Ancient Greek oral traditions

[Big Bad Voodoo]

In the first century AD, a Greek geographer and historian named Strabo noted that a peninsula just south of Athens called Piraeus had, at one time in the past, been an island.It's unusual for landforms to change so quickly that humans can take notice, even over generations, so that's a pretty interesting claim.

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[questionmark]

Same Strabo by observing the difference of a shadow of a standard Egyptian Obelisk, that in Alexandria is larger than in Suez and together with the observations that Arichstarchus of Samos had made two centuries earlier he concluded that the Earth must be round and calculated its circumference at 22,500 miles (give or take one or two), within a few percent of the figures we accept now as valid.

Smart guy.

Edited June 14, 2011 by questionmark

[Big Bad Voodoo]

So you choose geography skills...Yes indeed smart guy.

[questionmark]

So you choose geography skills...Yes indeed smart guy.

You always have to remember that Strabo could take advantage of three very important scientific institutions, the libraries of Byblos, Pergamon and Alexandria where previous attempts of determining the form of the Earth were preserved. Erathostenes, who probably was the first to calculate the circumference of the Earth ( a little off Strabo), Aristarchus who around 200 BC already had calculated the distance to the moon with quite an amazing precision and many others.

He did not come out of nowhere as many want to make us believe. So, it was not oral tradition but written tradition and an adequate education system that empowered these people.

[Big Bad Voodoo]

You always have to remember that Strabo could take advantage of three very important scientific institutions, the libraries of Byblos, Pergamon and Alexandria where previous attempts of determining the form of the Earth were preserved. Erathostenes, who probably was the first to calculate the circumference of the Earth ( a little off Strabo), Aristarchus who around 200 BC already had calculated the distance to the moon with quite an amazing precision and many others.

He did not come out of nowhere as many want to make us believe. So, it was not oral tradition but written tradition and an adequate education system that empowered these people.

I know.

Aristarchus claim that Earth is moving around sun. That earth is third from the sun.

Democritus talk about "atom".

Anaxagoras was first to say that sun and moon were not goods. That they are places.

Empedocles studied air.

Anaximander say "…human must evolved from simplest lifeforms" 24 centuries before Darwin

Theodorus

Thales

...

Edited June 14, 2011 by the L