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Who Invented the Umbrella: The Romans, the Chinese, or Frogs?

By Rain Noe - July 25, 2013

in Object Culture | Photography

We've seen umbrellas stuck into car doors; optimized for wind resistance; slapped onto bikes; and the design potential for this simple device is so great that we even ran a series on umbrella innovations earlier this year (here's Part 1, here's Part 2). The umbrella is one of the longest-lived objects I can think of (and a great example of early design). We know the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians had parasols for sun blockage, and that the Chinese had developed a collapsible umbrella design as early as 21 A.D. But who came up with the idea of the umbrella in the first place?

The amazing photos here, captured by Indonesia-based photographer Penkdix Palme, make you wonder: Was the umbrella's invention biomimetic in the sense that we saw an animal doing this and then emulated them? Or is it simply common sense that early man, caught in the rain, seeks to block it by holding a deflective object above their head?

Whichever you believe, there's no question that Palme's photos are stunning. Your initial reaction may be to assume that they're faked, but Palme's work is being shown by National Geographic, and I'd like to think they would've sniffed out any hijinks.

Check out more of Palme's work here.

"This commute sucks."

"This commute sucks."

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Unni

11 years ago

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Please do your research before you post such things! This animal was obviously tortured and manipulated to get these results. This seems to be a trend among Indonesian "nature" photographers to fake such poses. Please visit link to learn more about this dastardly practice : http://heejennwei.blogspot.co.il/2013/08/pseudo-nature-photographers-of-indonesia.html
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Coen Deurloo

11 years ago

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A far more logical explanation is that the leaf is attached to the branch and the frog is just sitting there by accident or even placed there by the photographer, not an uncommon thing happening with animals that can be handled pretty well, like a tree frog. Amphibians have no problem with rain at all, a frog hiding for the rain is like a lizard hiding for the sun.
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Erik

11 years ago

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If frogs invented umbrellas then birds getting lift from rising air invented air currents. All sort of animals (that includes us humans) will seek shelter under whatever is the right size for us.
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Ian

11 years ago

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Frog
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