As well as the draftsman’s compass, the magnetic compass.
ladders
potter’s wheel
blanket
The Wheel
The Paperclip
Curtains
Knitting needles and yarn
Sewing needles
Scissors
Revolvers- they pretty much reached the pinnacle of revolver development by 1901 with the Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver, and realistically there’s not a lot of difference between a Beaumont-Adams and a Smith & Wesson 686 in operation. Even with semi-autos, the most common handgun design is the M1911, which has got to be classic example of “Getting it right the first time”.
Telescopes for general viewing use haven’t changed that much since the 16th century from what I can gather, either.
Mmm, I think that’s a little arguable. Sure, the essential idea is still paper glued together at the back edges with a protective layer at the spine and sides, but we’ve gone from lumpy (look at old books and you know what I mean) sheets essentially put in pamphlets (again, look at old books; the right side is very wavy, and the pages aren’t even) and then stiff cardboard slapped on, and only in hardcover, to high-quality tree pulp, thinner pages, much more even, longer-lasting, and durable even when guarded by what is, more or less, just a couple of thicknesses of paper.
Sure, the idea is basically the same, but books nowadays are much improved in the way they hold up to time, and the way they look and handle from beginning to end.
It’s been mentioned a couple of times already, but sewing needles\ have to win some sort of prize. They are essentially unchanged in shape (unlike many of the things mentioned here), varying only in material, over 40,000 years:
It’s easy to see why – it’s a simple and efficient design that does exactly what it has to do. Early needles, it’s been suggested, were inspired by the Penis Bone in many animals (which has about the right shape, and a naturally-occurring hole at one end. No need even for boring!).
I agree- I was shocked when I disassembled my 1858 Remington replica for cleaning, then was later looking at the parts diagram for my Ruger SP-101 and realized how absolutely similar they are, and that most of the differences are little safety-related things or spring substitutions.
Bolt-action rifles are another one- once Mauser got it right, the rest in the intervening 110 years or so have just been variations on a theme.
I’d also nominate cast iron cookware. I’ve only seen cast-iron skillets and dutch ovens that go back to the 1930s, but for all intents and purposes, they’re identical to a Lodge brand one you can go buy at Wal-Mart right this very minute.
I’d wager that none of them are much removed from those you’d find hundreds of years earlier (what’s there to change really?)
Knives are another one that haven’t really changed very much in thousands of years- the metallurgy and production has become very refined, but the shape, purpose and uses haven’t. There was probably some cook chopping vegetables for the pyramid builders who used a bronze knife that wasn’t very far removed from the ones in my kitchen. At any rate, if transported to the present day he would immediately understand what my knives are, and how to use them, even if he didn’t quite know what they are made of (especially the ceramic one!)
I don’t anticipate that toilet paper will see any major advancements in my lifetime.
Hinges? Like on doors?
Bottles?
Cabinet hinges, on the other hand, have come a damned long way in only a few years with the advent of those European cup hinges.
Canoes have stayed essentially the same pretty much throughout recorded history. (At least the general shape, though not the materials used to make them.)
I don’t disagree that bookmaking has benefited from a number of incremental improvements, but none seem to me to be revolutions in what a book is.
Similar arguments for drastic incremental improvements can be made for many things that have been mentioned here. Brooms, for example, have changed dramatically from the bundles of sticks that one can see in medieval village re-enactments. The modern flat broom is a relatively recent improvement, dating from the nineteenth century.
But a modern broom would be completely comprehensible to a medieval or ancient villager. Likewise, a Rennaisance reader would recognize modern books for what they are, even if the manufacturing would be beyond them.
My father was a contractor. Once, we went to a museum exhibit of stuff from the time of Ramses the Great. Ramses built a lot of temples during his reign, and the museum had a display of some of the tools and construction techniques that the Egyptian builders used.
Hammers and chisels. Theirs were copper, ours are steel. But the shapes are easily recognizable, and the techniques for using them have not changed in 4000 years.
Bricks made of clay and straw, dried in the sun. A quite common building material in the southwestern US, even today.
Carpenter’s square, straightedge, plumb-bobs. The Egyptians’ were made of wood. My dad’s were made of metal. But form, function, and technique were identical.
Fish hooks. They’ve found them in Roman settlements and elsewhere that look like they could have been bought in a shop that morning.
The Morgan 4/4 ( http://www.morgan-motor.co.uk/sales/2007_44.html ) has been in continuous production since 1936, with a brief pause for the war.
Same wooden chassis, same hand-beaten body panels. Obviously the electrics, safety bits, engine and tyres have been updated a bit since then, but it’s the same design.
Indeed. Some say the Egyptian dhow was the earliest sailboat, and there are working dhows in daily use on the Nile today. Not a lot of square riggers are being built these days, but the lateen rigged Sunfish remains one the world’s most popular sailboats. Gaff rigged West Wight Potters are still being built.
The Chinese Junk has been essentially unchanged for centuries.
Ever since the steer board (starboard) was moved to the rear of the boat, the rudder and tiller have changed little over the generations.
Spirit levels have been around a long time. I see mbh beat me to saying the plumb bob, and the bob-based level, may have been the first mechanical devices for finding horizontal and vertical. Before that, there was only the builder’s eye.
I guess we knife collectors buy some peculiar stuff, but that’s why you can buy brand-new beautifully handcrafted flint blade knives with fossil bone handles.
Surveying stuff - while they don’t survey for roads and stuff with wheels, I’ve seen them doing small-scale stuff that way. Inside a mall, once, I saw a guy with a surveyor’s wheel. Same thing they used to survey for the Pyramids.
Nobody told him about the seashells.
Clubs. Especially wooden ones.
Termite-fishing sticks are probably pretty close to the original prototype (you didn’t specify HUMAN-made tools or artifacts).