Restitvtori orbis terrarvm = round earth ???

Let me apologize on behalf of my fellow millennials. I don't know what went wrong with our generation, but there's no denying that most of us lack critical thinking, and are missing a few other faculties.

Maybe it's the educational system. As I am at the spearhead of what is considered "millennials", I probably received a better public school education than my peers who were born towards the very end of the 1980's and throughout the 1990's. At least in my group we were taught ancient history, world history, chemistry, earth sciences, and math up to pre-calculus level. However, I know from friends who graduated only 2-3 years after me, that after I graduated the curriculum was radically altered. Gone was the focus on history, science, and certain types of math... to be replaced by classes that were relevant to passing certain standardized tests designed by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.. Which means that people who graduated after I did simply did not get to experience the broad and rich education that I experienced, but rather a much narrower curriculum focused on bubbling in the correct answers to the myriad of new standardized testing. Gone were the electives that offered an oportunity to attain useful new skills and expand your horizon. Gone were the days of learning about the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, the Minoans, the Mycenaean, Greeks, fertile crescent civilizations, and Romans. Gone were the days of reading mid-16th and 17th Century English classics. Now most of the focus is not on critical thinking, but the darn standardized tests.

I've heard from students who are currently in public schools (namely my younger cousins) that in their science and history classes, the curriculum is often interrupted so they can take more classes on how to take the standardized tests, and that most of their assignments in those classes ultimately have a focus on the standardized testing instead of the subjects those classes were meant to teach.

Combine the poor education together with an internet that contains as much good information as it contains conspiracies and bad science and bad history, and it's a recipe for disaster for this younger generation which is being brought up devoid of any critical thinking skills or analytical skills, and whom have not been taught any of the basics of science and history properly.

 

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It is true that the ancients believed that the Earth is a sphere and had reasons for that. HOWEVER ... it is not true that the fact that a ship's mast disappears over the horizon last or appears first was one of those. That was offered much later, perhaps only in the 15th century.

It is true that Eratosthenes managed the measurement of Earth's circumference. It is probably not true that he did the work. It is most likely that he ordered it done by others working for him at the Library (Museum). See Circumference by Nicholas Nicastro (reviewed here).

Aside from the Flat Earth Society, it is unlikely that many people thought the Earth to be flat from about the Hellenistic era forward. If you consider your own primary experience, it is easy to believe that Earth is flat and the center of the universe. So, do not denigrate the Egyptians, Sumerians, Chinese, or whoever before the matter was actually considered and explored.

And consider, moreover, the centuries between Pythagoras and Erathosthenes. In one century, we still have not unified quantum mechanics and the electrodynamics of moving bodies ("relativity").

Finally, if I may, just when do you think that it was scientifically proved that the Earth orbits the Sun -- or that the Earth spins and not the universe around the Earth? (And relativistically, as there is no preferred frame of reference, you do realize that the sun does, indeed, "go around" the Earth, right?)

 

And not to be a total wet blanket... Let me offer these from WILDWINDS
Uranopolis, in Macedonia
http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/macedonia/uranopolis/t.html



Macedonia, Uranopolis AE17. ca 300 BC. Star with 8 rays / OYΡANIΔΩΠOΛEΩΣ Aphrodite Urania seated left on globe, holding sceptre. AMNG 3.



Uranopolis, Macedonia. Ca 300 BC. AE 13mm, 1.44 g. Eight-pointed star and crescent / OVΡANOΠ-OΛITΩN, Aphrodite Urania seated left on globe. SNG ANS 918; SNG Copenhagen 458.

I have the first one myself, but mine was harshly cleaned (before I bought it) and does not scan or photograph well.

My Trajan with a Globe.


Providentia with Globe. I did not perceive the Zodiacal Houses on the globe until Michael Molnar pointed them out to me.