This is an interesting list – inventions or technologies from throughout history that have disappeared among the sands of time. You can probably name at least a few without looking, but there are some unfamiliar ones included here as well.Top 10 Lost Technologies
They did not have any of Archimede's inventions on there. I particularly expected to see the Mirrors he supposedly used to defend Syracuse against invading ships with. They tried to recreate that one on Mythbusters and failed.
Yeah, that would have been a good one. I was trying to think of other inventions as well that have been lost. Perhaps one of Heron of Alexandria's inventions which amazed the people of his day. I also heard a while back that they can't re-create some battleships the U.S. used during WWII, but I'm not sure if that's more of a problem of procuring the appropriate materials rather than the technical know-how.
The battleship issue is mostly technical know-how with some materials issues as well.. We have forgotten the process of forging the big guns used on old battle-wagons. In the 90's the USS Iowa was decomissioned after her #2 turret blew up instead of repaired because they would have had to take a gun off of a mothballed ship to put it back in operation, the guns could not be made anymore.