You’re looking at the Wikipedia too, I guess? It says “fuel”, I assume that means a disgusting smoky burn barrel situation. I’d place it in the same category as peat, where maybe there were cultures that ended up exploiting it for heating and cooking, but anyone with a choice didn’t. You’re definitely not using crude in a nice little oil lantern; that’s why we invented refining in the first place.
To answer my own question, Greek fire and asphalt for paving. Maybe the cost of using a medieval-style alembic or an inability to generate more than two fractions prevented more advanced uses. It sounds like they were close, though. You could write a cool alt-history about that.
Yeah, ok so if you can do the research then you know oil has been in continuous use for all of known written history. What they used it for is largely irrelevant to knowing about it and moreover equating “deep pit of stinky, sticky, goop that catches on fire seemingly at random” with evil and moreover hell analogs.
You’re looking at the Wikipedia too, I guess? It says “fuel”, I assume that means a disgusting smoky burn barrel situation. I’d place it in the same category as peat, where maybe there were cultures that ended up exploiting it for heating and cooking, but anyone with a choice didn’t. You’re definitely not using crude in a nice little oil lantern; that’s why we invented refining in the first place.
To answer my own question, Greek fire and asphalt for paving. Maybe the cost of using a medieval-style alembic or an inability to generate more than two fractions prevented more advanced uses. It sounds like they were close, though. You could write a cool alt-history about that.
Yeah, ok so if you can do the research then you know oil has been in continuous use for all of known written history. What they used it for is largely irrelevant to knowing about it and moreover equating “deep pit of stinky, sticky, goop that catches on fire seemingly at random” with evil and moreover hell analogs.
Okay, sure.