South America. Thus sunflower oil would have been unknown at the time to the Greeks.
I'm not sure how you would go about getting permission to scale up the tests, but it would be fascinating to watch. I think you should get a full fire resistant suit in case of spills, in addition to the gas mask. Getting that stuff on skin would make you wish for death. Likely the reason people thought it could burn for extremely long times is because it would feel like time had slowed down.
Hello Drach! Thank you again for your flipping amazing content! It's always a pleasure to listen to you while commuting to and from work. Speaking of which, would it be possible for you to increase a bit the sound level of your videos? On bluetooth car speakers, they require "full everything" to be barely audible, which is a bit of a shame. Besides, keep up on all the great thing you do, and keep educating us! Thanks!
For what it is worth, the history by the 4th century Roman officer, Ammianus Marcellinus, describes this fire. In his digression discussing the Persian Empire, he remarks on the so-called "Medic Oil". It was smeared on arrows and other missiles and set alight. It burned persistently and water would only strengthen the fire. The only way to quell it was with dust and dirt. I suppose sand might work too. The reference is (XXIII, 6, 37-38)
The most burning question of all- was there a series of lyrics describing a trireme in dire condition being burnt alive as charcoal colored people leapt from the sides?
Naphtha 35:39 - Naptha & Pine Resin 39:11 - Naphtha & Sulfur 41:20 - Naphtha, Pine Resin, & Sulfur (sloppy execution) 43:08 - Naphtha, Pine Resin, Sulfur & Calcium oxide (LARGER amount of solution, on damp wood) 46:00 - ~ I hope this makes it easy to compare and contrast the different solutions. Great video ~
I think the heating of the oil was important in making it ignite on contact with water. By way of illustration: as a lad I played around with collecting and melting candle wax (we were somewhere rural without electricity, so lots of candle stubs to be had), then got bored and poured a whole tin of the stuff into a bucket of water. My parents, who were hiking in the nearby mountains at the time, saw the resulting fireball from where they were.
Saltpeter (potassium nitrate) is the oxidizer part of black powder, and was highly available. This is why the Chinese futzed around with gunpowder for centuries, and the Europeans RAN with it, they had a larger access to livestock and thus poop, and thus saltpeter. For a while the Brits were claiming any rock they could scrape the bird crap off of. It is not too far a stretch to consider what might happen with any ancient alchemist futzing with the stuff.
The green flame/Syphon rich exhaust would probably scare the crews manning the thing as much as anyone it was pointed at; that's a subtle little warning sign that you are applying heat, open flame, and pressure to what is now a bomb.
Id love to see a followup of attempting to extinguish it by water (and therefore if it reacts with water), sand to suffocate it, and vinegar to neutralize it.
Let Audible help you discover new ways to laugh, be inspired, or be entertained. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com/drachinifel or text drachinifel to 500-500.
Also, pinned post for Q&A :)
Thank you for not being yet another channel sponsored by established titles scam.
Definitely further experiments. And maybe get a university department (engineering/chemistry/history) to put together a siphon system to see if it would work as advertised.
Was their any attempts to mount a flamethrower like device on an Age of Sail ship or was it just seen as easier and simpler to just use fireships?
Knowing the technology and basic chemistry and elements that were known back in their time, what in your personal opinion was Greek fire made of?
Could you give a detailed description on how fire ships were constructed?
What Greek Fire is made of has been a burning question for a long time ..
Nice pun
Burns like a trip to the clap clinic
Get out
Thats a hot topic
A byzantine way of making things.
Three cheers for drach and his collection of some of the most interesting content on the internet
Huraah! Huraah! Huraah!
hip hip hooray hip hip hooray hip hip hooray
Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!
Hurra hurra hurra
Hurrah Hurrah Hurrah
Cheers !
A few notes:
-One possible explanation of "burning more with water" could be simply that at that period, an incendiary liquid would likely contain some sort of oil, preheated to ignite better. Hot oil in contact with water makes quite impressive effects.
