Prehistoric Cellular Hittite ‘phon’
circa 1759-1173 BCE
The Hittite Empire changed the face of the entire world when they invented Iron.
Having created smelted iron weapons of mass destruction, the empire decided to conquer the entire known world. To accomplish this mission, they developed a revolutionary form of battlefield communication.
The generals recruited the biggest tallest strongest soldiers in their ranks. Then, they determined the maximum distance one of these soldiers could throw a stone. Where the rock landed, another soldier stood ready to receive the pitch and throw it to the next receiver. They had invented a perimeter, a cell, a radius of communications.
When they were ready to attack an enemy, the field general would inscribe a short encrypted message onto a stone slate. The first soldier would heave it to the second who would pitch it to the third, and so on, until it finally reached it’s destination.
Upon receipt at the army headquarters, the commander would encrypt a reply, and the stone throwing would be repeated in reverse order. This was the invention of two way text messaging; cellular communication in it’s infancy.
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