Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Surveying Instruments of Greece and Rome
  • Cited by 58
      • Show more authors
      • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Select format
    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      04 November 2009
      23 April 2001
      ISBN:
      9780511483035
      9780521792974
      9780521110655
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511483035
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.681kg, 410 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (229 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.6kg, 412 Pages
      • Subjects:
      History of Science, Classical Studies, Classical Studies (General), General Science
    You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org
    Subjects:
    History of Science, Classical Studies, Classical Studies (General), General Science
    Information

    Book description

    The Greeks and, especially, the Romans are famous for the heroic engineering of their aqueducts, tunnels and roads. They also measured the circumference of the earth and the heights of mountains with fair precision. This book presents new translations (from Greek, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac) of all the ancient texts concerning surveying, including major sources hitherto untapped. It explores the history of surveying instruments, notably the Greek dioptra and the Roman libra, and with the help of tests with reconstructions explains how they were used in practice. This is a subject which has never been tackled before in anything like this depth. The Greeks emerge as the pioneers of instrumental surveying and, though their equipment and methods were simple by modern standards, they and the Romans can be credited with a level of technical sophistication which must count as one of the greatest achievements of the ancient world.

    Reviews

    ‘I heartily recommend [Lewis]'s book as a model of integrated analysis relevant to many different aspects of the classical world.’

    Source: Journal of Roman Studies

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    Cancel
    ×

    Contents

    Contents

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: Unknown

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.