Saw someone put wet fries into the deepfryer and create a 2m high mushroom orange fireball.
-As I work in special effects for films, I strongly urge you, for the larger/more complex experiments, to get somebody who has experience with odd fire-tampering.
As it's experimental, nobody will know "the good way", but the experience of seemingly safe things that went wrong is valuable.
It's you who got me interested in naval warfare, and I'd hate to lose you.
yeah, my first thought was oil as well. oil fires and water do NOT like eachother.
Experimental naval historians live dangerously, but experimental rocket historians don't even exist :D
There is a book about the history of rocket fuels, available online.
It's called: "Ignition!"
It will warm your heart, if you read it,
and everything you know if you actually dared to try some of the stuff in there...
Sodium and potassium metal (and particularly the room temperature liquid alloys of the two) display exactly the described effects.
Phosphorus is easier to produce chemically however…
@@allangibson8494 they do, but did they exist 1200 years ago?
If you drop enough superheated oil in water, you probaply get a steam explosion. (like in a grease fire)
Maybe thats what they described.
@@nos9784 Superheated oil would be more likely to give a Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion (BLEVE) - not a steam explosion, but it’s nastier cousin.
An ignition source in the form of a tiny quantity of metal or phosphorus would ensure ignition.
I suspect “Greek fire” was probably multiple different weapons with both a hand grenade and siphon using different principles being developed over centuries in great secrecy (and possibly being lost simply because it wasn’t written down).
Why does this remind me of some Mythbusters episodes?
'This is Blur, Blur is dangerous, you don't want to mix Blur, with Blank, it's very bad for you.'
I want more visits to this unknown location. I like experimental archaeology.
Or I'm a pyro, could be both.
At 46:00 Drach already had his 'am I missing an eyebrow' moment.
It takes one to know one.
You are both!
Prometheus: "I'll give man fire. What could go wrong?"
Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for the night. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
@@tanall5959 JEEPERS-CREEPERS! A-YIKES I SAY!
Imagine being one of the first Persians on the receiving end. “No one said they had dragons!”
The Sassanids were gone by then. The Arabs had a taste of this liquid fire during 717-718.
IMAGINE GETTING BURNT BY THAT STUFF YE-OWW!
@@jonathanstrong4812 build a man of fire and you can keep him warm for an evening.
Set a man on fire and you can keep him warm for the rest of his life.
Oh Hell Naaawwww, I ain't fighting dragons, we outta here
Greeks: burn, baby burn! Disco Inferno!
I've often thought that Greek Fire may have been a mixture of olive oil, turpentine, and linseed oil - all products readily available to them. Heated to just over 100°C linseed oil will spontaneously ignite in air, igniting the turpentine and olive oil. If the olive oil was treated with burnt lime the glycerine separates out leaving an even more flammable product similar to naphtha. It's how they make biodiesel from waste restaurant oil and grease.
If the ingredients had been so commonly available, it's hard to imagine why only the Byzantines had it, and how it could be kept secret.
@@charlestoast4051 common in byzantium
Even if the ingredients are common, how do you know how to mix them? How do you distinguish 3 different types of "oil" to get the recipe from captured examples? If anything the combination and rather unexpected synergy of materials makes it more mysterious, IMO. But more straightforward methods like combining, oil+resin+sulfur+quicklime can also explain it.
Ultimately even if people knew the individual qualities of these, likely not many had opportunity to experiment with them like this. Especially not while being sponsored by an empire to do so. Ultimately this established the Roman monopoly on "Greek Fire".
I learned something new today. Thanks for the recipe explanation!
As soon as I heard, “Burns more intensely on water,” I thought: “Grease Fire that someone attempted to extinguish with water.”
"What were you doing outside with your friend dear?"
"Oh just some science love."
The respirator - protector of both lungs, and facial hair. Very wise.
Drach: "Shit!"
