The ancient Greeks and Turks have been called the "Modern Diving Fathers". They swam looking for sponges in the Aegean Sea more than 2,000 years ago, where they developed many techniques that are still useful for today's divers.
These ancient divers realized that the more air a diver could hold, the longer he or she could stay underwater. Some diver, no one knows exactly who, devised a way to carry more air with him, inside a type of bag or bladder. This bladder was made of goatskin, sheepskin or pigskin.
The bag was oiled to be waterproof, then all but a small opening were hermetically sewn together.
Before entering the water, the diver filled the bladder with air. Then the man tied a heavy stone around his waist to sink under the water and dive to the bottom. While working at the bottom of the ocean, he took sips of air from the inflated skin at intervals.
The sponges by which this ancient people dived look like plants, but in reality they are animals, with the remarkable ability to regrow the parts of their bodies that break.
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