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

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

[LiteKeeper]

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[Political Junkie Too]

I have this strange feeling that those pyramids are pointing to something really, really important.

The pyramids (combined with other monuments in Egypt) are a recreation of the constellation Orion. The pyramids themselves are Orion's belt.

-PJ

[yankeedame]

So, the question is, who destroyed Egypt and all it's skills and knowledge?

Oh, good grief! No one "destroyed" Egypt and/or its skills and knowledge. It didn't ended like a brick through a plate glass window; it was more like the life cycle of some ancient tree.

[yankeedame]

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

Or blew the nose off the Sphnix--- with that new weapon of mass destruction: the cannon -- in an attempt to destroy the "heathen idol". (It proved to be a lot more difficult then expected, which is why we have what is left. Had it been easier to destroy, or the Muslims better armed, you can rest assured it most certainly would have been.)

IMHO, Islam will have a good deal to answer for when it is called before the bar of History.

[Arkady]

Longitude is a great book and Harrison was a genius.
Seems to me though, that the astronomy method did give him some good competition. A lot it depended on having good star charts.
Anyway, if anyone's interested, there's also a good book on this subject by Umberto Eco called The island of the Day Before. It's fiction, but he uses a lot of the info that is in this article.

[muawiyah]

Burning the supposed Library of Alexandria will not be on the list of sins for which Islam will be called to account.

Doggonit, read some of the authoritative references provided by some of the other Freepers.

Now, who blew the nose off the Sphinx. That'd probably be Imhotep - in fact, he erased the original face!

Islam and the Turks do not have to answer for the nose which is believed to have originally been that of a lion!

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Further, the statement assumes the egyptians "...had all that knowledge.." They didn't.

[aruanan]

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

Because in 232 BC, they were Greek.

[aruanan]

Was it Eratosthenes who calculated the circumference of the earth by measuring the incident angle of sunlight in well shafts at noon at two distant points?

[Bernard Marx]

Was it Eratosthenes who calculated the circumference of the earth

Yes, he came up with 24,500 miles -- not bad!! He also determined that the Earth's oceans were interconnected and calculated that a ship launched westward across the Atlantic could reach India. This was about 1600 years before there's a record of Columbus trying it -- much too long for such a theory to go untested IMO. Check out the links at: http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/Alexandria/links.html

As for the Sphinx's nose, the defacement occurred much earlier, probably as the result of a Muslim invasion around 1378 a.d. Napoleon's troops have been blamed for doing it with a cannon but that story appears to be untrue. Quite a few people had a crack at it. Defacement of statues of other cultures' deities has been a popular pastime throughout history.

[RonF]

Hm? Well, then, I apologize. I had been given the account listed in that link and was unaware of the errors. Thank you.

[RightWhale]

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

It was indeed Christians in another of their unlimited series of internecine squabbles.

[aruanan]

It was indeed Christians in another of their unlimited series of internecine squabbles.

Close.

The museum and library survived for many centuries but were destroyed in the civil war that occurred under the Roman emperor Aurelian in the late 3rd century AD; the “daughter library” was destroyed by Christians in AD 391.
--Encyclopedia Britannica

[RightWhale]

Who was involved in the civil war?

[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

Far too many people on Free Republic are historically illiterate. These were not Egyptians, they were Greeks; all of the scientists in Egypt during the Hellenistic period were either from Greece, or were people from other parts of the ancient world who used Greek as their common language of learning.

This was a product of Greek science, not Egyptian. Egyptian culture was entirely stagnant during the Hellenistic period, but for thousands of years prior to this, it lead the world, along with the Babylonian/Sumerian civilization.

Notice, you Islam-bashers and Christian chauvinists, that these Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians, and Sumerians, were all pagan. And they had the most advanced sciences and arts and culture of the world during their time. Islam also once lead the world in science, culture, and the arts. The West is now on top, but that is not gauranteed to last forever, and has little to do with Christianity - the West having hardly anything to do with Christianity anymore.

In other words, the wheel turns.

All you gloaters are the same in every age: ignorant fools, taking credit for things not of your own doing, living off the seed corn that was laid in store by your more energetic and foresighted ancestors.

[Robert Drobot]

Great post. I'm inspired to look into this further. Thanks.

[RightOnline]

"Now, who blew the nose off the Sphinx. That'd probably be Imhotep - in fact, he erased the original face!"

Blame Napoleon. His cannoneers used the Sphinx for target practice, blowing off its nose.

[restornu]

CTR

[restornu]

CTR