They were the first mathematicians of the Old World. Those Greeks whom
we regard as the fathers of mathematics were simply pupils of Egypt.
They were the first land-surveyors. They were the first astronomers,
calculating eclipses, and watching the periods of planets and
constellations. They knew the rotundity of the earth, which it was
supposed Columbus had discovered!
"The signs of the zodiac were certainly in use among the Egyptians 1722
years before Christ. One of the learned men of our day, who for fifty
years labored to decipher the hieroglyphics of the ancients, found upon
a mummy-case in the British Museum a delineation of the signs of the
zodiac, and the position of the planets; the date to which they pointed
was the autumnal equinox of the year 1722 B.C. Professor Mitchell, to
whom the fact was communicated, employed his assistants to ascertain the
exact position of the heavenly bodies belonging to our solar system on
the equinox of that year. This was done, and a diagram furnished by
parties ignorant of his object, which showed that on the 7th of October,
1722 B.C. the moon and planets occupied the exact point in the heavens
marked upon the coffin in the British Museum.
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