History of Scuba Diving: Scuba in the Ancient World

The history of scuba diving really goes a long, long way into the ancient world. No, this is not exactly a modern day sport. The history of scuba diving tells us that our ancestors have been scuba diving since about 4500BC. People living in the coastal communities in Mesopotamia, Greece and China were already diving into the depths of the ocean long before the modern scuba diving equipments were invented.

Men and women from these parts of the world practice what we know as "breath-hold" techniques to stay underwater for a few minutes. Accounts in the history of scuba diving tell us that some of these people can hold their breath longer than five minutes! Now that is really amazing!

Yes, some of these accounts maybe exaggerated at some points but people do stay underwater without scuba diving equipments even today so there is a big possibility that some divers in the past may have actually stayed underwater for several minutes without drowning. You see, at that time, people don’t just dive for fun.

Food shortages often drive people to search the bottom of the sea for food so diving was actually a means of survival for these people. When the survival of their families is at stake, a lot of people would risk everything, including their lives just to ensure that their families survive. The history of scuba diving tells us a great of stories about brave men and women who go through such length as risking their lives to save others.

Diving In Times of War

According to the history of scuba diving, the art of diving water was used as part of warfare tactics by the Greeks. During the Trojan War, divers were sent out to sea to sabotage the ships of the enemies. These divers go under the enemy ships and then puncture holes in the hull of the ship. They also cut the anchor ropes to destabilize the enemy ship during battle.

Aside from attacking and destabilizing enemy ships, the Trojans also make use of divers to design underwater defenses to protect their ports from the enemies. Based on accounts in the scuba diving history, the Trojans were also to destroy most of their enemy's ships through their underwater defenses. Unfortunately, building and repairing these underwater defenses can be quite costly too. In the course of building underwater barriers, many divers were injured and some of them drowned. Building underwater structures is a lot of hard work that even the strongest of divers often succumb to the muscle cramps and eventually drown to death.