The history of man in the depths * diving into the depths of history

The first evidence of diving was found in archaeological excavations in Aram Naharim, in handicrafts decorated with mother of pearl, dating back to 4500 BC. The first description of free diving is found in the Sumerian epic "The Tales of Galgamesh"

By Liron Tirosh, CEO The Israeli Diving Association
to the source of the image

Diving has actually existed since man turned to the bottom of rivers or the depths of the sea to look for his food. With the development of humanity, diving was also used for pearling. The first evidence of diving was found in archaeological excavations in Aram Naharim, in handicrafts decorated with mother of pearl, dating back to 4500 BC. The first description of free diving is found in the Sumerian epic "The Tales of Galgamesh", which was written about 1500 BC and describes a much earlier period. The name of the ancient work was given to it by its translators, but in fact, its original name is the verse that opens it: "He who saw the depths of the abyss." The body of the work tells of Galgamesh, who, during his search for eternal life, dives into the depths of the sea to pick the hashahar bush, which prolongs life. Galgamesh ties heavy stones to his feet, dives into the depths and tears up the bush. With his hands covered in blood from the thorny bush, he breaks the stones from his feet and rises back to the surface of the sea.
Also in the Greek poet Homer (1000 BC) there is a description of diving in order to retrieve sponges from the sea. The Greek fishermen anointed their eyes with wine, filled their ears with oil and sealed them with pieces of sponge. They too were helped by stones to sink and a rope tied them to the surface of the water. At the end of collecting the sponges, they would pull the rope and raise them to the surface of the sea.
In Assyrian works of art (900 BC) people are seen diving with goat skins attached to their mouths that were used as breathing bags.
The beginning of diving in a military framework
In the writings of the ancient historians, you can find references to diving mainly in military contexts.
Herodotus tells of a diver named Scylias, who reported to the Greeks about the damage caused by the storms to the Persian fleet of Xerxes, who threatened to conquer Greece (480 BC). According to the legend, the diver himself caused some of the damage, when he cut the mooring ropes of the ships of the Persian Navy.
In 427 BC, a large naval force from Athens attacked the Pylos peninsula, where a small Spartan force was fortified. The inhabitants of the area managed to smuggle food to the besieged Spartans by diving under the Athenian vessels and dragging sealed jars full of food after them with ropes.
Thucydides describes the Athenian attack on Syracuse (416 1 BC), in which divers were sent to saw wooden stakes that the people of Syracuse stuck in the bottom of the harbor, to prevent the attacking ships from approaching the city. For thousands of years man used only his lungs to dive. The first mention of some type of diving bell appears in the writings of Aristotle (332 BC).
Alexander the Great - who was a student of Aristotle - tried his hand at diving, according to legend, in 330 BC. He dived to the bottom of the sea in a bell, with his men supplying him with air in barrels. Some believe that Alexander even made use of diving for military purposes, although there is no evidence for this. If he did so, I believe he learned the effectiveness of diving precisely from his enemies. When he imposed a prolonged naval siege on the city of Tyre, the defenders sent submarines to cut the anchor ropes of his ships. This was repeated until the narrows had to tie the anchors with iron chains. Later, the divers used to collapse the battery built by Alexander's soldiers, when they sabotaged its foundations.
1500 years passed and during the Third Crusade (1190 AD), a man named Hassan al-Kawasin appeared, who served in the army of Salah al-Din and was better known by his nickname "Isa". He managed to develop a kind of diving suit that helped him balance near the surface of the water and built a helmet that connected a breathing tube to the surface of the water. With the help of this equipment Issa used to convey news and money to the coastal cities besieged by the Crusaders. He did this many times and gained publicity and fame, until finally they obtained an arrow from a Crusader bow.
In 1421, when the Spanish fleet besieged the city of Genoa, its people imitated the ancient people of Tire and cut the mooring cables of the siege ships.
Diving bells and helmet diving
The impetus for finding additional uses for diving, besides military ones, was probably provided by Christopher Columbus, returning from his third voyage (1498). Columbus described a thriving pearling industry in Venezuela, a description that probably pushed the Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci to design a diving mask and fins. Among Leonardo's drawings were found drawings of a diving helmet made of oiled cowhide, the lenses of which are made of glass and fixed knife blades "to protect against sea monsters". Even if diving with the help of a bell was already known in ancient Greece, there was no significant progress in the development of the diving technique until the 16th century.
In 1535, Italian divers rescued the sunken ship of the Roman emperor Caligula, with the help of a diving bell. 1535 there is a description of underwater work with the help of a small diving bell placed on the shoulders. The use of the diving bell became popular to retrieve objects from the depths, but the military field was not neglected either. During the siege imposed by the Turks on Malta (1565), Turkish divers went out to attack the city and on their way met divers from Malta who were on their way to attack the Turkish ships. This is how the first underwater battle in history took place.
