The inventors of modern geometry were ancient Iraqis; Proved once again!
New South Wales: An ancient clay tablet has once again proved that geometry was not only invented by the inhabitants of “Babylon” 3700 years ago, but they also used it in everyday life. Were.
It should be noted that Babylon is one of the oldest civilizations in the world where the world’s first formal empire also came into existence.
Hammurabi, the sixth and most famous king of Babylon, is considered to be the “first legislator” of human history, whose laws include the punishment of amputation of the hand if found guilty of theft.
These clay tablets, on which the inscriptions on which the historical precedent of the Babylonians in the field of geometry is proved, belong to the time when Hammurabi was the ruler there.
The discovery is the result of years of research by mathematician Dr Daniel F. Mansfield at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
Earlier, Mansfield had analyzed a tablet of ancient Babylon in 2017 (called “Plumpton 322”) and proved that the knowledge of trigonometry was not acquired by the ancient Greeks but by the Babylonians at least a thousand years before them. Invented
See the news: The inventors of trigonometry were not Greeks but ancient Iraqis, research
In his latest research, Mansfield examined another tablet of the same period, Si.427. This small round tablet was made of clay which probably belongs to Babylon from 1900 BC to 1600 BC.
The tablet was discovered in a Babylonian archeological excavation in 1894 and has been housed in the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul for many years. Mansfield scrutinized the tablet for months at the same museum.
The analysis revealed that the tablet was a document related to the “Land Survey” (measurement and record of land area) which was engraved on a piece of clay with a thin pointed bar (stylus). (Paper pens were not invented in those days, and all writing was done with fine and pointed bars on soft stone and clay.)
However, the surveyor has demonstrated his expertise in geometry, especially trigonometry, by drawing a rectangle and right-angled triangles.
Mansfield says the discovery reinforces the idea that modern geometry (including trigonometry) originated in the “Babylonian” civilization a thousand years before ancient Greece, where this knowledge was not only formally taught. It was also used extensively in accounting for land, property and lands.
“We are taught that the ancient Greeks invented geometry while observing the sky, but these discoveries show that the Babylonians invented geometry to solve earth problems at least a thousand years before them. And they used it to the fullest, ”Mansfield said.
