Flat earth

ImAMoron: Let me get this right.....our ancestors thought the planet was flat ?

Anybody have a source for that other than a youtube video or wikipedia link ?

ImAMoron: There are quite a few historians of math and science who study the metrological conventions in Egypt and Mesopotamia

They're never claimed our ancestors thought the earth was flat

namenotrick: Most people throughout history believed the earth was flat until the greeks began to argue it was round and there was still arguments about the earths shape in Isaac Newtons time who proposed it was an "oblate spheroid". For most of human history no one had any reason to believe the earth was anything but flat, they looked at the world around them and it seemed like everything was on a single plain and for most of human history no one had any evidence otherwise

ImAMoron: That's simply not true ( Have you tried finding a source for this other than Wikipedia ? )

I'd try the work of math and science historians like Otto Neugebauer, Jens Hoyrup, Joran Friberg, etc, instead of Wikipedia

The only thing a " firmament " was to Mesopotamians and Egyptians was a local horizontal coordinate system that's only about 6 miles in diameter. It was called " supuk same ", if you care to google it and read a little about Akkadian metrology

It does use the fundamental plane, but that's a convention of mathematical astronomy

Also, Egyptian Royal cubit rods actually have the formula for calculating the distance to the horizon built into them, in addition to the formula for flattening ( Among other things )

ImAMoron: Here's a little more on this, it will help get you started digging into the topic if you have an interest ( Yale, Oxford, et al have excellent websites like the CDLI, the CCP, the ETCSL, plus a bunch of other collab projects with other institutions ), or feel free to ask questions, I write articles on math and science history

cf. page 396 - Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography ( Wayne Horowitz )

https://dokumen.pub/mesopotamian-cosmic-geography-0931464994-9780931464997.html

Entries from the Sumerian dictionary:

Sumerian: ĝešhe [FIRMAMENT] (10x: Old Babylonian) wr. ĝeš-he2; ĝeš-he "firmament, vault of the sky" Akkadian: šupuk šamê

Sumerian: [FIRMAMENT] wr. ul4; ul5 "vault of heaven, firmament" Akkadian: šupuk šamê

Sumerian: [FIRMAMENT] (1x: ED IIIb) wr. ul4-he2 "firmament, vault of the sky" Akkadian: šupuk šamê

Alternately, you could look to the Egyptian goddess Nut ( Nwt ) who's arched body represents the same local hemispherical horizontal coordinate system from which an observer sees the sun and moon appear and disappear at the horizons

Karnak temple in Egypt actually required the use of this " firmament " coordinate system in order to be aligned such that the light from the sun shines down the hallway into the inner sanctuary of the temple, on the sunrise of winter solstice every year

The light shines into Amun Ra's Holy of Holies at the center of Karnak from about 5:30 to 6:30 ( ish )

The fact is, if we wanted to try and make the assumption our ancestors thought the planet was flat, we'd have to then also assume they thought the entire earth was only about 6 miles wide ( The approximate width of one coordinate system )

If that were the case, they'd have fallen off the edge of the planet over 127 times just traveling the short distance between Mecca and Jerusalem

The thing that fascinates me about this claim is that nobody ever fact-checked it to see if it was plausible or true

Not only is it not supported with an examination of linguistic terms ( There are many terms related to supuk same that refer to other parts of the coordinate system, like the nadir, the zenith, the fundamental planes, etc ), but it's not supported by the systems of units of measurement used in the antiquities either

Naram-Sin standardized all metrology in 2150 BC with a system meant to be used with this " firmament " coordinate system, and the Egyptian hieroglyph numerals themselves are partially based on the same exact system of units of measurement ( Hence the " finger " hieroglyph, since 1 finger / digit = 1 degree = 60 arcminutes = 3600 arcseconds )

Not only is this unit of measurement ancient, finger and hand measures are still used by astronomers to this very day to make approximate measurements

I just have to raise the on this claim, sorry

namenotrick: Wow, interesting stuff