Towards the end of the 17th century, there was significant progress in the research and understanding of the pressure conditions in the depths and their effects on the diver. Among the first researchers were Professor John Sinclair from the University of Glasgow, who studied the phenomenon of pressure changes in the depths (1669) and the French priest Jean Abbe (1681) who realized that a person would not be able to breathe air in the depths of the sea at the pressure he was used to on land. The first pressure chamber was built by Robert Boyle, who used it to study the effects of changes in pressure on animals and the effects of staying under pressure for different periods of time. Boyle also first identified the phenomenon of the release of bubbles with the reduction of pressure, now known to every diver as the decompression phenomenon.
In 1690, the famous British astronomer Edmund Halley built a wooden bell equipped with lead weights and barrels with fresh air supply. With the help of the bell, Halli descended to a depth of 18 meters and stayed there for ninety minutes.
The Frenchman Denis Papin came up with the idea of ​​supplying the bell with air using a pump from the surface. Bell diving was quite successful, but many researchers and inventors tried to create more advanced diving equipment. Physicist Burley designed a body-tight diving suit made of goat skin, a metal helmet with a porthole, a breathing system with an air tank and diving fins. As far as is known, Borelli's ideas remained on the drawing board and were not implemented, but undoubtedly influenced other inventors later on.
In 1715 John Lethbridge built a 1.85 m long tube with a glass porthole at the end. The tube was intended for a diver who lay inside it with his face looking down through the porthole and his hands placed in special sleeves, so that he could perform various jobs. The diver was lowered to the bottom in a tube with a blower blowing air from the surface. Lethbridge performed various works with the facility in different parts of the world, for many years. He mainly specialized in diving for shipwrecks in the service of various shipping companies.
Carrying out more complex underwater work, such as the foundation of bridges and piers, required the mobility of the diver and led to the invention of the helmet. The Frenchman Ferminet invented for the first time a diving helmet that was fed by air that flowed to it through a pipe from the surface, using blowers. Fermina even dived with the helmet to a depth of 15 m for an hour, in 1774.
Since it seemed that the success of the helmet would forget the bell, it was precisely this one that gained popularity. In 1775, Charles Spaulding built an elaborate bell, in which the diver controlled his descent to depth with the help of a weight attached to the bottom of the bell. A number of years later, John Smithon built a bell into which air was pumped from external pumps. The bell was used to build the port of Ramsgate in England. It was further refined by an engineer named James Rennie, who designed an underwater rail on which the bell moved. Until the end of the 18th century, diving bells were placed in almost every large port, which were used for construction, repairs and rescue.
In 1797, the German Klinger assembled a diving system from a copper helmet and a leather suit. The suit included a cylinder and a piston that compressed the air in the helmet according to the water pressure applied to it. In 1823, John Dean developed the helmet diving system. This development came about by accident a few years earlier, when Dean had to help rescue horses from a burning stable. He entered the stable with an old knight's helmet on his head, into which he pushed a pipe with air from a blower. Dean's brother, Charles, took out a patent on the matter and even tried to market it as equipment for the fire department. John Dean attached a rubber suit to the helmet and discovered that the air, injected into the helmet with a compressor, repels the water. He overcame the floating problem with the help of heavy copper boots that were attached to the suit and stabilized it. The Dean brothers' patent was probably purchased by August Siva, who in 1837 presented his Amodai suit. This suit was attached to a hard helmet that received an air supply from the surface. Reason improved the compressor, installed valves in the helmet and improved the quality of breathing and visibility.
In 1839, divers who used this equipment succeeded in flooding the ship "Royal George" that had sunk a hundred years earlier and opened a new era for professional diving. The operation was commanded by Colonel Charles Paisley and following its success, he was appointed to establish a school for military diving, the first of its kind in the world. Paisley established many basic rules for diving, among them the obligation to dive in pairs. Over the years, various improvements have been made to the helmet and the suit, but the Amodai remains cumbersome in its movement and above all completely dependent on its colleagues on the surface, for raising, lowering and of course for air supply.
Independent diving system
The history of sports diving began with the invention of the first independent diving device, which did not need tubes that flow air from the surface. The pioneer in this field was the Englishman William James, who in 1825 built a rounded tank containing compressed air and carried around the diver's waist. There is no record that James dived with the device, so the right of the first to dive with an independent diving device belongs to the American Charles Condert, who built a tank that was designed in the shape of a horseshoe, was assembled around the waist and contained compressed air. The tank continuously supplied air to a flexible helmet that covered the diver's head. Kondrat dived with the device many times in the East River in New York, until his death in 1832 due to a malfunction in the equipment.
In 1865 there was a significant breakthrough in the field, when two Frenchmen, Rouquayrol and Denarouze, built a device that included a metal tank carried on the back of the diver and containing compressed air at a pressure of 40 atm. Their most important invention was a demand regulator that allowed the diver to adjust the pressure of the air he breathed to the pressure of the water that surrounded him. The device was marketed commercially and was mainly used for diving to shipwrecks. This invention is described in Jules Verne's book "Twenty thousand miles under water". In the book, which was first published in 1867, Jules Verne wrote about divers using tanks with compressed air, perhaps laying the foundation for today's diving systems.