Chemist: "Welcome engineer to the dark side, we have chemicals (which we turn into weapons)"
Glad you're safe 😊
It looks about right to me. Don't forget the effect of scaling up, even a seemingly innocent mildly exothermic reaction on a small scale can get very violent when industrial quantities are used. As well as the direct damage the Greek fire would do, there would also be the effects of the heat radiation, which would tend to set things in the vicinity on fire as well, and probably cause the crew to abandon ship.
The fact that it was happily burning ash sure made that point.
I love the smell of Greek fire in the morning.
JEEZ WOULD YOU HUH! THAT MOVIE GAVE ME THE CREEPING HORRORS
We’re here at the top secret Drach incendiary testing center, just off the A35….
A possibility I’ve thought of was that oil from a plant that was subsequently gathered to extinction was a necessary ingredient.
An interesting thought, resin itself is a complex compound which is why we still can't accurately recreate maple syrup in a lab.
Unlikely as such a thing would be well recorded.
Still a plant oil might well be used as a bulking agent.
If it was crude oil or a derivative then as the Empire shrunk and lost control of its trade to the Italians the supply would also have shrunk. That said I don't know enough about the chemical differences to know if plant oil would have worked just as well or not.
As a chemist I figured greek fire was petroleum/animal fat/pine pitch based (or a mix of those) and fortified with sodium/potasium metal obtained via simple distillation from potassium/sodium salts. This would be a super flamable mix when heated and little "beads" of sodium, potassium (or worse, NaK alloy) would by activates by water and damn near impossible to put out. They would also hiss, pop and roar leading to the descriptions in the texts. A very small amt of metals mixed into the oil liquid wluld do a lot of damage i assume, throwing molten flaming metal, releasing hydrogen fires and flinging flaming liquid when they "pop"
It is impossible to separate alkali metals from their salts by "simple distillation". It is possible by electrolysing molten potassium hydroxide or molten caustic soda.
@@geoffbirkinshaw8466 sad part is the 23 people that 👍.
Tells me there is alot of gullible people.... or bots.
I very much doubt that the ability to create either metallic sodium or potassium was known in the ancient world. They simply did not have the chemical knowledge to do so. In fact, modern preparation of the metals is done by electrolysis. While my knowledge of chemistry is a bit weak, a quick search of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica does indicate a couple of non-electrolitic means, they seem unlikely to have been known to the Byzantiums, not in the least the difficulty in handling and storing the highly reactive metals. Potassium being particularly difficult to separate, as it spontaneously ignites when exposed to oxygen, and metallic sodium also oxidizes when exposed to air.
Since chemistry, or rather alchemy, was generally based on trial and error, it is highly unlikely either metallic sodium or potassium could have been produced. Certainly not in any quantity.
@@mahbriggs Progress is not a constant forward. It can regress at times and lost knowledge and be rediscovered.
I'm curious - what, and from where, are your Chemistry qualifications? Somebody teaches some VERY unusual Chemistry! Of course, there is another possible explanation...
I wonder at the reduced usage you mentioned later in the time period, I wonder if the empire lost (or suffered limited) access to one of the ingredients due to changing geographic boundaries. I would love to see the formula rediscovered, but I think a proper large scale test is likely to be impractical without access to fire suits and a lot of outside support. Murphy is likely to be waiting in the wings.
That was an idea I had too, since the Bronze Age civilizations went down because of similar reasons, in their case being a lack of a steady tin imports due to disturbed trading networks. They had to make do with local replacements, such as arsenic... Yes, arsenic and copper, a very healthy combination to say the least! But it gives you an idea how desperate the situation became very quickly. So guess it might have been the same for the Byzantines and producing Greek Fire: probably a lower quality Ersatz-material was used, which might have reduced it's effectiveness? We'll never know for sure I think.
We should have some maps of resource extraction during the early medieval period in the Middle East and India. Might be interesting to see what turns up, that's how they found out about those Middle Eastern Bronze Age civies.
@@thomasvandevelde8157 Even such a map might not include the needed resources - that said, combine a map of then-known and modern extractions, as well as near-modern historical operations.
