the Renaissance, scholars thought that Stonehenge was the work of the Romans, for presumably they alone had the required technology.
The monument’s compass-like design suggests that it was an open-air observatory. Stones were aligned with celestial events such as the setting sun on the solstices and various phases of the moonrise. Sites like this must have had an important ritual function which historians have interpreted differently, in accordance with the ideas of their own time.
The temple of Stonehenge, United Kingdom, built between 2750 and 1500 B.C.
Plan of Stonehenge
This ancient structure is called the “Neolithic computer” because the fundamentals of astronomy are incorporated into its architectural design.
In the Middle East, more than 3000 years B.C., urban development was well under way. Large settlements called for specialized labor to produce goods and services. Luxury materials used for decoration—marble, flint and alabaster—were actively traded. In one of the largest cities commerce was based on obsidian, a hard volcanic “glassy” material used for cutting tools.
Babylonian map of fields and canals, Nippur, c. 1500 B.C.
Geometry was mastered by early Middle-Eastern civilizations. Units of weight and length were legally fixed. Maps were made for tax purposes; this one resembles modern abstract art.
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia; Object B 13885
Sophisticated building techniques were in use. Hand-molded mud-brick and mortar, sun-dried walls and floors, would soon be covered with colored plaster and water-resistant tile-like materials.
Although rarely used, columnar pillars were known. Mesopotamian ziggurats, ladder-type buildings—several rectangular stories painted in different colors—were so monumental that archaeologists who discovered them in the nineteenth century mistook them for industrial complexes.
The construction of the Mesopotamian city-states was carried out by a practical, well-organized society in which writing, calculation, sophisticated medicine and astronomy were commonly practiced. Although the fragile soil of Mesopotamia caused constructions to eventually collapse, many architectural and other inventions were passed on to the Egyptians.
Liver made of clay inscribed with Babylonian characters, nineteenth or eighteenth century B.C.
This sculpted liver is inscribed with signs, which, when correlated to the movements of the stars, were interpreted by priests for the purpose of divination. Astrology and medicine were also closely linked in Etruscan and Chinese cultures.
British Museum, London
Along the Nile, geometry and planning were used for standardizing buildings and for dividing fields. Since the Nile—the major highway—was the source of life, water management was mastered at an early stage. The step pyramid at Saqqara (c. 2650 B.C.), the world’s oldest stone structure, was probably designed on the basis of canal-building experience. Its central monument, which was changed several times, was a technological and an artistic marvel.
The complex of stone and rubble had a facing of limestone slabs and was richly decorated. Blocks were molded in imitation of natural materials such as wood pillars and bundles of reeds, which suggested earlier sophisticated wooden constructions. Saqqara’s designer, Imhotep, was the first architect ever to have his name recorded and the first in an impressive series of builder-scientists. A celebrated astronomer and healer, Imhotep was deified during his lifetime as the god of learning and medicine.
Soon after, the great pyramids were built at Giza with astonishing precision. Their bases form almost perfect squares, with the greatest deviation from a right angle being only half a percent. The orientation of the sides is exactly north-south and east-west. They were completed within a few decades by methods that are still not entirely known to us. The core probably rose together with the ramp, yet wheeled vehicles were not used to transport materials. Was granite quarried first, or later on the spot? How were the stones cut to fit with jeweler’s precision?
Cosmic rays revealing the interior of the Great Pyramid
Cosmic rays from space were used by physicists and archaeologists to understand the design and content of the Pharaoh’s presumed burial chamber—and the false passages perhaps intended to discourage grave robbers.
Computer model of the Sphinx, Mark Lehner
Originally brightly colored, the Sphinx had cheeks that bore traces of ancient red paint until recently. This computer-generated model is one of many attempts to reconstruct the monument as it looked when it was first built. It is based on close study of a life-size statue of Pharaoh Chephren, who possibly ordered the construction of the Sphinx.
The pyramids had an outer casing of stone, and their tops were covered with a layer of reflective material. At sunrise they were illuminated before anything else around. To the Ancient Egyptians, they may have looked like solar energy stations, similar in concept to contemporary cybernetic sculptures.
To the Ancient Greeks, the pyramids were symbols of geometrical beauty. Later, the Arab traveler Muhammad Ibn Batuta (1304–1377) said: “[God Thoth], having ascertained from the appearance of the stars that the deluge would take place, built the pyramids to contain books of science and other matters worth preserving from oblivion and ruin.”
The interpretation of works of art in scientific terms is not peculiar to our time. Links between astronomy and the construction of temples were found through the ages in distant civilizations. Watching the sky and relating cosmic observations to buildings, and in some cultures to the human body, was the expression of a broad conceptual system.
Chrysippe, drawing of an antique sculpture Édouard Manet, c. 1862
Egyptian monuments contain traces of the grid that guided the sculptor at work. The Egyptian canon consisted of precise formal prescriptions that remained unchanged for some 2,200 years. Medieval art had its own canons (this word comes from the craftsman’s cane). The technique of plotting drawings on a grid is still in use.
Musée du Louvre, Paris
Egyptians, whom we tend to admire mainly for the magnificence of their tombs, also made valuable contributions to medicine and astronomy. Like the Babylonians, they used a calendar year of 360 days (and later added 51⁄4 days) and divided it into 12 months, corresponding to the signs of the zodiac.
The eye of Horus
The first sequences of the mathematical progression 1⁄2, 1⁄4,
