Tag Archives: Land surveying

How ancient Babylonian land surveyors developed a unique form of trigonometry — 1,000 years before the Greeks

This stone tablet records the restoration of certain lands by the Babylonian king Nabu-apla-iddina to a priest. Babylonian, circa 870 BCE. From Sippar (Tell Abu Habbah) Wikipedia Daniel Mansfield, UNSW Our modern understanding of trigonometry harks back to ancient Greek astronomers studying the movement of celestial bodies through the night sky. But in 2017, I showed the ancient Babylonians likely …

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