Yep, a larger scale test would most definitely require professional pyroma- erm, firefighters, with specialised equipment on standby.
Not to mention having a body of water where people are somewhat alright with having a small boat burned down with chemical fire.
I think you should involve your experienced military bomb disposal dudes, too. They will have ideas even your firefighters / haz mat folks might not have thought of or encountered.
That quicklime was known, and used for similar purposes, would seem to indicate to me that it is not the missing ingredient, or, if it was indeed used in the mixture, not the only missing one. If something relatively known were used, you'd figure that a) the recipe wouldn't have been lost and b) others would have figured it out. Something about the process of making it would need to be non-obvious, so that there is a secret to be kept.
I would tend to agree with you, but on the other hand, the mixture Drachinfel mixed up is pretty energetic.
And just how many people in that time period were mixing together oil, pitch, sulfur and quick lime, and conceiving of a way to spray it on their enemies?
I will admit I find it hard to believe the secret was lost, but many processes that the ancients used have been lost! The art of building large stone complexes such as the pyramids or transporting and erecting the Easter Island statues or the stones of Stonehenge for examples.
We know they did it, but precisely how has been lost!
Since Greek Fire was considered a military secret, the precise formulation could have been lost. A plague for example could have killed off the only people who knew the formulation.
Or IT was actualy blazently obvious but The exact rational were inportant and The greeks Made big fuzz around IT Go obscure that IT was relatively easy, and when The Line of succession of knowledge was broken EVERYBODY thought they Could Not Figuren IT Out?
While in the Army we were talking about this "weapon system", and we played with several recipes. Two things we added were olive oil and molten lard. Both burn nicely, and both would have been commonly available in the region at the time. Tar may also be an ingredient, as it was known at the time. Another possibility would have been heavy crude oil. It is a natural resource of the region, and would not have been of much use otherwise at the time.
I definitely think that there was an oil component as it explains a variety of the qualities of Greek fire described in the contemporary sources. The ability to burn on the surface of water, and the violent reaction when water is used to try to extinguish it, and how the best way to extinguish it was to smother it with sand are the main ones that come to mind.
I imagine that some variety of vegetable oil or rendered animal fat would be more likely than crude oil simply because they would be much easier to aquire in the time periods Greek fire was used.
Experimental archaeology is fun!
Greek Fire = Pine Resin + Quick Lime + Naphtha (+Sulphur)... Maybe - of course without the recipe we are making educated guesses.
If you do a follow up might I suggest seeing how much of the Naphtha can be replaced with hot olive oil, and if successful is the resin required?
I'd also suggest trying dehydrated or highly concentrated urine and / or table salt - but be very, VERY careful indeed!
Reasoning:
-Greek Fire is something that could be made in quantity in the ancient world.
-The 'secret recipe' needs to be practicable if hard to replicate and non-obvious.
-It would also be good if the bulk ingredient(s) are very easily available, stable, and preferably waste products.
-If the odd red herring could be spread around your enemies so much the better.
So (pending experimental results) I might expect the ingredients could be:
-Olive oil in a large, sealable, metal boiler with a valve and pipe. Burns like blazes when hot, floats on water, and sticks well to most things.
When ready for battle:
-Add a good dollop of quick lime for extra nastiness in the presence of water.
-Dump in a load of concentrated or powered urine plus/minus salt for some added wallop.
-Throw in some water to help raise a bit of steam to pressurise the boiler..?
-Fasten down the lid and start heating your pot to build up pressure for the hose.
-When ready to 'fire' light up and open the valve to hose down the enemy.
-Rinse and repeat when you run out of mixture or pressure.
Olive oil would be in plentiful supply, floats on water, sticks to stuff, and burns like blazes when hot.
When heated along with the quick lime you'll start making a basic soap that will thicken the mixture, make it stick better, and help mix all the ingredients - resin may not be needed at all.
The Urine +/- ordinary salt should make for a fantastic roaring fire and horrific burns along with the quick lime.
