Published in Göttinger Miszellen 208 (2006), pp. 75-88.

The Egyptian heritage in the ancient measurements of the earth

GYULA PRISKIN

The comparison of an Egyptian text recording the north-south extent of the country with the
descriptions of Eratosthenes’ and Posidonius’ experiments to measure the earth’s
circumference reveals that early Hellenic mathematical geography borrowed much
information from Egyptian science. A further analysis of all the figures circulated for the
length of the meridian in antiquity reinforces the case that Hellenic geographers were greatly
influenced by Egyptian ideas when they formed their opinions on the size of the earth.

Introduction
The literature on the measurements of the earth in antiquity – especially on Eratosthenes’ and
Posidonius’ experiments – is so vast that it is almost impossible to compile a full bibliography
on the subject, although hopefully a representative part of it will be cited along the present
work. The obvious reason for this large number of publications, often appearing in lesser
known or highly specialized journals, is the several moot points in the existing evidence that
provide ample opportunity for different interpretations and scholarly debate. One such salient
detail is for example the length of the stade the first earth-measurers used in their calculations,
as the accuracy of their results really hinges on this particular point (see for instance Engels
1985; Gulbekian 1987; Dutka 1993). While opinions often widely differ on this and on many
other aspects, one common feature clearly emerges: the authors – usually historians of
science, astronomers, and classicists – committing themselves to contributing to the
discussion have little or no knowledge of ancient Egypt in general, and ancient Egyptian
science in particular. Their ignorance may be forgiven, as it coincides with the still
widespread predilection of modern scholars – excepting of course orientalists – rarely to
extend their cultural horizon beyond the ancient Greek civilization and Greek philosophers (as
they in fact date the birth of science in the modern sense to this era).
The neglect of Egypt, it must be admitted on the other hand, is also due to the scarcity of
indigenous source material. Although various tomb-paintings illustrate that land surveying
was quite developed in ancient Egypt as a result of the need to re-allocate farming plots
annually (Lyons 1926; Butzer 1977, 525), and the Egyptians often described mythical
landscapes in terms of measurements in their religious literature (Quirke 2003), there is
comparably much less evidence to suggest that they made equally thorough efforts to map and
measure the inhabitable world beyond their immediate surroundings. But that is not to say
that evidence of this nature is completely lacking. Some fifteen years ago Christian Leitz
claimed that the dimensions recorded for the different regions of the underworld in the
Amduat, a funerary book depicting the sun god’s nocturnal journey on the walls of New
Kingdom royal tombs (c. 1500-1000 BCE), may have derived from a prior measurement of the
earth’s circumference (Leitz 1991, 101-104). His arguments, however, were not entirely
convincing and indeed other explanations for the dimensions in the Amduat have since been
put forward (Ferrari d’Occhieppo, Krauss & Schmidt-Kaler 1996; Priskin 2001, 110-113). On
the other hand, his ideas also prompted some speculation about the shadow-measuring
techniques the Egyptians might have possibly used to determine the length of the meridian
(Zeidler 1997, 109-110; Wirsching 2002).
All things considered, although Leitz might have wrongly identified the Amduat as the
document proving the existence of mathematical geography in ancient Egypt, that does not
necessarily mean that the quest for the proof of such a discipline should be abandoned once
and for all. It seems wiser to explore other native textual traditions in order to seek out
stronger evidence for a mathematic approach to geography by the Egyptians. In the initial part
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of my paper I will do just that when I present and interpret an Egyptian text describing the
north-south extent of the country that – given its content and context – naturally lends itself to
an analysis from a geodetical point of view. Then I will turn my attention to the classical
evidence and compare it with the Egyptian material, arguing that there are definite points of
connection between the two pools of knowledge. These links reveal that the Greek
geographers heavily relied on the feats of their Egyptian predecessors for their work. I must
note here, however, that neither the investigation into the Egyptian sources nor the
examination of the classical testimonies is an easy task. The first because of the extreme
brevity of the evidence, so one must be careful not to read too much into the text and be
carried away to see things that are simply not there, while the second because of the many
layers of interpretation that have been overlapping the material since antiquity, so here one
must be cautious to differentiate between facts and opinions. Still, with the right amount of
wisdom and circumspection these pitfalls – I believe – can be avoided, and the whole issue
can be put in an entirely new perspective.

