ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

, a rope stretcher (or harpedonaptai) was a surveyor who measured

real property In English common law, real property, real estate, immovable property or, solely in the US and Canada, realty, refers to parcels of land and any associated structures which are the property of a person. For a structure (also called an Land i ...

demarcations and foundations using knotted cords, stretched so the rope did not sag. The practice is depicted in tomb paintings of the Theban Necropolis. Rope stretchers used 3-4-5 triangles and the plummet, which are still in use by modern surveyors. The commissioning of a new sacred building was a solemn occasion in which pharaohs and other high-ranking officials personally stretched ropes to define the foundation. This important ceremony, and therefore rope-stretching itself, are attested over 3000 years from the early dynastic period to the

Ptolemaic kingdom The Ptolemaic Kingdom (; , ) or Ptolemaic Empire was an ancient Greek polity based in Ancient Egypt, Egypt during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 305 BC by the Ancient Macedonians, Macedonian Greek general Ptolemy I Soter, a Diadochi, ...

. Rope stretching technology spread to

ancient Greece Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically r ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, where it stimulated the development of

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

and

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

References

* * ''The New Encyclopædia Britannica,'' Encyclopædia Britannica 1974 * James Henry Breasted Ancient Records of Egypt, Part Two, Chicago 1906 * Joel F. PAULSON, "Surveying in Ancient Egypt,", FIG Working Week 2005 and GSDI-8, Cairo, Egypt April 16-21, 2005

External links

surveying instruments

proportions
"The knowledge of pleasing proportions of the rope stretchers was incorporated by the Greeks" Ancient Egypt Ancient Egyptian technology Surveying Egyptian inventions {{AncientEgypt-stub

See also

References

External links