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Land along the Nile was heavily surveyed, yearly, to ensure its course changes were recorded in landownership. > Long distances were measured by professional d
by postmodest 3y ago
Land along the Nile was heavily surveyed, yearly, to ensure its course changes were recorded in landownership.
> Long distances were measured by professional distance walkers, called bematists, who walked at a very regular pace and counted each step. Shorter distances were measured with lengths of knotted rope by men called harpedonaptai, which means “rope stretchers”
https://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/convergence/eratosthenes-and-the-mystery-of-the-stades-distance-from-alexandria-to-syene https://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/convergence/eratosthen...
- pomian 3y agoStaking claims, where corner posts were placed at half kilometer intervals, were usually paced on foot, estimating for canyons, stream crossings, and other diversions. Some claims were continuous up to 20km by 20 km. This was in complete wilderness, in the Yukon, British Columbia and so on. Pre GPS. Not that long ago! They used topographic maps for reference. It is amazing how accurate the claims were, when transferred to modern mapping systems.
- njarboe 3y agoImagine what it took to make the highly accurate topo maps they relied on.
- jiggawatts 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Trigonometrical_Survey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Trigonometrical_Survey