The traces of Egyptian mathematical geography

True, if mathematical geography was in any form ever pursued in ancient Egypt, no
systematic account of it has come down to us. However, there are some distinct – albeit faint
– traces suggesting that Egyptian geography went beyond the simple description of the
landscape and utilitarian cadastral surveys. Clement of Alexandria, a Christian author living
in the Delta in the 2nd century CE, writes about the procession of the Egyptian priests carrying
their sacred books on the occasion of a religious festival (Stromata 6.4). One of these priests,
who is distinguished from his colleagues as the ‘scribe’, holds among other books a papyrus
roll written about geography, and also some other papyri containing maps of the Nile valley.
The closest authentic Egyptian source matching the description of Clement of Alexandria is
undoubtedly the Tanis Geographical Papyrus, a badly damaged document written in
hieroglyphics during the Graeco-Roman Period and found late in the 19th century (Griffith &
Petrie 1889, 21-25).
In the contents of the papyrus (various lists of festivals, nome capitals, sacred animals,
place-names, gods, and numbers) there is only one piece of information that may be classified
as having anything to do with mathematical geography. In one of the charred fragments the
expression ‘106 iteru’ is clearly legible, and although its immediate context is lost, it is not far
from a short series of hieroglyphic characters that refer to the distance between the
Mediterranean coast and the apex of the Delta (Griffith & Petrie 1889, pl. 9). As a matter of
fact, these fragments belong to a well-identifiable genre of Egyptian texts that give
information on the entire north-south extent of the land and its subdivisions. The figure of 106
iteru first appears on a re-used building block originating from a destroyed temple of
Amenemhet I (second half of 20th century BCE), while later testimonies include the
reconstructed White Chapel of Senwosret I (end of 20th century BCE), various inscribed cubit
rods (from 16th century BCE onwards), and the enclosure wall of the Graeco-Roman temple at
Edfu (1st century BCE). All these sources (handily collected in Schlott-Schwab 1981, 3-5)
unanimously equate the figure of 106 iteru with the overall distance from the northernmost
region in the Delta to Elephantine, an island on the Nile opposite Aswan.
The metric equivalent of 106 iteru can easily be found, as long as the length of the base
unit of the Egyptian system of measurement, that of the royal cubit, is satisfactorily
established, for it is generally accepted that one iteru comprised 20,000 royal cubits (Helck
1980, 1200; Clagett 1999, 7). In Egyptological literature customarily two values are cited for
the length of the royal cubit: 0.5237 m, based on W. M. F. Petrie’s metrological investigations
into the Giza pyramids (converted from inches; Petrie 1883, 179), and 0.525 m, following on
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Richard Lepsius’ statement in his work about existing cubit rods (Lepsius 1865, 5). Since in
the Tanis Geographical Papyrus one passage expressly links the cubit with pharaoh
Khufu, the builder of the largest pyramid at Giza (Griffith & Petrie 1889, pl. 14), in this paper
priority will be given to the length of 0.5237 m, though it must be noted that the use of the
other value would not lead to significantly different results in the calculations below, and
therefore neither would it seriously affect the validity of the arguments in the foregoing
reasoning. If then one cubit equals 0.5237 m, and one iteru is 20,000 cubits, 106 iteru will
equal 1,110,244 m. This figure is very close to 1/36 of the earth’s circumference (Ce/36 =
1,111,330 m, if the polar and equatorial radii are taken as 6,356,752 m and 6,378,136 m
respectively; Seidelmann 1992, 700). The difference is thus only 1086 m, but it is now
difficult to decide whether the proximity of 106 iteru to a geodetically meaningful number is
just a mere coincidence, or it reflects an earlier – quite precise – measurement of the earth’s
circumference on the part of the Egyptians.
Nonetheless, one thing is for certain: the figure of 106 iteru cannot have measured the
latitudinal difference between the traditionally assigned extreme north and south points of
Egypt (i.e. the north-south distance between the parallels running through these points).
According to my own measurements, taken by a standard GPS device, the northernmost point
of the Delta (literally, on the beach) lies at 31° 36.075' N, 31° 05.238' E, while the island of
Elephantine stretches from 24° 05.94' N, 32° 53.629' E in the north to 24° 05.028' N,
32° 53.034' E in the south. The greatest possible distance in latitude between these
coordinates is 31° 36.075' – 24° 05.028' = 7° 31.466', but certainly some margin for actual
human settlements – as likely places of observations – must be allowed for to diminish this
figure, especially by the sea in the north. Therefore, and also for the reason that no major
changes affecting these locations have occured in the topography of the land since the 3rd
millenium BC, it seems that the northern and southern end-points of Egypt, as conventionally
conceived of by its native inhabitants, provided ancient geographers with a section of the
globe that measured 7° 30', that is, 1/48 of the meridian (= 79.5 iteru).
The 106 iteru – as it significantly exceeds this figure – has been thought to define the
length of Egypt from Elephantine to the Mediterranean measured along the meandering river-
bed of the Nile (Borchardt 1921, 120). While this proposition is certainly basically correct, it
does not shed any light on how the Egyptians arrived at this value. The actual measurement of
the Nile, given the enormous practical difficulties such an undertaking would involve, must
be ruled out (Rawlins 1982b, 261). It is more likely that the 106 iteru is an authoritative figure
and some alternatives must be scouted around to explain why from the infinite number of
choices the Egyptians opted for 1/36 of the meridian to describe the winding course of the
Nile, if indeed it was not chosen fortuitously. Simply enough, the actual latitudinal extent of
Egypt (1/48 of the meridian) and the conventionally recorded length of the country (106 iteru
= 1/36 of the meridian) were in the ratio of 3 : 4. So perhaps a possible clue is offered by the
2nd century CE Greek author Plutarch who writes (Isis and Osiris 56) that “the Egyptians
liken the nature of the universe especially to this supremely beautiful of the triangles ...
[which] has a vertical of three units of length, a base of four, and an hypotenuse of five.” In
this case then it must be supposed that after the correct determination – by whatever means –
of the difference in latitude between the edges of Egypt at the Mediterranean and Elephantine,
the choice of 106 iteru for the length of the Nile was dictated by a simple numbers game that
was based on the most elementary Pythagorean triangle.
To sum up briefly what insight a modern reader might have into the possible geodetical
knowledge of the ancient Egyptians by perusing their writings on the dimensions of their
land, these are the plain facts: the figure of 106 iteru corresponds to 1/36 of the meridian, and
incidentally this figure is to the actual latitudinal extent of Egypt (1/48 of the meridian) as 4 is
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to 3. These traces on their own, however, do not furnish sufficient evidence to claim that the
Egyptians were capable of measuring the earth, and would perhaps be no more than curious
coincidences, were it not for the works of the first classical geographers in which the same
figures appear and the same proportional relation is encountered.

