5 Ancient Greek Civilization ‘Firsts’ That Were Not

8/13/2019 5 Ancient Greek Civilization Firsts That Were Not

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5 Ancient Greek Civilization Firsts That

Were Not

December 21, 2013 | Posted byABS Staff

The Greek Alphabet

New research suggests the Greeks borrowed their system known as alphabetic numerals from

the Egyptians, and did not develop it themselves as was long believed, the BBCreports.

Greek alphabetic numerals were favored by the mathematician and physicist Archimedes, the

scientific philosopher Aristotle and the mathematician Euclid, among others.

A 2003 analysis by Stephen Chrisomalis, Ph.D., a linguistic anthropologist at McGill University

in Montreal, showed striking similarities between Greek alphabetic numerals and the Egyptiandemotic numerals, used in Egypt from the late eighth century B.C. until around A.D. 450.

Both systems use nine signs in each base so that individual units are counted 1-9, tens arecounted 10-90 and so on. Both systems also lack a symbol for zero.

Chrisomalis proposes that an explosion in trade between Greece and Egypt after 600 B.C. led to

the system being adopted by the Greeks.

Greek merchants may have seen the demotic system in use in Egypt and adapted it for their ownpurposes.
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Pythagorean Theorem

Since the fourth century A.D., Pythagoras has commonly been given credit for creating thetheorem in geometry that states that in a right-angled triangle the area of the square on the

hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares of

the other two sidesthat is, a^2 + b^2 = c^2. This is commonly called the Pythagorean theorem.

But the theorem was known and previously used by the Babylonians, Indians and

Egyptians. The way in which the Babylonians handled Pythagorean numbers implies that theyknew that the principle was generally applicable, and knew some kind of proof, which has notyet been found in the (still largely unpublished) cuneiform sources.

Because of the secretive nature of Pythagoras school and the custom of its students to attribute

everything to their teacher, there is no evidence that Pythagoras himself worked on or proved this

theorem. For that matter, there is no evidence that he worked on any mathematical or meta-

mathematical problems, says Walter Burkert, a German scholar of Greek mythology and cult.
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Greek Architecture

In his book, The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality, Cheikh Anta Diop arguesthat even Greek architecture has its roots in Egypt. Proto-Doric columns, the Egyptian cliff

tombs of Beni Hasan, were found dating back as early as the 12th dynasty.

Greco-Roman monuments are mere miniatures compared to those built by the Egyptians. NotreDame Cathedral in Paris, with all its towers, could easily be placed in the hypostyle hall of the

temple of Karnak; the Greek Parthenon could fit into those walls even more easily.
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Fathers of Modern Medicine

The Egyptiansnot the ancient Greekswere the true fathers of medicine, according to a

study that pushes back the origins by at least a millennium, writes Roger Highfield, scienceeditor for the U.K. -based The Telegraph.

Scientists examining documents dating back 3,500 years say they have found proof that theinception lies not with Hippocrates (460 B.C. -370 B.C.) and the Greeks, but in ancient Egypt

and the likes of Imhotep (2667 B.C.2648 B.C.), who designed the pyramids at Saqqara and

was elevated to the god of healing.

The research team from the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology at the University ofManchester discovered the evidence in medical papyri written in 1,500 B.C.some 1,000 yearsbefore Hippocrates was born.

Rosalie David, professor of biomedical Egyptology and director of the KNH Centre, said:These results are very significant and show that the ancient Egyptians were practicing a credible

form of pharmacy long before the Greeks.
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Originators of Philosophy

Philosophy is a classical Greek creation, at least that is what we are supposed to accept if we areto believe prominent European scholars like Martin Litchfield West. However, the ancient Greek

philosophers themselves gave the Egyptians credit for creating the discipline.

Molefi Kete Asante, Ph.D., scholar, historian and philosopher, said: There is a common belief

among whites that philosophy originates with the Greeks. The idea is so common that almost all

of the books on philosophy start with the Greeks as if the Greeks pre-dated all other people when

it came to discussion of concepts of beauty, art, numbers, sculpture, medicine of socialorganization. In fact, this dogma occupies the principal position in the academies of the Western

world, including the universities and academies of Africa.
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Diodorus Siculus, the Greek writer, in his On Egypt, written in the first century before Christ,says that many who are celebrated among the Greeks for intelligence and learning, ventured to

Egypt in olden times, that they might partake of the customs, and sample the teachings there. For

the priests of Egypt cite from their records in the holy books that in the former times they werevisited by Orpheus and Musaeus, Melampos, Daedalos, besides the poet Homer, Lycurgus the

Spartan, Solon the Athenian, and Plato the philosopher, Pythagoras of Samos and the

mathematician Eudoxos, as well as Democritus of Abdera and Oenopides of Chios, also camethere.

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5 Ancient Greek Civilization ‘Firsts’ That Were Not