In 1879, the Englishman Fluess built a closed circuit diving device, with an oxygen tank compressed to 30 atmospheres. An adsorbent was used for the first time in this device and it worked well. Alexander Lambert made use of this system when he dived in 1880 into a London subway tunnel that was flooded with water, in order to close a heavy metal door. Lambert descended to a depth of 60 meters and passed 300 meters of tunnels. He succeeded in his mission, but was seriously injured by oxygen poisoning.
With the progress in the development of high pressure tanks, more experiments were conducted in breathing compressed air. Louis Boutan (Boutan), a Frenchman who pioneered underwater photography, built a breathing system that included a compressed air tank at a pressure of about 200 atm.
The Japanese Ogoshi invented in 1918 a system that included a compressed air tank that was connected directly to the mask. The mask covered the nose and eyes and the diver breathed through the nose and exhaled through the mouth. In order to breathe, the diver had to press with his teeth on a special valve held in his mouth.
The development of diving in modern times
The first diving club was founded in 1935 in Paris by Yves Le Prieur, an officer in the French Navy. Already in 1926, he realized that diving should not remain the domain of professionals only and tried to turn it into a sport for amateurs. For this purpose, he developed an easy-to-carry diving device to which he attached a breathing regulator. The device consisted of a steel tank with a volume of 3 130 at, but a liter that contained air at a pressure of was not equipped with a regulator. Le Prior first used diving goggles and then a round face mask.
The first fully automatic independent diving system was developed by a young Frenchman, Georges Commeinhes, in 1937. The system included a pair of tanks of compressed air to a pressure of 150 at, a demand regulator, a pressure gauge and a full face mask in which an air release valve was installed for the first time. For the development of the diving mask, the fins and the barrel (snorkel), fishermen who worked in the XNUMXs on the French Riviera and engaged in free diving are responsible. The American pilot Guy Gilpatric (Gilpatric) used a pair of old flight goggles suitable for diving, to engage in underwater fishing. His Russian friend, Karamarnko, built the first rubber mask. The mask only covered the eyes. Later, the Frenchman Maxim Forger enlarged it, so that it also covered the nose.
The fins were first produced by De-Corlieu. The snorkel was put into use by the Englishman Steve Butler.
World War II broke out in 1939 and returned military diving to center stage. The Italians established the XNUMXth Light Fleet, whose men specialized in oxygen diving and attacked British ships throughout the Mediterranean. The Italians learned a lot about oxygen diving and diving in general during their operations and their knowledge was passed on to the British after Italy surrendered. The British still managed to apply this knowledge against the Germans until the end of the war.
The German Hans Haas, who was influenced by Gilpatrick's work, decided to engage in underwater photography. He led the first photographic expedition as early as 1938, but his books and films were published only after the war. They were known to have a great influence on the promotion of the sport of diving and its practice.
Guy Gilpatrick, his gang and their exploits also influenced a young officer in the French Navy, Jacques Yves Cousteau. His colleagues, Frédéric Dumas and Philippe Tagliat, taught him to dive with instruments and he worked on developing a more efficient diving system. In 1942, together with the engineer Emile Gagnan, Cousteau succeeded in creating a regulator on demand that was fully automatic. The menstruum was based on the invention of Roqueirol and Dieneros and was attached to the container of Le Pryor.
Cousteau's "Aqua-Lung" forms the basis of the modern independent diving system we use today. Over the years, several improvements have been introduced in the diving equipment, but it is still based on Jacques Cousteau's system.
While sport diving has not changed for decades, professional diving has undergone many changes as a result of research progress in saturation diving and mixed diving. In the 90s, interest in the possibilities offered by these techniques for sports diving increased, and today any diver can experience mixed diving as part of Nitrox and Trimix courses. These dives allow a safer descent to the depth and a longer stay there.
Man once again expanded his sphere of conquest in the sea. Time will tell what the next invention will be that will allow us to further improve our diving abilities.

Diving in Israel
In Israel, diving began in the 40s, when the Palmach naval unit sent swimmers and divers to sabotage the British deportation ships, to prevent them from taking immigrants to the detention camps in Cyprus. The man who brought the first diving device to Israel was Yusal Dror, one of the Plyam men and the founder of the Naval Commando, who learned diving in Italy from the veterans of the "XNUMXth Light Fleet".
The establishment of the "Israeli Association for Underwater Activities" heralded the beginning of the sports diving chapter in Israel. Its founders were navy veterans and members of the Association for Underwater Archaeological Research. Later the name was changed to the "Israeli Diving Association". By 2006, 120,000 divers were certified within the association.
In 1980, the Knesset enacted the "Sports Diving Law" which established the subject of diving and its teaching in Israel. Until a few years ago, the Israeli Diving Association supervised diving activities in Israel according to the provisions of the law. In recent years, a special government authority was established - the "Sports Diving Authority" whose role is to enforce the diving law in Israel.