Large quantities of urine would be, er, on tap in a city like Byzantium but you would have to know to collect and concentrate it then add it to your mixture. That would serve to keep the recipe from other powers and may explain why Greek fire wasn't always available in quantity - cooking urine is unpleasant and you need to remember to keep a fairly fresh supply on hand in volume.
Um, it wouldn't take too much imagination to consider the likelihood of someone adding charcoal and sulphur to the above and the explosive consequences. But that might be stretching credibility too far.
In the absence of experimental results at this point I suspect Naphtha as an ingredient is a rumour - possibly because it's properties were known and might have been considered by those who might try to recreate it, and possibly seeded as misinformation by the Byzantines.
Some of the properties of Greek fire could be the result of olive oil and quick lime forming a soap as the pressure pot is heated - at the time that would be an unexpected consequence of the process only discovered by accident, so helping to maintain the secret - capturing a Greek fire ship would not serve to reveal said secret even if fuelled and ready to go.
It would be very interesting to see if the above speculation would perform as I expect.
"If you see this video I didn't kill myself with greek fire!"
-Drach
Thank you for sacrificing your eyebrows to educate and entertain us.
We all know the genesis of this video was Drach saying to himself, " How can I justify playing with fire?"
Back in the day when I worked at a youth camp, we would light our "magical" Indian Council fire with a paper cup taped to a plank, in the cup was glycerin (hair gel) and above it was a trough with potassium permanganate. The trough was ties to a twine leading into the tepee and at the right moment someone would pull the trough out drop in the potassium into the gel. Made a nice shooting flame to light the wood which had been coated in diesel fuel.
I remember in Boy Scouts using Pine Sol and bleach to do the same.
A-YIKES I SAID AS ELVIS WOULD SAY INSTEAD I'M ALL SHOOK UP UH-HUH IN THIS CASE I'M ALL BURNED UP UH-HUH!
You need to grind the potassium permanganate to a fine powder; otherwise especially in cold or wet climate, it'll take some time.
Sodium peroxide on the other hand will start that campfire with the addition of a few drops of water. - which was better for the effect on the kids.
You can have some decent fun with Lycopodium spores, a blowgun (any tube will do) and an open flame ... 😁
Red phosphor plus nitrates, grinded to fine powders, are also good for some clever tricks. But you need to be really careful when mixing since the mixture goes off on light impact. Two or three grams can easily make you "Mike Four-Fingers".
Good old chemistry was such a fun 😂
@@ottovonbismarck2443 wet mixing is your friend as long as you keep the mix away fromalkaline metals 🤣
KMnO⁴ tablets are famous for their use in wilderness survival. Purify water, or start a fire.
See if you and a few professionals and enthusiasts can cobble together a scale Roman flamethrower Dromon and head out to set something on fire for the Emperor!
This is my favorite kind of video. Just Drach by himself taking his time talking about an interesting subject. 🙂
"... and Steve". Steve is 100% a time traveler.
Also Drach's new book "Naval Historians Cookbook: How to roast your opponents"
Ha. Man, I really liked your actual inclusion of an IRL example. You always produce quality and remind me vividly of my favorite history teacher ever in high school that got me 100% interested in history because it turns out the speaker/ teacher of history matters an incredible amount in the quality of information passed along. TY for another great vid
How to give unwelcome visitors a warm welcome.....
Drach plays with Greek Fire... no one is safe.
We thank Drach’s eye brows for their honourable service for the channel.
One of your best videos yet! Now we need a 16inch battleship gun spitting Greek fire. Or at a least a shell loaded with it.
These older-world videos are always so interesting. The WWI/II-era and even age of sail stuff always feels very "familiar", in that even in the early-ish age of sail we still had, at least generally, countries/etc similar to today, or at least easily recognizable as an earlier version. But once you go back this far, it's always fascinating seeing the same physical map of the world, but with borders and countries that could be some alternate timeline if I didn't know better. The video on the Barbary states was an excellent example of these two things sort of mixing together too.
