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Peloponnesian War 🛡

⚠️ January 1996.
The Imia crisis erupts,
bringing Greece to the brink of war.
🤝 The need for national unity and solidarity
had never been more urgent.
Old grudges simply had to be put to rest.
🏛️ And so, in a move that no one saw coming,
on the 10th of March 1996,
the then-mayors of Athens and Sparta,
Avramopoulos and Matalas,
🎯 in a rare display of strategic brilliance,
read the room
—and did the unthinkable:
📜 They officially ended the Peloponnesian War.
Yes, you read that correctly!
🕊 According to the official declaration:
“The Mayor of Athens and the Mayor of Sparta
express their deepest sorrow
for the blood-soaked conflict
between the two greatest cities of ancient Greece…”
❓But if we are to accept that
the Peloponnesian War actually ended in 1996,
one rather pressing question emerges:
who, in the end, was the real victor?
🏆 Sparta (if we stick to the traditional narrative)
or Athens, the modern-day capital of the Greeks?
Food for thought.

🔎 On Ancient Science Portal you ’ll find interactive ancient maps (https://www.ancientscienceportal.com/el/toolsmaps)

#history #ASPortal #historyofancientscience #historyofscience #ancientgreece #digital #ancientscience #project #sparta #athens #peloponnesianwar

Trial by Combat ⚔️
🤔 Can you imagine life without
the arithmetical symbols 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9?
How is that even possible, you ask,
😵‍💫 when numbers have wormed their way into every aspect of our lives
—our clocks, our phones, our exam results,
and even on our tombstones?
Talk about haunting us to the grave …
💡 But did we always have these same symbols?
🚨 Spoiler alert: we didn’t.
These signs were invented in India,
took the scenic route through the Arab world,
and finally swaggered into Europe in the 12th century.
⚔️ But they didn’t take over without a fight.
For three centuries, they wrestled with older systems,
a battle so epic it inspired a 16th-century woodcut
that perfectly captures the drama.
👑 At the centre of this masterpiece stands
a regal female figure
—the Muse of Arithmetic herself,
clearly revelling in her role as referee.
📜 To her left, a smug scholar breezes
through calculations
using the shiny new Indo-Arabic numerals.
🔢 On her right, a troubled mathematician struggles
with an abacus, perhaps wondering
if it doubles as a weapon in case things get ugly.
😍 The Muse gazes adoringly at her numerical champion,
who beams with the satisfaction of someone
who knows they’re on the winning side of history.
😬 Meanwhile, the poor abacus-user
wears the look of someone who’s just realised
their days are numbered (pun intended).

🔎 Check out the History of Mathematics Project on the Ancient Science Portal for fascinating insights into the evolution of numerical systems.
#ASP #hisroryofscience #uoa #maths #ancientscience #digital #arabs #arithmetic #woodcut #typusarithmeticae #ancientmathematics #history #got #numbers #india #abacus #digits #abacusmaths #abacuslearning #abacus

Rooster 🐓

🕰️ If you want to be remembered forever,
there are two foolproof strategies
you might consider
before bidding farewell to this fleeting world.
💸 The first is to leave everyone in debt
—rest assured, they will never forget you.
The second is to choose your last words wisely.
💋 Think about it. In marketing terms,
your final phrase is like the last crisp in the packet,
the last sip of Coke, or the goodnight kiss
—you save the best for last.
🔥 Take Archimedes, for instance, who declared, "Do not disturb my circles."
Or Julius Caesar, who uttered the chilling, "Et tu, Brute?"
Or even the person-who-discovered-gunpowder’s
last words, “Oh fuck.”
🥋 But the Yoda of ancient wisdom,
the Mr. Miyagi of classical philosophy, Socrates,
💭 chose to depart this world with a cryptic remark: (Plato, Phaedo)
"Crito, we owe a rooster to Asclepius. Don’t forget to pay the debt."
🤔 Excuse me—what? Had Socrates run out of witticisms?
Why was he suddenly preoccupied with poultry?
And why did he feel indebted to the very god who had taught humans
to brew the poison that was about to kill him?
🔑 The answer lies in how Socrates viewed life itself:
a sickness from which his soul was finally being set free
—courtesy of Asclepius.

🔎At the Ancient Science Portal, you’ll find digital tools for exploring the ancient Greek language; including the word “rooster”.

