for grenade production from the 13th century was excavated at the Syrian city of Hama. Flamethrower: for ship-borne flamethrowers, see Greek fire above. Portable hand-siphons were used in land warfare. Science and Daily Life The Fork: the fork was originally used as a utensil for picking up and eating food in the 7th century by the nobles of the Byzantine empire. It was later introduced to western Europe through the marriage of Maria Argyropoulina to Giovanni Orseolo. The story goes that during her wedding feast she used her personal two pronged golden fork to eat some food. The Venetians, having not known of the fork and eating with their hands, considered using the fork blasphemous, "God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks—his fingers. Therefore it is an insult to him to substitute artificial metal forks for them when eating.” claimed one member of the clergy. She died of a disease a few years later which the Venetians claimed was the result of her disrespecting God with her fork. Corpus Juris Civilis: Under the reign of Justinian the Great he initiated reforms that had a clear effect on the evolution of jurisprudence as his Corpus Juris Civilis became the foundation of the jurisprudence in the Western world. Icon: Icons are images of holy beings such as Jesus, Mary and the saints which, painted according to certain traditional rules, have been playing a pivotal role in Eastern Orthodox Church veneration since its early days. The most distinctive Byzantine form are representations on portable wooden panels painted in the Hellenistic techniques of tempera or encaustic. Other varieties include (precious) metal reliefs or mosaic-style panels set with tesserae of precious stones, gold, silver and ivory. The use of icons was violently opposed during the iconoclastic controversy which dominated much of Byzantium's internal politics in the 8th and 9th centuries, but was finally resumed by the victorious iconodules. Only few early icons have survived the iconoclasm, the most prominent examples being the 6th–7th century collection from Saint Catherine's Monastery. Ship mill: The historian Procopius records that ship mills were introduced by Belisarius during the siege of Rome (537/538), initially as a makeshift solution. After the Ostrogoths had interrupted the water-supply of the aqueducts on which the city was dependant to run its gristmills, Belisarius ordered riverboats to be fitted with mill gearing; these were moored between bridge piers where the strong current