Cleomedes
There may have been several attempts to evaluate the size of the earth by a scientific method
in antiquity, but only two of them were described in detail in classical literature.
Unfortunately, the original reports of those who had been personally responsible for these two
experiments, the writings of Eratosthenes (3rd century BCE) and Posidonius (end of 2nd
century BCE), have not survived. An account of what they did in order to measure the earth is
given in a book written in the 2nd century CE by a Stoic author, Cleomedes (The Heavens
1.7). In his work, which can best be described as a collection of lectures aimed at the students
of his philosophical school, he singles out Eratosthenes and Posidonius as the two ablest
scientists whose methods had surpassed the attempts of others. It must be noticed, however,
that Cleomedes here makes a value judgement the veracity of which cannot be determined in
the absence of further sources. Either there were other serious attempts to measure the earth in
the Hellenic world that simply eluded the attention – or intellect – of Cleomedes, or he was
right in that Eratosthenes’ and Posidonius’ results stood out from a series of more speculative
experiments. In other words, the lack of other sources on the subject means that it cannot be
determined whether he – perhaps due to his own stance in the philosophical debates of his day
(see Bowen 2003) – distorted the truth, or he did pass on posterity the descriptions of those
experiments that were in fact worth mentioning from a scientific point of view. Certainly,
from the works of some other highly reputable scholars it is clear that there were a couple of
more figures for the earth’s circumference circulated in antiquity (Archimedes, Sand
Reckoner 1.8; Aristotle, On the Heavens 2.14); however, these authors did not comment on
the procedures by which these figures had been found. Whatever the case is, though,
Cleomedes’ treatise on the one hand does offer enough information for a collation with the
Egyptian sources, and on the other does highlight the strong similarity to them.
While the question on the number of scientifically relevant measurements of the earth will
probably remain unresolved until perhaps new evidence comes to light, another of
Cleomedes’ distortions can easily be rectified. Not only does Cleomedes say that Eratosthenes
and Posidonius were ahead of their contemporaries in the field of geodesy, but he also sets up
an order of preference between the two scholars, dismissing the view that Eratosthenes’
method was more obscure and repeatedly quoting his figure for the earth’s circumference in
other passages of his book (Cleomedes, The Heavens 1.5.72 & 2.1.294-295). This judgement
of Cleomedes’ is still widely reflected in the modern literature and is usually summarized by
the statement that the most accurate measurement of the earth in antiquity was given by
Eratosthenes (Fischer 1975, 152-153). If, however, the account of Cleomedes is truly closely
read, it becomes obvious that there is no outstanding difference in methodology – and in
quality – between Eratosthenes and Posidonius, as they both use the principles of
proportionality and equality of angles to determine the size of the earth (Taisbak 1974, 256-
259). Of course they rely on different natural phenomena in their experiments – Eratosthenes
on the sun and Posidonius on a bright star – but the earlier’s solar method and the latter’s
stellar one are still essentially the same, and after all there is no way of telling whether the
figures they establish for their needed terrestrial distances really represent different levels of
accuracy. It is only a pity that this simple truth has only been recognized recently. It has,
however, a very obvious consequence: when the classical measurements of the earth are
analysed, Eratosthenes and Posidonius must be treated on the same level and must be
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recognized as sources with equal value, and this is precisely what will be done in the
following two chapters.