#ancientscience #uoa #historyofancientscience #history #digital #ASPortal #socrates #philosophy #historyofscience #project #archimedes #galileo #Galileo

Ibis 🪶

🌀 The moment you step into an open-plan
hipster office for the first time—
it stays with you forever.
🧘‍♂️ How could you possibly forget
the sea of cross-legged souls on the floor,
clutching obscenely expensive laptops?
🏺 But, don’t be fooled—this is no modern trend.
The first hipsters lived in ancient Egypt
and belonged to the noble class of scribes.
🏛️ At the Louvre Museum,
you can see a 4,500-year-old scribe,
frozen in the act of writing.
✍️ His lifelike hand movements let us
imagine what happened just moments before:
🌊 He dipped his stylus into ink,
much like an ibis plunges its long beak into
the Nile’s muddy waters for a snack.
🌞 And it’s also easy to image what followed:
As soon as he finished, the scribe
lifted his gaze to the heavens
and thanked Thoth, the god of scribes.
🦩 In the ibis-faced god,
the scribe saw his entire world reflected back at him

🔎 You can find more about Ancient Egypt Science on the Ancient Science Portal: (https://www.ancientscienceportal.com)

#uoa #digital #historyofancientscience #history #ASPortal #ancientscience #ancientegypt #ibis #nile #hipster #louvre

A Royal Road 📜

👑 King Ptolemy admired mathematicians.
And so, he decided to become one of them.
📖 He immersed himself in study and, after two days,
managed to memorize a theorem.
A giant leap for a king, indeed.
😩 Soon, however, excitement gave way to frustration:
"At this pace, it will take me years
just to learn the basics!"
A shortcut was needed.
⚡ It was natural for him to think this way—
he had learned from the best
that nothing was impossible.
🗡️ He had seen, with his own eyes, Alexander
tame Bucephalus, storm Tyre,
slice through the Gordian Knot—
and cheat on Aristotle’s exams.
🧐 So, he summoned Euclid,
the great geometer, (Proclus, On Eucl. 68.10-17) and asked:
"Tell me, wise man, is there a shortcut to geometry,
or are we doomed to spend our youth buried in books? "
🚫 Euclid, possibly risking his own head, replied:
"My king, don’t waste your time searching.
There is no Royal Road to geometry."
🔚 And just like that,
Ptolemy’s brief mathematical career came to an end.

How profoundly democratic mathematical knowledge is.
Before it, we are all equal—kings and slaves alike.

🔎 On the Ancient Science Portal, you can find Proclus’ commentary on The Elements (https://www.ancientscienceportal.com/editions).

#digital #website #project #ancientmathematics #euclid #ASPortal #uoa #history #historyofscience #ancientscience #ancientgreece #historyofancientscience #maths #aristoteles #ptolemy #euclidelements

The Delian Problem (part b) 🤔

🦠 A tale from the past recounts
that Delos was once ravaged
by a dreadful pandemic (Theon, Math. 2.3-12).
🤧 The Delians, weary of endless lockdowns,
decided it was time to act.
And they turned to the Oracle of Delphi for guidance—
Because where else would you go for pandemic advice?
🔮 The oracle’s response was uncharacteristically
straightforward: to rid themselves of the plague,
the Delians were to build a new altar for Apollo,
exactly double the size of their current one.
🏺 But there was a catch: the altar was cube-shaped!
Apollo, in his infinity wisdom (and perhaps infinite boredom)
demanded they solve the problem of doubling the cube
—one of antiquity’s famously “unsolvable” puzzles—
before he’d lift the curse.
🆘 Desperate, the Delians sent a delegation to the wise Plato
with a succinct question: “WTF?”
❓ According to another version of events,
their query was slightly more colourful:
“What on Earth is the Oracle smoking?”
—a point on which scholars remain divided.
💡 In any case, Plato’s response was profound:
“The god has no need of a larger altar.
He merely wishes to chastise the Greeks
for neglecting the beauty of geometry.”
🕰️ What happened next remains a mystery.
But suffice it to say, today, Delos in uninhabited—
perhaps still waiting for someone
to solve the Delian problem.

🔎 For more on this, visit the Ancient Science Portal, where you can find Theon of Smyrna’s Mathematics Useful for Reading Plato: https://www.ancientscienceportal.com/editions

#ASPortal #Δήλος #digital #delos #ancientscience #historyofscience #mathematics #ancientmaths #geometry #plato #doublingthecube #history #pythia #ancienthistory

