Jim

The paragraph from Timaeus is clear enough and it's pretty obviously that a great deal of fascination was attached to the golden ratio, its mean and extreme, where the shorter distance to the longer was the same as the longer to the whole.

There would have been various illustrations available to demonstrate the proportion, possibly the simplest where it is extracted from the 2x1 rectangle or two squares mounted.

I love this last sentence especially the latter part.

" ...and out of such elements which are in number four, the body of the world was created, and it was harmonised by proportion, and therefore has the spirit of friendship; and having been reconciled to itself, it was indissoluble by the hand of any other than the framer."

It was not unknown for Greeks to stand on the shore and point in the direction of Egypt for geometry is mostly an inherited art.

I don't know why we have to draw a line in the sand ... to declare one half true, the other not. There is plenty to think about and digest prior to the Greek.

Graham Oaten

The great amount of labour involved in quarrying and transporting such a mass of masonry as even the casing, has always been a cause of astonishment - Sir Flinders Petrie.