Eratosthenes
According to Cleomedes (The Heavens 1.7.49-110), Eratosthenes reckoned that the
meridional arc corresponding to a given celestial arc could be measured by observing the
shadows cast by the sun at two sufficiently distant locations lying on the same meridian.
Eratosthenes reportedly chose Alexandria and Aswan as the two places befitting his
experiment. Alexandria seems to be a natural choice because Eratosthenes worked in that city
as the head of the famous library, while as regards shadows, the other place, Aswan, was a
special one, he believed, because it lay straight on the tropic, so at noon on the day of summer
solstice the sun cast no shadows there, hovering exactly overhead. On the same day at noon
he also gauged the length of the shadow at Alexandria by a hemispherical bowl known as the
skaphe, and found that it represented 1/50 part of a circle. Applying the principle of equal
angles, he now determined that the meridional arc between Alexandria and Aswan had to be
of the same length (Figure 1). He also knew that the terrestrial distance between these places
equalled 5000 stades. Now applying the principle of proportionality he could reckon that the
great circle must have measured 50 times 5000 stades, that is, 250,000 stades.

Figure 1 Eratosthenes’ measurement of the angular distance between Alexandria (A) and Aswan (S).
Angle BFA, observed to be 1/50 of the circle, equals angle AOS.
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Eratosthenes’ procedure seems simple enough, but at a closer look it is fraught with a number
of mistakes and leads to a few problems that have not yet been satisfactorily explained. The
inconsistencies in the description of his method may even suggest that Eratosthenes did not
actually carry out any experiment himself, but in the fashion of a true desk scientist he based
his opinions on the teachings of previous authorities or commonly known assumptions, or
perhaps plain hearsay (Newton 1980, 387). For one thing, Alexandria and Aswan do not lie
on the same meridian, and the difference of about three degrees was perhaps noticable for a
serious observer as early as the 3rd century BCE, even if the determination of longitudes – in
the absence of reliable clocks – was an inherently imprecise undertaking in antiquity. Nor was
Aswan situated below the tropic in the 3rd century BCE, even if allowance is made for the
sun’s apparent diameter, because due to precession the line defining the northernmost position
of the sun had moved a few kilometres southward by the time of Eratosthenes (Ball 1942, 40).
From a practical point of view, it is easier to imagine a hemispherical bowl with a pointer
casting a distinct shadow on it than actually build such a device or observe where the tip of
the shadow really ends on the curving surface (Newton 1980, 381; Gratwick 1995, 202). It is
also a nagging question why some classical authors augmented Eratosthenes’ figure for the
earth’s circumference to 252,000 stades (for a list see Goldstein 1984, 412). Or quite on the
contrary, did Cleomedes slightly adjust the 252,000 stades to suit the calculations he
recorded? The claim that this second scenario is more likely, and that the 252,000 stades is
not based on precise geodetic measurements, may find support in the remarks that the number
252,000 might have been the outcome of a Pythagorean numbers game, as it is the lowest
common denominator of the integers from 1 to 10 (Rawlins 1982a, 216), and that the same
figure is cited by Pliny (Natural History 2.83) as the one Pythagoras had established for the
distance between the sun and the moon.
The accuracy of Eratosthenes’ figure, if it was indeed arrived at by some way of
measurement and not by some mental arithmetic, is also difficult to judge. Since it is easily
conceivable that the angular distance between the two places around Alexandria and Aswan
where he actually made his readings of the skaphe was in fact 1/50 part of the circle (although
some even question the precision and experimental background of this figure, Newton 1980,
384; Goldstein 1984, 412), the clue to this matter lies with the length of the stade he used in
his experiment, and eventually with the accuracy of his figure for the terrestrial distance
between his two observation points. As for the origins of the 5000 stades, which almost all
researchers believe in any case to be a rounded figure, two theories have so far been put
forward by modern researchers. One of them claims, prompted by a remark from the 5th
century CE Roman author Martianus Capella (The Marriage 598), that this figure was