The Delian Problem (part a) 🤔

🌀 The rumour mill (and that’s putting it mildly)
has long suggested that Zeus was something of a womanizer.
Even the stunning Leto couldn’t sidestep his,
shall we say, divine attentions.
🤯 Naturally, when Hera got wind of this little indiscretion,
her wrath struck fear into anyone
with the misfortune to cross her path.
She decreed that no corner of the Earth should dare
offer Leto a place to give birth.
🌊 What might have become of poor Leto
is anyone’s guess, had Poseidon not taken pity on her plight.
In a gesture of goodwill and a touch of theatrical flair,
he unveiled a new island, where Leto could at last deliver her twins,
Artemis and Apollo.
🌟 The new island, once obscure and unremarkable,
was named “Delos,” meaning “revealed” or “declared”
—a name that has, rather impressively, stuck to this day.
❗That particular "declaration," however,
may well have been the last ever made on Delos
(if we are talking taxes).
💰 Back in the day, Delos was the Mediterranean’s
largest slave market, a tax haven,
and the treasure chest of the Athenians
💎 —these privileges have since been snapped up
by its ever-flashy neighbour island, Mykonos.
🏛️ But let’s not forget that Delos had a higher calling.
As a sacred site for the worship of Apollo,
it boasted a temple of such magnificence,
even the gods themselves might have felt a twinge of envy …

🔎 On the Ancient Science Portal, you can find the work of Theon of Smyrna, "Mathematics Useful for Reading Plato" (https://www.ancientscienceportal.com/editions).

#ASPortal #digital #historyofscience #maths #history #uoa #ancientscience #Δήλος #ira #Δίας #Ήρα #zeus #delos #ancientmaths #mathematics

Join the dots 💫

🍎 From the moment Adam thought,
“I’ve had enough of meat; let’s try an apple,”
🐉 to the day someone in China mused,
“I’ve had enough of apples; let’s try a pangolin,”
history is littered with examples of less-than-brilliant ideas.
🌟 Take 1627, for instance, when
a German lawyer named Julius Schiller
had a similarly “brilliant” epiphany.
Tired of pagan astrology cluttering the skies,
he declared, “Enough is enough!”
💭 “How much longer,” he pondered dramatically,
“must we tolerate these pagan names?
Why should Mercury outshine the Prophet Elijah?
Or Jupiter hold sway over Moses?”
🪐 And so, the Coelum Stellatum Christianum was born
—a groundbreaking celestial atlas,
in which Schiller replaced the pagan constellations
with biblical and Christian figures.
🔄 The twelve zodiac signs transformed into the twelve Apostles,
while the planets switched sides:
Mercury became “Prophet Elijah,”
Venus was rechristened “John the Baptist,”
and Saturn turned into none other than “Adam.”
🎨 The illustrations in the Coelum Stellatum Christianum
are, to be fair, stunning works of art.
For example, Cygnus was reimagined as Saint Helena,
in honour of her discovery of the True Cross.
🔮 Alas, Schiller’s idea never quite caught on.
And so, humanity missed out an alternative universe where
astrology clichés might have included:
“Retrograde Prophet Elijah” or
“John the Baptist enters the constellation of Apostle Andrew.”

🔎 You can marvel at the stunning images from the Coelum Stellatum Christianum on the ASP website: www.ancientscienceportal.com/basprojects

#uoa #historyofscience #ASPortal #digital #history #twelve #astrology #coelumstellatumchristianum #juliusschiller

Memento Mori 💀

⚰️ Cemeteries are hardly the cheeriest places for the living.
They come burdened with the weight of loss,
the sting of parting,
and that one single tear sealing the final farewell.
🕯️ But there’s another layer to them:
flowers, candles, photographs, epitaphs.
A tragic—because it’s destined to fail—attempt
to preserve the memory of the departed.
🤔 One can’t help but wonder: Did the ancients
share this same desperate desire
to keep memories of the dead alive?
Or were they just as bad
at remembering where they’d left things?
📐 Take Archimedes, for instance. In 212 BCE,
the great mathematician met his untimely end
during the sack of Syracuse, thanks to
what could only be described as a deadly misunderstanding
over a geometry tutorial with a Roman soldier.
🔢 His tomb was engraved with a geometric theorem(Plutarch, Life of Marcellus 17)—
a fitting epitaph for a man who probably
would have preferred π over a pie.
⏳ But time, as it does, wore on,
and Archimedes slipped into obscurity.
Enter Cicero: Roman orator, politician and part-time tomb raider.
In the 1st century BCE, he arrived in Syracuse determined to find the lost grave.
📜 In his own words (Tusculan Disputations 5.64-65):
"Overgrown with brambles, I found it! …
One of Greece’s greatest cities … would have remained ignorant
of the grave of its most illustrious son
if it weren’t for someone from the little town
of Arpinum to set them straight."
🔥 Was Cicero being entirely truthful? Who can say?
But his message couldn’t be clearer:
Rome was now the torchbearer of ancient Greek wisdom.
The Greeks, bless them, couldn’t even remember
their own dead without Roman assistance.

