Yes, and famously the ancient Egyptians used steam power for religious trickery and to open a pair of doors to one of their temples.
The trick is that without much better metallurgy and pipework, it wasn't possible to create the kind of high pressure needed for a steam engine.
Same thing goes for evolution. The rough concept had been around for a while; it took until "deep time"(earth being billions of years old) was proven that we knew that life actually had the kind of time needed to evolve.
mfs had batteries, sheit
If you mean the "Baghdad Batteries" unfortunately not. Deeper analysis has revealed that it was a sort of prayer system. They'd write or offer something, seal it in a small metal box, then put that in a larger jar.
The Hero's Engine is a steam engine that was invented in Greece around 50 AD.