provided to Eratosthenes by the bematists of the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, that is, royal
pacers who measured long distances by counting the number of their steady steps, each
representing the same length (see Dutka 1993, 61-62). The other theory conjectures that the
5000 stades is a projection of an astronomical distance onto the terrestrial arc between
Alexandria and Aswan (Rawlins 1982a, 215; Thurston 2002, 66). A closer examination of
classical and Egyptian sources reveals, however, that neither of these assumptions is correct.
Cleomedes not only relates that Eratosthenes took the way from Alexandria to Aswan as
equalling 5000 stades, but he also says that the area where the sun’s rays were perpendicular
to the earth on summer solstice spanned a circle with a diameter of 300 stades (The Heavens
1.7.75-76). Whether this area centred on Aswan or stretched south from it, he does not
specify. Nevertheless, the two figures added up equal 5300 stades, and interestingly enough
Strabo also writes (Geography 17.1.2) that according to Eratosthenes Egypt measured from
Aswan to the sea in the north 5300 stades. Thus it seems that Cleomedes’ 5000 stades for the
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Alexandria-Aswan distance is only a later development, and the original figure for the extent
of Egypt – certainly for Eratosthenes and Strabo, but possibly for other Hellenic geographers
as well – was 5300 stades. All the more so because the connection of this figure with the
Egyptian sources is not difficult to see. The number 5300 equals precisely 50 times 106, so it
must be surmised that the length of 5300 stades is a direct conversion from 106 iteru, the
length the Egyptians traditionally ascribed to their land since at least the 20th century BCE
(Priskin 2004b, 60-61).
From another perspective, this identity of the two figures also implies that Eratosthenes
took over an Egyptian tradition of converting different units of measurement according to
which one iteru equalled 50 stades. Without advancing too far into the treacherous minefield
of ancient metrology, two pieces of evidence can be cited here to back up this claim. One is
the name Tachompso referring to the southern border of the Dodekaschoinos, a 12-iteru long
region south of Elephantine. In Egyptian this name read ¦i-kmi-600 (Locher 1999, 260),
suggesting that for the Egyptians 12 iteru equalled 600 smaller units; consequently one iteru
consisted of 50 of these unspecified smaller units of length which the Greeks must have
identified with the stade. The other is again provided by Strabo’s description of the Nile, as he
says that the distance from the first waterfall at Aswan to the great cataract was 1200 stades
(Geography 17.1.2). If converted with a factor of 50, this figure equals 24 iteru, which must
also be a corrupt form of an Egyptian distance, because hieroglyphic inscriptions occasionally
described the Dodekaschoinos as 12 iteru on the eastern side of the river and 12 iteru on the
western side, totalling 24 iteru altogether (Locher 1999, 341). Furthermore, it must be noted
that all the distances in Strabo’s map of the Nile can be divided by 50 (Priskin 2004b, 62).
Therefore, beside the immediately obvious fact that his whole enterprise was set in Egypt,
it is now entirely clear that one of the most crucial pieces of information in Eratosthenes’
experiment, the figure for the terrestrial distance between Alexandria and Aswan, was a direct
borrowing from the Egyptians. Eratosthenes certainly did not stand alone as the only Greek
scholar relying on indigenous information for the length of Egypt, because Herodotus in the
5th century BCE also quoted the same Egyptian figures for this distance, although in a corrupt
form (Priskin 2004a). It may well have been that Eratosthenes misunderstood his sources and
did not realize that the 5300 stades (= 106 iteru) originally could not refer to the straight-line
distance between the extreme northern and southern limits of Egypt. It seems, however, that
he did adjust this figure to his needs when he truncated it to 5000 stades, perhaps having been
aware of the fact that Alexandria lay a bit further to the south than the northernmost part of
the Delta. At the same time, he may also have had some information that the tropic no longer
exactly fell upon Aswan, so he shifted 300 stades from the north to the south, as intimated by
Cleomedes. And there is of course the possibility that it is Eratosthenes’ commentator who is
responsible for the truncation of the 5300 stades.