🔎 At the Ancient Science Portal, you’ll find the surviving works of Archimedes: www.ancientscienceportal.com

#asportal #project #ancienthistory #cicero #ancientrome #uoa #digital #ancientscience #historyofscience #history #archimedes

The Night King 🤴

🤔 How alive is ancient science today, one wonders?
That is the question.
🤷 Would anyone today pick up Hippocrates to study medicine?
Or Ptolemy to become an astronomer?
Or Archimedes to become an engineer?
The answer (we sincerely hope) is a resounding no.
🧟Yet, there exists one intellectual creation
of the ancient world that refuses to surrender
its undead throne: Euclid’s geometry.
✍️ Ever since Euclid told his scribe,
“Just print the bloody thing already;
I’m done with edits,”
his work has continued to torment students across the globe,
🏛️ revealing that the ancient Greeks not only invented
the notion of formal mathematical demonstration
but also the fine art of academic suffering.
⏳ Pause for a moment to let this sink in:
Euclidean geometry has been taught
continuously for 2,300 years!!!
⏰ That’s roughly equivalent to 115 human generations,
33 reigns of Queen Elizabeth,
or half the wait for a tech support agent
who promised to “be with you shortly.”
📚 There’s even an urban legend
claiming that Euclid’s Elements
is the second most reprinted book in human history.
✨ Of course, the top spot goes to
a certain divine author (the Bible!),
which, let’s face it,
is a clear case of unfair competition.

🔎 Want to explore Euclid’s Elements yourself? Visit the Ancient Science Portal: https://www.ancientscienceportal.com/el/editions

#geometry #maths #uoa #ASPortal #history #historyofscience #euclid #elements

Santa Claus 🎅

🎄 Being a saint is no walk in the park:
relics, offerings, name days, intercessions—
it’s more of a marathon of divine multitasking,
with no finish line in sight.
💫 And, out of all the saints,
the most famous case
is probably that of Saint Claus!
🎁 How this plump, bespectacled, red-suited owner of Rudolph
ascended to the global pop charts of sainthood is a riddle wrapped in tinsel.
Particularly when you consider that he’s history OG stalker:
“He sees you when you're sleeping; he knows when you're awake;
he knows if you've been bad or good.” Utterly chilling.
❄️ Apart from his questionable behaviour,
Santa Claus suffers from an existential conundrum:
he is both Basil (Orthodox tradition) and Nicholas (Catholic tradition)!
✨ Let’s untangle this festive mess.
Here is the deal: Saint Nicholas is firmly in charge of sailors,
while Saint Basil is responsible for less salty matters,
such as baking and education.
🥧 Where did Basil pick up his patisserie prowess?
No one knows.
But his academic credentials?
Surprisingly well-documented.
📚 Basil was a proud alumnus of the Neoplatonic School of Athens.
And wait for it—he shared lecture halls with none other
than the future Emperor Julian, aka "Julian the Apostate,"
famed for his anti-Christian fervor.
💭 One can only imagine their conversations
during lecture breaks.
“So, Basil, pies or philosophy?”
“Julian, let’s not mince words—stick to emperoring.”

🔎 Find works of Neoplatonic philosophers at the Ancient Science Portal: ancientscienceportal.com/editions

#ASPortal #uoa #digital #history #historyofscience #santaclaus #neoplatonic

A Christmas Carol 🎄

⭐ The truth is that, 100 years before he transformed
into a penny-pinching duck,
Uncle Scrooge was human.
He even had opposable thumbs.
❄️ The story is well-known—though that
may have something to do with the countless,
torturous reruns on TV during the festive season.
🔔 On Christmas Eve, the crotchety old miser
is visited by three ghosts:
the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come.
🎁 This otherworldly experience
forces him to confront what went wrong in his life
and—after some supernatural nudging—try to set things right.
Call it tough love, ghost-style.
🦌 But rewind two centuries earlier,
to the night of 10th November 1619.
On this fateful evening, an equally grumpy man—one René Descartes—
also experienced three strange dreams.
🕯 In the first dream, pursued by phantoms,
he searches for refuge in a chapel.
In the second, he finds himself in the midst of a terrifying storm.
And in the third and final dream,
a book confronts him with a haunting question:
"Which path in life should I choose?"
🌟 Much like the fictional Ebenezer Scrooge,
Descartes’ three nocturnal visitors
proved pivotal in shaping his destiny.
Descartes went on to become a courteous Frenchman (imagine that!)
who devoted himself to charitable deeds
and stopped torturing students with his writings for centuries to come.
⛄ Well, at least in this alternative reality.
It was the so-called "miracle of Christmas."
And it never happened.

🔎For more on Descartes’ role in the history of mathematics, visit the Timeline of the Ancient Science Portal: ancientscienceportal.com/en-timeline.

