Ancient Navigators Could Have Measured Longitude -- in Egypt in 232 B.C. !

21st Century: Science and Technology Magazine ^ | Fall 2001 | Rick Sanders

[ex-Texan]

Could this voyage have demonstrated Eratosthenes' theorem that the world was round, and measured approximately 24,500 miles in circumference?

The Egyptian scientists were nearly 1,700 years ahead of everybody else .... Except, perhaps, the ancient Chinese. So why are they so backward today?

Oh, the answer is found in their Islamic faith. Silly me.

Click the excerpt link above to see very intriguing diagrams, ancient charts and photos.

[lds23]

I've always thought the Egyptians knew plenty mankind has since forgotten. I have this strange feeling that those pyramids are pointing to something really, really important. Maybe some future meteor storm or something.

Interesting article.

[Publius6961]

Great post!
Thanks.

[EggsAckley]

Neat article. You're right. The Islamists ought to be embarrassed by things like this. They seem obsessed with going back in time.


Silly Arabs.

<{;o)

[muawiyah]

Gee whiz, fella', the Egyptians were Christianized long before the Moslems appeared in Arabia, and that was AFTER the earlier "Greek" period, and after the "Roman" period.

So, the question is, who destroyed Egypt and all it's skills and knowledge? Was it the Greeks, the Romans, the Christians, the Moslems?

[Stavka2]

Considering that 20% of the mummies (through hair samples) came up hot for cocaine and then there is the Bay of Jars closed archeological site in Brazil....there was trade back then...and go figure...it was a drug trade.

[SAMS]

These methods were never worth a damn. If you're interested in the discovery of an accurate method for determining longitude, a good primer is Longitude by Dava Sobel

[Mo1]

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[RonF]

It wasn't the Greeks, Romans, or Christians that burned the contents of the Library of Alexandria.

[Verginius Rufus]

Eratosthenes was a Greek from Cyrene, not an Egyptian. His attempt to calculate the circumference of the earth is well-known, but he was not the first to realize that the earth is a sphere, and I have never heard of this supposed attempt to send a team to circumnavigate the earth. I would be very suspicious of any magazine that publishes things written by Lyndon LaRouche.

[RightWhale]

Celestial bodies used as a clock: a clock of some kind is needed to determine longitude.

Gen 1:14 . . . lights in the firmament . . . let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

Whoever translated this dropped an extra comma into his parallel construction and nearly destroyed it, but the intent could be that the stars and planets were intended to be used to tell time, and were so used many years B.C. at the time the Books of Moses were written.

[ex-Texan]

Yeah, you are correct. Read the article myself a couple of months ago. Scientists have located ancient Egyptian and Viking ship wrecks off both coasts of South America. There is evidence that ancient Egyptian, Myans, and Aztecs performed *brain surgery* on people suffering from tumors. To do that, me thinks they had to have some form of anesthia available. Simply amazing!

I'm reading a great new book entitled Decipher by Stel Pavlou ... It is simply an amazing book. Filled with science, language puzzles, myth, legend and physics and it explores the mystery of the ancient pyramids found all over the world. Underlying all of that is the End of Times Mystery and the Book of Revelations. Oh, and the Golem legend of the Jewish People. Very scary stuff but a very good read .... Pavlou is a talented writer and wrote the script for the movie hit 'Formula 51' which starred Samuel L. Jackson .... Think I see another great film on the way.

[Experiment 6-2-6]

LONGITUDE is a fantastic book, and I couldn't put it down..

My Guess is that Captain Rata and Navigator Maui got eaten at New Guinea...

[katana]

Sorry, but it was the Romans who burned the Library at Alexandria. Islam (especially in its current form) has a lot to apoligize for but not something that happened six hundred years before the time of Mohammed.

[katana]

apologize

[ancient_geezer]

It wasn't the Greeks, Romans, or Christians that burned the contents of the Library of Alexandria.

Oh really? http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Egypt was in decline ever since the Nubians started coming in. Heck, since the Hyksos. Rome and Alexander were afterthoughts. Erasthosenes was a Greek.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

The Library of Alexandria was finished off by the Muslims. The conquering Arab leader made the infamous comment to the effect of "That which is in the library which is contrary to the Holy Koran is wrong, and must be destoryed. That which is not contrary to the Holy Koran is superfluous."

The entire collection was used to feed the fires of the heating furnaces.

[happygrl]

Thanks for the book suggestion (Decipher). Sounds fascinating ! I loved "Longitude" and Barry Fell's Books about "America, B.C."

Thanks for posting this article.

[VadeRetro]

I never heard of Rata and Maui. That could be OK. I search on Rata, Maui, and Eratosthenes and get nine hits, LaRouchies and Cold-Fusioneers predominating. That's not so good. More people should have heard of this. It's an apocryphal story, the main evidence for which seems to be a Maori legend and an inscription of which most of the scholarly world seems unaware.