Posidonius
Cleomedes says (The Heavens 1.7.7-48) that Posidonius was able to measure the earth’s
circumference by determining a given terrestrial arc with the help of a bright star. Posidonius
believed that the Greek city on the island of Rhodes lay on the same meridian as Alexandria.
He is said to have observed that the star Canopus (a Carinae) culminated just above the
horizon at Rhodes. Then he divided the celestial circle into twelve equal parts in accordance
with the twelve signs of the zodiac. Since in Alexandria Canopus reportedly reached its
highest elevation on the night sky one quarter of a zodiacal segment above the horizon,
Posidonius surmised – applying the principle of equal angles – that the arc between Rhodes
and Alexandria was 1/48 of the whole circle (Figure 2). As for the terrestrial distance between
Rhodes and Alexandria, Posidonius reckoned it to be 5000 stades, although in Cleomedes it is
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suggested that it was just a hypothetical value accepted only for the sake of demonstrating the
procedure by which the earth’s circumference could be effectively measured. Nonetheless,
relying now on the principle of proportionality, Posidonius calculated the whole meridian to
be of 48 × 5000 stades = 240,000 stades.

Figure 2 Posidonius’ measurement of the angular distance between Rhodes (R) and Alexandria (A).
Angle CHA, observed to be 1/48 of the circle, equals angle ROA.

Just as with Eratosthenes, Posidonius’ method seems simple enough, but it is also fraught
with grave errors and major inconsistencies. Again, Rhodes and Alexandria do not lie on the
same meridian, although the longitudinal difference between these two places, about two
degrees, is smaller than the one between Alexandria and Syene. What is perhaps more
important is the fact that his figure for the latitudinal difference between Rhodes and
Alexandria – 1/48 of the circle – is in error with a sizeable margin, as in reality this figure
equals approximately 1/68 of the meridian. This probably once more indicates that Posidonius
may not have made observations of the star Canopus himself, but leaned on earlier sources to
fabricate a plausible method for measuring the earth’s circumference, without being too much
concerned about the exactitude of the particular details. As a matter of fact, it has been
pointed out that in the time of Posidonius (end of 2nd century BCE) Canopus did not culminate
on the horizon at Rhodes but a significant one degree above it, even in the northern part of the
island (Drabkin 1943, 510). Another similarity between Eratosthenes and Posidonius is that
the latter’s figure for the circumference of the earth was also replaced by another one in
sources other than Cleomedes; in this case, however, not a minor adjustment took place, but
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the hugely different figure of 180,000 stades is cited by Strabo (Geography 2.2.2) as
Posidonius’ estimate for the length of the whole meridian. Perhaps in conjunction with this
Strabo also relates (Geography 2.5.24) that the terrestrial distance between Rhodes and
Alexandria was 3750 stades according to Eratosthenes’ measurement with the sundial.
The contradictions that abound in the description of Posidonius’ method for measuring the
earth can again find their explanations if the data associated with it are pitted against the
Egyptian evidence. Thus as far as the arc equalling 1/48 of the meridian is concerned, the
earlier sources on which Posidonius relied are not difficult to establish, because – as it was
shown in an earlier chapter – it was the land of Egypt that provided an earthly observer with
the ideal conditions to determine a terrestrial arc with the length of 1/48 of the whole circle.
The different figures for the terrestrial distance between Rhodes and Alexandria also
constitute a telltale sign in the direction of Egyptian origins. In the first place, Cleomedes
cites 5000 stades for this distance, which is the same figure as Eratosthenes used to describe
Egypt following on – it was argued in the previous chapter – native sources. Even more
revealing is the proportional relation between the figure of 5000 stades and the one that
Strabo ascribes to the Rhodes-Alexandria distance, 3750 stades. This ratio is simply but
perhaps not surprisingly 4 : 3, the same that was demonstrated to have existed between the
canonized figure of 106 iteru and that of 79.5 iteru, the actual terrestrial distance between the
parallels running through the traditionally conceived boundaries of Egypt.
All these fine details perceived in connection with Posidonius’ determination of the
earth’s circumference suggest that the description of his method originally applied to an
experiment that must have been carried out in Egypt by its native inhabitants. Canopus –
which anyway is one of the few star names that derive from the ancient Egyptian language
(Kunitzsch & Smart 1986, 25) – was visible in the Nile valley all throughout antiquity, and it
culminated not much above the horizon from the vantage point of an observer standing in the
northern part of the Delta at the beginning of the Egyptian civilization, around 3000 BCE
(about two degrees, as opposed to the roughly one degree at Rhodes in 100 BCE, StarCalc 5.72
2002). It seems therefore that Posidonius, acting on the relevant observation that in his time
the culmination of Canopus approximately aligned with the horizon at the location of Rhodes,
supplanted the original Egyptian description and moved it to a territory that was more familiar
to him, yet he did not bother about modifying the other factual data he had gained from his
primary sources. These original sources – as the arc amounting to 1/48 of the circle and the
relation between 5000 and 3750 stades indicate – were of course Egyptian.

