I also would like such a book. I think this is a very good point.

Even archeologists have difficulty answering this question e.g. why does the Piri Reis map correctly shows that Antarctica is actually divided into two by a river? Did the ancient Mesopotamians really use electricity as suggested by the Baghdad battery? Furthermore, the ancients often claim that their knowledge were gifts from their gods, something that can never be proven. For example, the Aztec god of wisdom, Quetzalcoatl, is often described as "a white man with blond hair and who wears shiny clothes". Was he a survivor of Atlantis as some claim? Did Atlantis even exist in the first place? Bottom line is that there is no consensus.

The Kinship of the Three

Ken

When/where did the Ouroboros originate 3100 BC or much earlier?/

Ziggurats

"The Book of Lambspring" by Nicolas Barnaud, 1625 (originally "Triga chemica: de lapide philosophico tractatus tres)

Try this site:

http://www.greatarchaeology.com/index.php

bioramani

Sprahjah,

You might try to find a copy of

The Seven Mysteries of Life

^{_{an exploration in Science and Philosophy.}}

by Guy Murchie

Copyright 1978

ISBN 0-395-26310-7

Jon

Hello sprajah,

As they did not keep written records, or none that we know of, I doubt you will ever know of their thoughts etc.

It would have to be 'third party stories as to how they arrived at what they did I would think.

Or one could assume that the ancients were as smart as we are and less distracted.

So that when say, a sailing ship with a mast appeared on the horizon, their keen observation might be, how come I see only the top of the mast or sail, and not the entire boat suddenly popping into view all at once. Given even rudimentary logic, this might create the thought that the boat must be on a curved surface, and then with some rough calculations and measurements... an estimate of the sphere's size could be made.

Or we could go with the UFO theories.

milo

Sprajah,

"how they arrived at the truth"

Those who sought after truth had a high success rate at arriving at truth and sometimes they were smacked down for thinking out-of-the-box because truth was often considered heretical.

Belief can alter observations; those with a particular belief will often see things as reinforcing their belief, even if they do not. Even researchers admit that the first observation may have been a little imprecise, whereas the second and third were "adjusted to the facts," until tradition, education, and familiarity produce a readiness for new perception.

This demonstrates Ludwik Fleck's caution that people observe what they expect to observe, until shown otherwise; our beliefs will affect our observations (and therefore our subsequent actions). The purpose of the scientific method is to test a hypothesis, a proposed explanation about how things are, via repeatable experimental observations which can contradict the hypothesis so as to fight this observer bias.

The development of the scientific method is inseparable from the history of science itself. Ancient Egyptian documents, such as early papyri, describe methods of medical diagnosis. In ancient Greek culture, the method of empiricism was described. The first experimental scientific method was developed by Muslim scientists, who introduced the use of experimentation and quantification to distinguish between competing scientific theories set within a generally empirical orientation, which emerged with Alhazen's (Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham, Latinized: Alhacen or Alhazen, 965 - 1040ad) optical experiments in his Book of Optics.

The modern scientific method crystallized no later than in the 17th and 18th centuries. In his work Novum Organum (1620ad) — a reference to Aristotle's Organon — Francis Bacon outlined a new system of logic to improve upon the old philosophical process of syllogism. Then, in 1637ad, René Descartes established the framework for a scientific method's guiding principles in his treatise, Discourse on Method. The writings of Alhazen, Bacon and Descartes are considered critical in the historical development of the modern scientific method, as are those of John Stewart Mill.

In the late 19th century, Charles Sanders Peirce proposed a schema that would turn out to have considerable influence in the development of current scientific method generally. Peirce accelerated the progress on several fronts. Firstly, speaking in broader context in "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" (1878ad), Peirce outlined an objectively verifiable method to test the truth of putative knowledge on a way that goes beyond mere foundational alternatives, focusing upon both deduction and induction. He thus placed induction and deduction in a complementary rather than competitive context (the latter of which had been the primary trend at least since David Hume, who wrote in the mid-to-late 18th century). Secondly, and of more direct importance to modern method, Peirce put forth the basic schema for hypothesis/testing that continues to prevail today. Extracting the theory of inquiry from its raw materials in classical logic, he refined it in parallel with the early development of symbolic logic to address the then-current problems in scientific reasoning. Peirce examined and articulated the three fundamental modes of reasoning that, as discussed above in this article, play a role in inquiry today, the processes that are currently known as abductive, deductive, and inductive inference. Thirdly, he played a major role in the progress of symbolic logic itself — indeed this was his primary specialty.

