Ancient view towards shape of the earth?

Question

earlier people believed that the earth is flat

Answer 1

Generally, at least in Europe, they didn't.  Sailors could tell it wasn't flat by looking at the curved horizon.  Later, when Christopher Columbus had to convince advisors to the Spanish royal court to fund his expedition, none of them expressed any doubts about the world being a globe.  Their doubts concerned the distance he cited between Spain and India, as they assumed the world had to be larger than Columbus claimed.  It is, and India happens to be nowhere near where he said it must be.

The myth of a flat Earth is a 19th century one, and it's based upon writings from a couple of otherwise obscure theologians.  It wasn't a widespread view.

Answer 2

The ancient Greek scholars knew that the world was roughly spherical. In fact, a Greek named Aristophanes estimated the diameter of the Earth with impressive accuracy. He measured the shadows of poles placed in the ground in Greece and Syene (a town in Egypt which is roughly Aswan today), and figured out that the differences in the shadow length is due to a slightly different position of the Sun in the sky as you move between latitudes. Using some trigonometry, he estimated the radius of the Earth and was (by some calculations) only about 60km out!

I'm sure different cultures and civilisations had different views on the shape of the Earth. Some may have even considered it infinite, or might not have considered it at all!

Answer 3

yap. the ancient believe that the earth is like a dish, if you sail past the edge of the "dish", you will fall off the earth

more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

Answer 4

(in continuation of teock answer)

...and that is why they inflated in UK to avoid falling off the earth.

Answer 5

not all ancient people, scientists as far back as Aristotle  theorized about a round earth, but with no way to prove it the masses believed what they saw, flat ground. their is an experiment you can do buy planting two sticks in  the ground and watching the shadow of the sun move. and columbus was not trying to prove it was round, by that time it was considered by all learned people to be round, the him proving it thing as just a myth

Answer 6

Yeah, that's so. Even in the Bible, it is thought that the Earth is flat when it is referred as a "circle"

Answer 7

Although they believed it was flat until mid 1500's when Captain Cook sailed south around S. America beliving to find a quicker route for the spice trade from india & china, the ancients belief of a flat world did inlcude Europe, Russia, Africa, Middle East, India & China, so any that could afford to travel these distances could of told people whatever they wanted, 3000 years ago people belived the mediterian was the egde of the world with serpents and sea monsters, the flat earth could just be a myth or rumour someone started, 50% of americans belive Aliens and a few more have been abducted by them What next I SEE DEAD PEOPLE!!!!!!!