Other figures for the earth’s circumference in antiquity

Although it is only with Eratosthenes and Posidonius that their methods to measure the
circumference of the earth have been preserved (albeit in secondary sources), some further
much esteemed ancient scholars report a few other figures that had apparently gained a certain
degree of recognition among the members of contemporary scientific communities. Thus
Archimedes relates the figure of 300,000 stades (Sand Reckoner 1.8), Aristotle speaks of
400,000 stades (On the Heavens 2.14), whereas Claudius Ptolemy – by saying that every
degree of the great circle equals 500 stades – settles down for 180,000 stades in his highly
influential Geography (1.7) that was to influence opinions on the size of the earth for many
generations to come. This latest figure incidentally coincides with the one Strabo credits with
Posidonius, yet there is no hint in Claudius Ptolemy’s Geography that he chose this value as
the result of the work of his Stoic predecessor. Altogether therefore five different figures for
the earth’s circumference crop up in Hellenic sources that can be judged textually coherent,
each reported by or associated with a reputable authority of their time: 180,000 stades,
240,000 stades, 252,000 stades (variant 250,000 stades), 300,000 stades and 400,000 stades.
Published in Göttinger Miszellen 208 (2006), pp. 75-88.

A B
a 180,000 240,000
Posidonius, Claudius Ptolemy Posidonius
b 252,000
Eratosthenes
c 300,000 400,000
Archimedes Aristotle

Table 1 Different figures (in stades) for the earth’s circumference current in antiquity. The ratio
between columns A and B is 3 to 4. Lines a and c are, incidentally, in the ratio of 3 to 5.

The proliferation of numbers for the earth’s circumference may perhaps be partly explained if
they are arranged in a grid with two columns and three lines (Table 1). Out of the five figures,
four can be put in such pairs that the members are in the ratio of 3 : 4 to each other (columns
A and B). This seems to indicate that the choice of the different figures arose from a simple
numbers game the origins of which in all probability go back to ancient Egypt, where the
actual latitudinal extent of the land was in the same relation of 3 to 4 with the traditionally
acclaimed figure for the country’s length. Ultimately, of course, this numbers game – as
intimated by Putarch – found its roots in a play with the sides of the simplest Pythagorean
triangle of 3-4-5. It must be pointed out here, however, that out of the five numbers in Table 1
four can also be paired vertically, in which case the ratio between the members is 3 : 5 (lines a
and c). That this relation is very likely fortuitous, and that the numbers game intended is in
fact based on the ratio of 3 : 4, is suggested by Eratosthenes’ figure, which both in the
horizontal and vertical classifications remains the odd one out, initially perhaps coming from
a different numbers game (see above). The possible matches for 252,000 stades would be
either 189,000 or 336,000 stades in the 3 : 4 scheme, and 151,200 or 420,000 stades in the
3 : 5 scheme. Although there is no direct evidence for any of these numbers in classical
sources, it is quite probably not without significance that if the individual figures in Strabo’s
passage on the length of the Nile (Geography 17.1.2) are added up, it turns out that
Eratosthenes determined the distance from Meroe to the Mediterranean as 18,900 stades,
exactly 1/10 of the figure (189,000) that should occupy slot A-b in Table 1.
There are some further hints in classical literature suggesting that the 3 : 4 ratio was
somehow part of the reckonings about the size of the earth. In an Armenian text that
preserved the lost geography of Pappus, another Alexandrian scholar working in the 3rd
century CE, a rather obscure passage says that for different purposes of geometric and
‘aerometric’ measurements there were two different kinds of the stade (Ananias of Širak,
Geography 1.6), whose lengths – it can be reconstructed from the slightly corrupt numbers –
were in the ratio of 3 to 4. Indeed, it has been conjectured (although, to my knowledge, not on
the basis of this particular Armenian treatise, but rather following on from the existence of
two figures for the Rhodes-Alexandria distance) that the two values for the earth’s
circumference associated with Posidonius, those of 180,000 and 240,000 stades, do not denote
different measurements of the meridian, but the same one expressed in stades with differing
lengths (see Drabkin 1943, 510). Quite obviously, no definitive judgement on this contention
can be formed here, or perhaps not even after a laborious study of all the relevant metrological
evidence that has come down to us, but the gist of the matter seems to be quite clear: the 3 : 4
ratio did feature in one way or another in classical sources on geography.
Speaking of the possible points of linkage between Egypt and Hellenic geography, finally
it must be noted that Claudius Ptolemy may have arrived at 180,000 stades for the length of
the meridian, the same figure as is credited with Posidonius, by an alternative interpretation of
the Egyptian evidence at his disposal – or at least this different look at the evidence may have
Published in Göttinger Miszellen 208 (2006), pp. 75-88.

