His statement that "There is not record of any Greek discovering that the Earth was round, just like there is no evidence that the Egyptians considered it flat" is not correct. We know they considered it flat from a number of texts that they left, including the idea that the sky (Nut) was held up by four deities.

You don't get that kind of sky in a round world.

Also, the "sundial method of deriving the circumference of the Earth" does not depend on your finding a day when there's no shadow. You can use this method on any day you like. All you need are two sundials the same size and two items that measure a distance that are exactly the same size. You can try it on May 25th (today) and measure the shadow at Dallas and then at Oklahoma City (they will be different) and get the same result. So the "Eratosthenes saw his shadow and we had 500 more years of Not Doing Homework" doesn't actually work out.

Also, the djser is a bit shorter than an English foot -- it's 11.8 inches. Now, that's a tiny bit on the scale of one foot. On the scale of the Earth, it's a huge error. His stated value for "djeser distance between Alexandria and Syene" is 2,592,000 feet. When we correct for that overly long foot, the actual calculated distance would be (12/11.8)* 2,592,000=2,635,932.2 feet --a much larger number.

And when we multiply that by 50 to get the circumference of the Earth, we come up with 131,796,610 feet ... or 24,961.4792 miles.

(note: calculation I used is this: (((12/11.8)* 2,592,000)* 50)/5280)

And " Since the Egyptian term Djeser means “Sacred”, it is rather clear that its “sacredness” derives from the fact that it provides rational or “round” numbers for the dimensions of the Earth." is not proven at all.

-- Byrd
Moderator, Hall of Ma'at