#history #historyofancientscience #ASPortal #digital #money #uoa #achristmascarol #christmascarols #christmas #descartes #charlesdickens #skroutz

Catch you later! 🎈

🗳️ According to a recent poll that was never actually conducted,
“Catch you later!” was voted the worst message
one could possibly receive.
🤷‍♂️ Why? Blindingly obvious: its sheer ambiguity.
What does “catch you later” even mean?
Does it imply we’ll meet again soon, or is it a cryptic farewell
for eternity? The possibilities are endless.
🎭 On the flip side, what might be this phrase’s Achilles’ heel
is also its undeniable charm. Let’s call it: “creative vagueness.”
🔮 Long before politicians turned it into an art form,
the Oracle of Delphi had already mastered the delicate craft
of saying absolutely everything and nothing at the same time.
💎 This approach gave us such gems as:
“Male not female” (which can be read both as
“Male not, female” or “Male, not female”),
🏆 And let’s not forget the timeless favourite:
“You shall go you shall return not in war shall you perish.”
Put a comma in a spot and the meaning changes completely.
1. 😤 By the early 20th century, however,
ambiguity had reached such unbearable heights
that two mathematical philosophers (Russell and Whitehead)
decided that something had to be done.
🕵️‍♂️ They secretly founded ELDWO
(Enough with Loose Definitions World Organization)
and published their monumental (though let’s face it, completely unread) work
Principia Mathematica.
🎯 In this work, they set out to prove, with painstaking precision,
that 1+1=2. It only took them 362 pages.
Cheerio, creative vagueness!
Or, as the Oracle might put it, “Later… or not.”

🌍 On Ancient Science Portal, you’ll discover a treasure trove of videos exploring the history of ancient mathematics. Dive into the timeline here: Ancient Science Portal Timeline.

#ASPortal #uoa #ancientgreece #history #historyofancientscience #digital #maths #principiamathematica #catchyoulater

Planet of the Apes 🦍

🗺️ During his campaign in India,
Alexander the Great had an unexpected encounter
with some previously unknown species of apes (Aelian, On the Nature of Animals 17.25).
🌈 These creatures were said to be a sight to behold
—immense in size, brilliantly colourful,
and, most notably, exceptionally clever.
Above all, they had an uncanny ability
to mimic human behaviour.
💃 If someone danced, they danced too.
If someone dressed up, they fashioned themselves accordingly.
And if someone applied makeup,
well, they’d do the same.
👑😤 Now, Alexander, being Alexander,
couldn’t stomach the thought that anyone (let alone apes) might
outdo him in dancing, dressing, or, heaven forbid, makeup artistry.
Thus, he resolved to capture them.
🐾💨 But how does one enslave creatures so shrewd
that nets were rendered useless,
and even the swiftest of hounds were no match for their agility?
🌀 It was then that Alexander,
channelling his inner Odysseus,
devised a plan of mythic ingenuity and sadistic cruelty.
🎁 He offered the apes gifts: shoes and cosmetics.
But these weren’t ordinary offerings—oh no!
The shoes were made of lead,
and the cosmetics were laced with glue.
🤦‍♂️🦧 The unsuspecting apes, delighted with their newfound treasures,
eagerly slipped on the leaden shoes,
only to find they could no longer flee.
And when they applied the sticky makeup,
their nimble fingers were trapped in a gooey mess.

🔎 Explore more ancient curiosities and digital maps of the ancient Greek world at the Ancient Science Portal.
#ancientscience #history #ancientgreece #historyofancientscience #project #historyofscience #uoa #digital #AlexanderTheGreat

Révolution ⚔️

🍰 At the tail end of the 18th century,
France stumbled into a crisis so monumental
it would echo through the ages:
the Great Cake Shortage of 1789.
Yes, that one.
🚶‍♀️🚶‍♂️ For several turbulent years,
thousands of cakeless citizens
poured into the muck-filled streets of Paris
in ways that bore an uncanny resemblance
to the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics.
💡Somewhere amidst the shouting and flailing,
they proposed various absurd solutions to their woes
—abolishing the monarchy, for instance.
Imagine that.
📅 One of the more peculiar outcomes
of this revolutionary fervour
was the so-called “Revolutionary Calendar.”
🕒 This brave new calendar introduced
30-day months and 10-day weeks—
presumably to allow for 3 extra days to moan
about the lack of cake.
📜 For 12 glorious years (1793-1805),
the French lived quite literally “in their own world,”
blissfully unaware that the ancient Egyptians
had beaten them to the idea by a few millennia.
😤 The thought of coming second place in anything
proved too heavy a burden
for the average French ego.
🌀 And thus, the Revolutionary Calendar
was quietly abandoned,
left to gather dust in the annals of history.

