







HISTORY OF THE SCIENCES 



IN GRECO-ROMAN 



ANTIQUITY 



INTRODUCTION 

 EGYPT AND CHALDEA 



THE information which ancient Greece has left 

 us concerning the scientific knowledge of 

 Oriental nations amounts to little. The 

 traditions reported by Herodotus, Diodorus of Sicily 

 and Strabo remain fragmentary and open to doubt. 1 

 The same remark applies to the explanations which 

 geometers, such as Proclus, attempt to give in order to 

 determine the contribution of these nations to the 

 various branches of science. Information more direct 

 and more reliable has been supplied in the nineteenth 

 century by archaeology and the methodical study of 

 monuments. 



The drawings and paintings which appear on the 

 walls of temples or of tombs are valuable evidence. 

 These drawings teach us that the Egyptians knew, for 

 example, a practical method of drawing a hexagon, 

 but not a pentagon. The unfinished decoration of 

 a funeral chamber reveals an application, equally prac- 

 tical, of proportions and of similitude. The wall to 



1 G. Jequier, Histoire de la civilisation dgyptienne, 2nd edi- 

 tion, Payot, Paris, 1923, with a systematic bibliography of 

 the principal works on Egyptology. 



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