The world's oldest survey plat

That link leads to quite the interesting story.?ÿ Being 1000 years older than Pythagoras certainly opens up some questions, doesn't it?

Very cool!

@notsomuch?ÿ

ƒ??The discovery and analysis of the tablet have important implications for the history of mathematics,ƒ? Dr Mansfield says. ƒ??For instance, this is over a thousand years before Pythagoras was born.ƒ?

I agree ?????ÿ

Hereƒ??s a release directly from UNSW. The web page design is somewhat annoying, but itƒ??s the closest-to-the-source offering that Iƒ??ve found so far, and it includes additional information. Note the part about a Babylonian dispute regarding trees along a property boundary ƒ?? beautiful! ????

The video near the end of the web page consists of snippets about other ancient, cadastral tablets in collections around the world; itƒ??s worth viewing, to see that Si.427 isnƒ??t a one-off thing.

https://news.unsw.edu.au/en/australian-mathematician-reveals-oldest-applied-geometry

Seriously doubt the county recorder would accept that font size for recording

Not signed by a reviewer.?ÿ Refuse to file.

@notsomuch?ÿ

I suppose, if we think that a 3-4-5 triangle was only known after Pythagoras. He is just the guy that wrote it down, explained it, and we found his writing.

I operate under the assumption that the first generation of humans figured out quite a bit. Anything else is just hubris.

@ric-moore?ÿ

probably why it is broken...the recorder threw it on the floor and said, "Try again!"

My guess for the mystery numbers on the back: Volume and page number.

It's a plat!!

Easier to decipher than some of the contemporary plats done around here.

@ric-moore?ÿ

" Times New Roman at 8 font"

Dang tablet ran out of power and I can't find the hole to stick the charger into or an outlet to plug the other end of the charger into.

@eagle1215?ÿ

It's so old it would just be "Roman". heh

Posted by: @bstrand

A thousand years before there was a Rome.

It's an interesting time to be an archaeologist.?ÿ As impressive as a circa 1700 BC plat is, researchers are still trying to figure out G??bekli Tepe in Turkey.?ÿ Numerous independent dating techniques have been used to give it an age of around 10,000 BC which predates Stonehenge and every confirmed date in Egypt.?ÿ There's speculation that the Sphinx is older than current consensus but this probably won't be resolved until the old school Egyptologist journey to the Hall of Osiris.?ÿ How did they accurately align the celestially representative monoliths of G??bekli Tepe without mathematical knowledge??ÿ?ÿ

Anyone interested in American Paleoindian or Paleolithic peoples might enjoy?ÿFirst Peoples in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America by David J. Meltzer.?ÿ It does a great job of presenting the facts while giving a nod to the various theories and explains the difficulty in generating a scientific consensus.?ÿ If you want to see a knockdown drag-out fight, just get a group of historical geneticists, linguists, and anthropologists in a room and tell them you've discovered a pre Clovis site in the Americas.