🪩✨️Should you wish to delve into the fascinating world of ancient Egyptian science—far ahead of its time, and certainly ahead of the French—you can find more information here:
https://www.ancientscienceportal.com/e-projects
#ancientegypt #ancientastronomy #ancientscience #frenchrevolution #revolutionarycalendar #digital #ASPortal

Monopoly 🎲

🏺 According to esteemed archaeological studies,
in prehistoric times—i.e., just before the dawn of smartphones—humans
engaged in certain social rituals, charmingly referred to as “board games.”
🎭 Why they subjected themselves to this remains a mystery.
Neither the reckless waste of time,
nor the endless squabbles over the precise rules,
nor even the sheer horror of having to sit in close proximity
to other people seemed to deter them.
🏛️ Back in those primitive days,
one of the most popular board games
was ‘Monopoly’.
💸 In Monopoly, unlike in real life,
all players started out with an equal amount of money,
and the rich could occasionally end up behind bars.
That said, much like in real life, in Monopoly,
the quickest route to wealth was securing, well, a monopoly.
📜 According to tradition (Aristotle, Pol. A 11, 1259a),
the greatest ancient Greek player of Monopoly
was none other than Thales of Miletus.
✨ Once, Thales was accused by his fellow countrymen of being idle
—a reputation that has dogged philosophers ever since.
Determined to silence them,
he turned his gaze to the stars—quite literally—and
predicted a bumper olive harvest the following year.
🍈 Seizing his moment, he snapped up all the olive presses
in the region for a pittance.
Then, come harvest time, he charged
local olive growers a king’s ransom to use them.
🏆 And so, with a cheeky bit of Monopoly involving olive presses,
Thales not only amassed a fortune
but also proved to his critics
that philosophers shun wealth out of choice, not for lack of ability.

🌐✨ Head over to the Ancient Science Portal to play digital versions of ancient board games! (https://www.ancientscienceportal.com/toolsgames)

#history #historyofscience #digital #uoa #ASPortal #ancientscience #monopoly #Thales #thale #uoa #money #thales #Thales #astronomy #astronomyfacts #ancientastronomy

Kalinifta 🌙

🏡🌋 Despite people cheerfully building houses around it,
as if it’s some harmless hill that wouldn’t dream of exploding,
Vesuvius remains very much an active volcano
lurking near Naples in southern Italy.
🔥📜 It’s quite famous for two eruptions:
one that never happened (but, oh, the drama if it had!)
and another one that did happen
on the 24th of August, 79 CE.
🦆🪙 The first, a truly universe-altering event for duck-kind,
would have unfolded if Magica De Spell
had succeeded in chucking Scrooge McDuck’s
lucky dime into the fiery depths of Vesuvius.
🌋⏳ The second eruption, while lacking in ducks and dimes,
remains a crowd-pleaser, especially among archaeologists.
In 79 CE, the lava swept over the area,
turning daily life into a time capsule,
💼🏛️ and gifting archaeologists
centuries of steady employment
—along with enough money to buy summer villas
on the blissfully volcano-free island of Santorini.
🏘️📖 One of the cities obliterated, Herculaneum,
offers a particularly nerdy delight
for enthusiasts of ancient philosophy.
There, among the volcanic debris,
lies the library of Epicurean philosopher Philodemus.
🖋️🔥 One particularly well-done scroll (PHerc 1021)
—crispy on the outside, surprisingly insightful within—
includes a juicy reference to
Plato’s influence on ancient science:
🧮📐 “During this time, mathematics flourished,
with Plato as its architect.
He posed problems to the mathematicians,
who eagerly threw themselves into their study.”

🌐✨ On Ancient Science Portal, you can discover digitized ancient manuscripts:

(https://www.ancientscienceportal.com/manuscripts)

#ancientscience #digital #history #ASPortal #maths #euclid #project #euclidelements #uoa #historyofscience #vezuvio #ercolani #pompéi

Berenice 🌟

💍 Just a few hours after his wedding to Berenice,
Ptolemy III was compelled to march off to war.
Poor Berenice, as the poet Callimachus tells us,
was left “in the chill of the bridal bed” (Catullus, 66) –
not quite the honeymoon she had imagined.
🙏 In her distress, she dashed to Aphrodite’s temple
and made a solemn vow: if her husband
returned safe and sound, she would cut her magnificent,
flowing hair and dedicate it to the goddess.
✂️ ‘Not much of a sacrifice,’ you might say. ‘It’s just hair, after all.’
Ah, but for the ancient Greeks:
“it’s not that common,
it doesn’t happen to every guy,
and it is a big deal.”
📜 Even back in Homer’s day (Il., 23. 134-135),
the act of cutting one’s hair
was a profound symbol of grief.
Just ask the barbers at Patroclus’ funeral,
if you are at all unsure.
🎇 Berenice’s vow must have struck the right divine chord,
for Ptolemy did indeed return safely to Alexandria,
and, true to her word, she cut her hair.
😲 But the very next day,
something rather shocking occurred:
Berenice’s braid had vanished from Aphrodite’s temple.
Ptolemy, furious, scoured the city for the culprit,
vowing no one would be left standing.
🌌 Then, as the story goes, Conon, the king’s astronomer reassured him.
The goddess Aphrodite herself, he explained,
had taken Berenice’s hair and placed it in the heavens
as an eternal monument of love and devotion.
Crisis averted.
✨ Thus, a new constellation was “born”: Coma Berenices.
Can you spot it?