Older world ... hmmm I used to frequent a pub in Ghent that was build between the first and second crusade ... The basement of the Dukes Castle ( Ghent) is build around 850 ad ... it is still there ... The old world is before mankind walked the Earth ... or before we knew how to write (open to discussion on that)
@Drachinifel - three thousand cheers for the practical experiment part! Brings back memories. Also, interestingly, the pressure and heat part of the mixing made me think… napalm. Nafta + quicklime + sulphur + resin… well, then, add some palm oil to it and all of a sudden, mixing this in under pressure and heat, you may get something quite close to a crude relative of napalm, no?
“Agalianos, Tumok of the Helladics.”
Okay yeah, that sounds about right for an ancient fleet commander.
“And Steven.”
Whut.
OK, I had that same reaction too.
Greek fire is one of my favorite naval topics and often something I like to include in many of my fantasy worlds I write for ttrpgs, love your vids :)
Drach, you need to get the nerds at Cambridge's chemical and mechanical engineering schools perhaps in combination with Oxford's Ancient History department to make you a siphon and their attempts at Greek Fire. See how long it takes for the police to show up and break up your little Byzantine LARPing group like when the police broke up the LARPers at the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
"In this video, Drach demonstrates the importance of not being on fire." I like this Mythbustery type of video Drach, and would like to see a bigger demonstration/experiment, but please make sure you take the right precautions and get some expert help with bigger stuff!
Drach's channel is truly lit today...
Dracenfel, the absolute Chad of all UA-cam historians. Keep up the great work
I suspect the hissing sound was due to the heat of the flames causing the water in the wet ash and wood to turn into steam and whistle as it escapes. I have heard logs burning in the fire pit whistle many times (especially if it was softwood).
Also, you didn't mention it, but during the test of sulfur in naphtha, there was a blue flame as soon as it was ignited. Sulfur burns with a blue flame (as seen in the sulfur flows at Kawah Ijen--en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ijen#/media/File:The_blue_fire_of_Kawah_Ijen_1.jpg).
IMPRESSIVE!!! Excellent demonstration of an enhanced flammability using a mixture of ingredients. I am impressed that such a small volume produced so much flame for such a long time.
"Better living through chemistry!" Drach has a future as an arsonist! :-) Great stuff!
Everyone, stick around through the narration, the demonstrations are 11/10!!!!
I like to imagine drach going from business to business, asking to use their backlot for some Greek fire experiments.
Science time with Uncle Drach!
This needs to be a regular feature.
This almost needs a Dr. Garandthumb-esque opening.
Oh my, including an experiment! Great work, Drachinifel!
Just a thought: quicklime would be an interesting thing to add regardless of the effect on the burning part as it would make the flames much brighter, ref. “limelight”.
The mad bastard actually went and made greek fire! Absolutely love this channel.
The fact that the histories listed "vinegar" specifically for a counter will be driving me nuts for a week at least. Looking forward to seeing how you solve for that. Yes, commenting before I got too far in so I can get back to listening without being distracted by it.
If quicklime was a component then that would produce an alkaline chemical fire. Vinegar is acidic, meaning it would neutralise the alkaline. Considering it's also liquid, it would serve to smother the flames somewhat.
Oh nice. Just finished listening to WTYP where the safety third was about vats of boiling acid! So now on to Greek Fire. Thematic consistency yay!
I always imagined the projector to be steam powered. Two siphons dumping into a heated chamber with an elongated neck. Water in one, Greek fire in the other. The water would create a blast of steam that would heat, vaporize, and react with the Greek fire.
I think a single chamber is enough, if you heat it enough to boil the oily fire mixture then the vapour pressure propels it out.
The experiments around 35:00 are fascinating...but I couldn't stop thinking about how that palm trunk in the background was in danger.
I fear that trip to the colonies may have changed Drach.
looking forward to his super villain arch.
History + experimental ancient chemistry = one of the most interesting videos yet on this channel. 👍. Definitely look forward to another video on this topic as long as you can do it without burning yourself up!