Karl Popper denied the existence of evidence and of scientific method. Popper holds that there is only one universal method, the negative method of trial and error. It covers not only all products of the human mind, including science, mathematics, philosophy, art and so on, but also the evolution of life. Beginning in the 1930s and with increased vigor after World War II, he argued that a hypothesis must be falsifiable and, following Peirce and others, that science would best progress using deductive reasoning as its primary emphasis, known as critical rationalism. His formulations of logical procedure helped to rein in excessive use of inductive speculation upon inductive speculation, and also strengthened the conceptual foundation for today's peer review procedures.

blah blah blah......

Jon

The Ancient Engineers by L Sprague De Camp. Solid stuff no flying saucers.

Guest,

Ancient Engineers.

L Sprague De Camp, good writer, fiction or otherwise.

Jon

Asking for Truth about ancient times is very controversial, and fraught with opinion.

I presume you aren't just looking for the standard Time-Life books...

If you ask me, there is no better source than Zecharia Sitchin, and his Earth Chronicles series, starting with The Twelfth Planet. (he has written ten books at least, and all are awesome) http://www.sitchin.com/

Next would be Christopher Dunn's Giza Powerplant book. http://www.gizapower.com/

Graham Hancock http://www.grahamhancock.com/library/bookshop.php

John West. http://www.amazon.com/Serpent-Sky-Wisdom-Ancient-Egypt/dp/0835606910

Good luck.

Chris

Hey Chris - I picked up 12th Planet last night and jumped right in. (Amazing what else is out there when your better-half virus-crashes your PC). Finally put the book down at 2am. Great book - thanks

Grae

I actually came across an old beat up copy back in 1994... put it on my bedside table, and poked away at it for a month... then all of a sudden the information started to get some critical mass in my brain and I became completely obsessed... even on my summer vacation, I read two of the books... could NOT put them down.

be careful...

:)

Chris

Sprajah,

Earth?

The ancient Greek scholar Eratosthenes is commonly called the "father of geography" for he was the first to use the word geography and he had a small-scale notion of the planet that led him to be able to determine the circumference of the earth.

Eratosthenes was born around 276 B.C.E. at a Greek colony in Cyrene, Libya. He was educated at the academies of Athens and was appointed to run the Great Library at Alexandria in 240. While serving as head librarian and scholar, Eratosthenes wrote a comprehensive treatise about the world, called Geography. This was the first use of the word, which literally means "writing about the earth" in Greek. Geography also introduced the climatic concepts of torrid, temperate, and frigid zones.

Eratosthenes' Experiment

Having heard of a deep well at Syene (near the Tropic of Cancer and modern Aswan) where sunlight only struck the bottom of the well on the summer solstice, Eratosthenes determined that he could discover the circumference of the earth. (Greek scholars knew that the earth was indeed a sphere). To calculate the circumference, Eratosthenes needed two things. He knew the approximate distance between Syene and Alexandria, as measured by camel-powered trade caravans. He then measured the angle of the shadow in Alexandria on the solstice. By taking the angle of the shadow (7°12') and dividing it into the 360 degrees of a circle (360 divided by 7.2 yields 50), Eratosthenes could then multiply the distance between Alexandria and Syene by 50 to determine the circumference.

Remarkably, Eratosthenes determined the circumference to be 25,000 miles, just 100 miles over the actual circumference at the equator (24,901 miles). While Eratosthenes made mathematical errors in his calculations, these fortunately canceled each other out and yielded an amazingly accurate answer.

A few decades later, the Greek geographer Posidonius thought Eratosthenes' circumference was too large. He calculated the circumference on his own and obtained 18,000 miles, 7,000 miles too short. During the middle ages, most scholars accepted Eratosthenes' circumference though Christopher Columbus used Posidonius' circumference to convince his supporters that he could quickly reach Asia by sailing west from Europe.

Jon

Another intersting book is: Islamic Contributions to Western Civilization by Stanwood Cobb 1963. Published by Avalon Press, Washington 15 DC

84 pages

A summation of the historic contributions of the Arabic-Islamic culture - bridge between the ancient and the modern worlds.

No Longer Available.

It describes:

How Mamun, gifted Caliph of Baghdad, absorbed Greek, Persian and Hindu learning, to found the world's first university.

How Cairo, Fez, Cordova and other Moslem centers of culture, followed the example of Baghdad.

How in these centers there arose a remarkable developement of medicine, chemistry, mathematics, geography, navigation, agriculture etc.

How these sciences were passed on to Europe of the Dark Ages through contacts in Spain and Sicily, and through translations of Arabic text into Latin.

How this rediscovery of Greek learning, via the Arabs, caused Europe to begin that great age of science which culminated in the machine age.

Jon