🔎Visit Ancient Science Portal for information on ancient Greek astronomy (https://www.ancientscienceportal.com/)

#project #historyofscience #uoa #digital #ASPortal #ancientscience #comaberenices #astronomy #ancientastronomy #ptolemy

Stick in the Sand (b) ☀️

🌟 "First is first, second is nothing,"
or so the Americans like to say.
And, in some cases, this holds up rather well—
like, say, in a race of …ahem, sperm cells.
✨ But when it comes to Eratosthenes of Cyrene,
the Chief Librarian at the Library of Alexandria,
this saying couldn't be further from the truth.
📜 According to tradition (Suda, s.v.),
Eratosthenes was a jack of all scientific trades,
just not the undisputed king in any single one.
This, rather unflatteringly, earned him
the nickname “Beta”—literally, “second best.”
⚡ Yet, despite his ‘beta’ status,
he managed to pull off something rather brilliant.
It all begun with a simple observation:
☀️ During the summer solstice,
the Sun shone directly down a well in ancient Syene,
reflecting perfectly at the bottom.
Meanwhile, back in Alexandria, Eratosthenes observed that
a stick poked in the sand cast a shadow at a specific angle.
📐 With some elementary geometry,
Eratosthenes calculated that shadow’s angle
was precisely equal to... well, this angle here.
🌎 And since the distance between
Alexandria and Syene was known,
it only took a quick ratio calculation:
if that angle represented the distance
between Alexandria and Syene,
then what would 360° represent?
Why, that would be the circumference of the Earth, itself!
🏆 And so, our dear ‘Beta’—the second-best ancient Greek scientist—
managed to calculate our planet's circumference
with remarkable accuracy,
armed with nothing more than a stick and a sharp mind.
Not too shabby for second place, wouldn’t you say?

🔎 Check the ASP Timeline, for videos on Eratosthenes’ measurement (https://www.ancientscienceportal.com/en-timeline)

#historyofscience #history #maths #geometry #uoa #ASPortal #eratosthenes
#pyramids

Stick in the Sand (a) ☀️

🐘🐘 In 218 BCE, Hannibal (the Carthaginian, not the cannibal) accomplished the unthinkable: he invaded Italy
by marching an army of men and 40 elephants over the Alps.
Yes, the Alps! And, yes, with 40 elephants!
📜 Fittingly, he was credited with the famous saying:
“aut viam inveniam aut faciam” (“I shall either find a way or make one”).
A bit of a ‘We ’ll figure it out as we go’ sort of spirit.
💡 Ancient history is chock-full of people who ‘made their own way,’
solving thorny problems with ingenious solutions.
Take Odysseus, for instance, who took Troy
with a wooden horse, or Alexander who ‘solved’ the Gordian Knot
with a quick swipe of his sword.
‼️ Impressive as these feats may be,
they almost pale in comparison to what
Thales of Miletus and Eratosthenes of Cyrene
pulled off with a humble stick and some sand.
⭐️ As the story goes (Diogenes Laertius, VP. 1, 27, among others), Thales,
tired of counting stars, decided on a little Egyptian holiday.
Captivated by the minimalistic vibe of the ancient Egyptians,
he wondered aloud, “Just how tall are these pyramids, anyway?”
But nobody had a clue.
🤷‍♂️Now, before we judge the locals for this lack of detail,
let’s be honest — can any of us really say, hand on heart, that we know how tall Big Ben is without Googling it? Exactly.
🤓 There are indeed many ways one might tackle a problem like this,
but none so marvellously straightforward as Thales’s approach.
His solution? Stick a rod in the sand
and simply wait until its shadow equal its height.
🙃 And with that, all that remained was to measure
the length of the pyramid’s shadow.
A simple stick, a bit of geometry, and
voilà—the mystery was laid bare!