Great stuff. I was teaching in Cmabodia. The kids wanted to know something naughty so I showed them how to make an anti tank mine out of a pan scrub. This is always popular.
Next week: Drach re-creates the Halifax explosion.
Wow, Drach thank you for finally agreeing to disclose some explosions recipes for us. Try a few on my own maybe too!
I'm not sure I want to encourage Drach to keep conducting experiments with this stuff, but if you ever get an opportunity to do a scale test with a siphon on a recreated galley or something similar then I would definitely love to see it!
Bigger collab video on Greek Fire with several other medieval historian youtubers? Yes please! =^x^=
I must say, you’ve become probably my favorite UA-cam channel. Much respect and appreciation for the work you put into each video
I like Drach the chemistry teacher. Very good indeed.
Please do some scaled up testing - also it would be very interesting to find out whether your mixture was as difficult to extinguish with water as the historical reports suggest.
Saying I have been awaiting this video for a while would be an understatement. Years and years, I believe...
Finally!!!
Glad to see the "oppotunity for learning" from the Seydlitz video has been taken.
I love Drach's lighter - they should be available with his merch
that's not a lighter, that's a damn flamethrower!
interesting experiment, but a small note for the future. if you have any form of burning liquid on water, there is a chance it sending flaming droplets in any direction. i would highly recommend wearing safety glasses. in chemistry we have a saying "don't risk your eyes, as the first mistake costs you depth perception and the second will turn you blind".
They've got...that burning feeling....whooah that burning feeling...
THIS ISN'T THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS FOR CRIMMY'S SAKE?!?
Here in Chicago when a restaurant - this was when I was on the police department - burnt up we called it The Greek Fire!
Great video. I think a fun next step could be collaborating with Todd Cutler on making a siphon. I think he is the right kind of crazy to help recreate a medieval flame thrower.
Seeing Drach with a Mask handling those resin chunks in a big plastic bag: "Let's cook!!"😁😁😁
“Respect the chemistry!”
Mythbusters did an episode or two of this stuff. With a fully pressurized pot and pump system. Absolutely terrifying.
Wauw yeah! THE BYZANTINES! Thank you Drach! Love you man!
Absolutely fascinating! Loved the practical experimentation demonstration. Top video Drach.
Dude, this is seriously fascinating! Had no idea we had such records of this
Awesome video and solid experimental technique! DEFINITELY a larger test is merited, preferably on a body of water and some small wooden boats....you know, for science and history. (Definitely not because we're pyros.)
This gives the term roasting someone a whole different meaning!
rubber gloves and fire had me sitting on the edge of the chair!
Wow this like most every video of yours was fantastic but the experimentation towards the end was really fantastic I would have been very curious to know if the quick lime could have actually achieved a high enough temperature in contact with water to ignite the pre heated mixture but I feel as you probably also did that exploring that question was unreasonably hazardous especially after the initial mishap with the complete mixture I and I'm sure many others would be very interested in more experimentation maybe on a larger scale just be careful if you do it looked like you already lost a bit of hair on one of these haha
The algorithm is now confused. Drach is now an alchemist
Very interresting! I haven't considered Greek Fire since college history 40 years ago.
At the time we were told it was self igniting, and was considered extremely mysterious!
It turns out not to be as "mysterious" as alleged, although it's vanishing from Naval and Siege Warfare seems odd!
Perhaps the lack of skilled craftsmen to create the siphons had something to do with it.
The Arabs were quite good alchemist, and would have thought the Turks or the Arabs would have figured out the recipe.
From your experiment, I wonder how varying the amount of pitch and sulfur would have changed things. And would melting the pitch, then adding the sulfur, before adding the naptha worked better?
And what was it you used as "naptha"? The commercial variety which is akin to gasoline?
I would think the Greeks would use something more akin to light petroleum.
What is wrong with Sunflower Oil?
It floats on water, it burns when ignited. But there are even better.
@@20chocsaday
Sunflowers are a largely North American plant with only a few species in South America.