reinforced him that he should adopt no other figure. By the time of Ptolemy the division of the
great circle into 360 degrees had replaced the earlier ad hoc astronomical gradation
techniques, such as, for example, the one used by Posidonius (Neugebauer 1975, 590-594).
Ptolemy, or a previous authority he was relying on, may have had a better understanding of
the Egyptian sources than Eratosthenes, and may have realized that the 5000 (in place of
5300) stades did not originally refer to the latitudinal extent of the country, but was a putative
number for 1/36 of the meridian (the 106 iteru recorded in the Egyptian inscriptions). If it was
so, quite clearly 5000 stades were equal to 360 ÷ 36 = 10 degrees, and consequently one
degree equalled 500 stades. In the absence of more evidence this is of course largely
conjecture, but may explain why Ptolemy does not refer to Posidonius and why he only
indirectly specifies the length of the meridian by saying that it is common knowledge that one
degree of latitude corresponds to 500 stades.

Conclusion
The ancient Egyptians seem to have been, perhaps decidedly, very laconic about the art of
geodesy they possessed. Practically the only piece of information they have made public in
this regard, and the only one that has made it to the present through the ravages of time, is a
number referring to a distance that strongly presupposes the knowledge of the earth’s
circumference. This singular textual tradition, when compared with the actual extent of the
land between its canonical boundaries, suggests that the discipline of mathematical geography
in Egypt was a mixture of genuine scientific observations and a numbers game based on the
triangle of 3-4-5. The ultimate reasons for the introduction of this numbers game into the
Egyptian view of the world, as of now, remain elusive (they may have simply come from a
cultic practice or may in fact have originated from some metrological considerations), but the
analysis of the figures attributed to the length of the meridian by Hellenic scientists has shown
that the same numbers game was taken over and perpetuated by the Greeks.
What makes sure that simultaneously with this seemingly irrational play with numbers
there was a rigorous scientific side to Egyptian geodetic thought, which at some point led to a
fairly correct determination of the earth’s circumference, is firstly the trust that the earliest
Greek geographers placed in their Egyptian sources when they collected the factual
information needed for their work. This has been demonstrated during the careful
examination of the accounts on Eratosthenes’ and Posidonius’ experiments. It is of course,
given the nature of the evidence, also a distinct possibility that the methodological or
instrumental foundations of these undertakings were also rooted in Egyptian science.
Secondly, the firm scientific background of Egyptian geodesy is also revealed by the
surprising accuracy of its findings, irrespective of whether they were preserved in
hieroglyphic documents (as, for example, the figure of 106 iteru for Ce/36), or in the writings
of Hellenic philosophers (say, the 1/48 arc of the meridian). The sole objective of this paper
was to show the definite areas of connection between the little information currently available
on Egyptian mathematical geography and its Hellenic counterpart, so any speculation on how
this precision had been achieved would have led it astray. I leave this matter, at least for the
moment, to others to ponder over.
Published in Göttinger Miszellen 208 (2006), pp. 75-88.

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e-mail: priskin.gyula@gmail.com