🔎 In ASP, you will find Diogenes Laertius’ ‘Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers’.

https://www.ancientscienceportal.com/translations
#digital #uoa #history #ASPortal #historyofscience #maths #ancientegypt #pyramids #Thales #eratosthenes

Mudborne Science 🐪

📐 The art of land measuring
is a rather messy affair, born in the muck
along the banks of the Nile—at least, that’s
what our esteemed ‘first’ colleague claims (Herodotus, Histories II 109.1-12).
😯 Until the Aswan Dam was built in 1960,
the Nile was about as reliable as a cat on a leash.
Once a year, it would rise by 10 meters,
only to return to its original state four months later.
Talk about a dramatic entrance!
🌱 This annual caper transformed
the surrounding areas into a fertility hotspot,
proving once again that nature
loves a bit of a show.
😔 But alas, there was a price to pay.
Someone had to measure that vast,
muddy expanse all over again and
recalculate the boundaries of every plot.
Not exactly a walk in the park!
📜 So, whose shoulder bore this hefty burden?
Enter Democritus (fr. 299.9-10), the so-called ‘laughing philosopher’ (seriously, when was the last time
you bumped into a cheerful philosopher?).
He provides a hint: “No one is better than I at geometric proofs, not even those the Egyptians call ‘rope stretchers’ (Democritus, fr. 299.9-10).”
🤔Just imagine what those chaps measuring with ropes looked like.
Were they wearing capes
and claiming to be the superheroes of the Nile?
👉The answer lies in this stunning fresco
from the tomb of Menna (TT69):
❓ Can you spot it?

🔎 For a digital tour of the tomb of Menna, click here: https://www.ancientscienceportal.com/emprojects

#history #ASPortal #ancientscience #historyofscience #digital #mathematics #egypt #ancientegypt #menna #egyptiantomb #αίγυπτος #nile

ko-no-so 🏺⛏

👉 1952 was pivotal for the UK:
Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, became Queen Elizabeth II; ‘The Mousetrap’ opened at the Ambassadors Theatre; and the first TV-detector van hit the streets to catch license dodgers.
😱 But for those still grieving the loss of the Library of Alexandria,
1952 was more than a milestone—it was a year when the world shook to its very core.
🏛 It all began a few years earlier in London.
In the fall of 1936, a secondary school visited
an archaeological exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts.
🤓 Two exhibits were especially captivating:
a set of tablets from Knossos bearing an undeciphered script
and the children’s 85-year-old guide, Sir Arthur Evans.
At one point, the legendary archaeologist’s storytelling
was interrupted by the quavering voice
of a 14-year-old boy, awestruck by what he’d just heard:
“Excuse me, sir, did you say these tablets haven’t been deciphered?”
A child’s mind couldn’t fathom how
something so tangible could feel so foreign.
🧑 That boy was Michael Ventris.
And, on July 1st, 1952, only sixteen years after that visit,
he announced on BBC’s Third Programme
his groundbreaking achievement:
the decipherment of Linear B.
📝 Financially, the exhibition at the Royal Academy was a disaster, ending with a debt of £212 (around €20,000). Its only real profit was the spark it ignited in a 14-year-old boy. What’s that worth?

🔎 You can listen to the historic 1952 BBC broadcast with Ventris’s announcement of the Linear B decipherment at https://www.ancientscienceportal.com/en-timeline

#history #digital #ASPortal #anscientscience #project #archaeology #knossospalace #knossós #UoA #arthurevans #LinearB #michaelventris #royalacademyofarts

Mondrian 🟥🟨🟦
🔵 In 1846, an eccentric Irishman named Oliver Byrne
was desperately searching for a publisher.
He had just finished writing
what he considered a masterpiece;
yet, no one wanted to take on its publication.
🔴 At the time,
producing a typical book cost around 2 shillings.
Byrne’s ambitious work, however,
would cost a staggering 25 shillings to produce!
🟡 Fate eventually led him to Pickering,
a publishing house in London,
where he met Charles Whittingham.
⚫️ What was discussed in that meeting,
we will never know.
But two things followed: Byrne’s book was published in 1847,
and, a few years later,
the publishing house went bankrupt.
⚪️ This was the book:
Byrne’s revolutionary idea was to reimagine Euclid’s Elements
using colours in place of mathematical symbols.
🔶 He believed this would inspire students to
fall in love with geometry anew.
🔺 In this work, you’ll find no mathematical symbols
or other ‘devilish constructs’ — only
vibrant colours: blue, yellow, red, black, and white.
🔷 He was the Mondrian of mathematics—
or, perhaps, Mondrian was the Byrne of painting.

🔎 Explore Byrne’s colourful Euclid at the Ancient Science Portal: https://www.ancientscienceportal.com/el/grprojects

#history #historyofscience #digital #historyofancientscience #uoa #ASPortal #maths #ancientgreece #euclid #byrne #mondrian #elements #geometry

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