Thus sunflower oil would have been unknown at the time to the Greeks.
@@mahbriggs Back to Olive Oil. It has a lower Smoke Point anyway.
@@20chocsaday
Got Thanksgiving Day dinner on your mind?🙂
When the experiments began I couldn’t help thinking that this would have made a spectacular BBC Christmas lecture. Fascinating!
Fascinating, you never disappoint!
I cant believe you made your own Greek Fire...
You are one crazy dude!
I'm not sure how you would go about getting permission to scale up the tests, but it would be fascinating to watch. I think you should get a full fire resistant suit in case of spills, in addition to the gas mask. Getting that stuff on skin would make you wish for death. Likely the reason people thought it could burn for extremely long times is because it would feel like time had slowed down.
Hello Drach! Thank you again for your flipping amazing content! It's always a pleasure to listen to you while commuting to and from work.
Speaking of which, would it be possible for you to increase a bit the sound level of your videos? On bluetooth car speakers, they require "full everything" to be barely audible, which is a bit of a shame.
Besides, keep up on all the great thing you do, and keep educating us! Thanks!
Drach risking life and limb for our education and entertainment. Well done that man.
For what it is worth, the history by the 4th century Roman officer, Ammianus Marcellinus, describes this fire. In his digression discussing the Persian Empire, he remarks on the so-called "Medic Oil". It was smeared on arrows and other missiles and set alight. It burned persistently and water would only strengthen the fire. The only way to quell it was with dust and dirt. I suppose sand might work too. The reference is (XXIII, 6, 37-38)
The most burning question of all- was there a series of lyrics describing a trireme in dire condition being burnt alive as charcoal colored people leapt from the sides?
Greek fire sticks to Carthaginians?
This week: Drach goes full Top Gear, but better.
Incredible video. We love you, Drach.
Naphtha 35:39 - Naptha & Pine Resin 39:11 - Naphtha & Sulfur 41:20 - Naphtha, Pine Resin, & Sulfur (sloppy execution) 43:08 - Naphtha, Pine Resin, Sulfur & Calcium oxide (LARGER amount of solution, on damp wood) 46:00 -
~ I hope this makes it easy to compare and contrast the different solutions. Great video ~
Thanks Drach! Very cool.
Going to try this indoors at home
Excellent! Another Drach cooking video. 🇬🇧😛👍🏻
I think the heating of the oil was important in making it ignite on contact with water. By way of illustration: as a lad I played around with collecting and melting candle wax (we were somewhere rural without electricity, so lots of candle stubs to be had), then got bored and poured a whole tin of the stuff into a bucket of water. My parents, who were hiking in the nearby mountains at the time, saw the resulting fireball from where they were.
Now I have the Nadesico theme song stuck in my head again . . . Just in time to also listen to the Christmas song!
I would love to see more Greek fire experiments in the future.
I love these "cooking with Drach" episodes!
Drac as a Navy vet this title made me laugh.
Saltpeter (potassium nitrate) is the oxidizer part of black powder, and was highly available. This is why the Chinese futzed around with gunpowder for centuries, and the Europeans RAN with it, they had a larger access to livestock and thus poop, and thus saltpeter. For a while the Brits were claiming any rock they could scrape the bird crap off of.
It is not too far a stretch to consider what might happen with any ancient alchemist futzing with the stuff.
The green flame/Syphon rich exhaust would probably scare the crews manning the thing as much as anyone it was pointed at; that's a subtle little warning sign that you are applying heat, open flame, and pressure to what is now a bomb.
Yes. Yes more fire. More Greek Fire. Would love to see similar quantities of say, alcohol or petrol for comparison.
Maybe a larger scale test to coincide with bonfire night as to blend in with everyone else!
Greek fire is one of the reasons I'm still not over the burning of the Library of Alexandria.
Id love to see a followup of attempting to extinguish it by water (and therefore if it reacts with water), sand to suffocate it, and vinegar to neutralize it.
Thanks Drach