The History of Geodesy

Told through Maps

Prof. Dr. Rahmi Nurhan Çelik & Prof. Dr. Erol KÖKTÜRK

16th May 2015 Sofia

Missionaries in 5000 years

With all due

respect...

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Meeting 1
 SUMMARIZED CHRONOLOGY

3000 BC : While settling, people were needed who understand geometries for building
villages and dividing lands into parts. It is known that Egyptian, Assyrian,
Babylonian were realized such surveying techniques.

1700 BC : After floating of Nile river, land surveying were realized to set back to lost fields’
boundaries. (32 cm wide and 5.36 m long first text book “Papyrus Rhind” explain
the geometric shapes like circle, triangle, trapezoids, etc.

550+ BC : Thereafter Greeks took important role in surveying. Names in that period are well
known by almost everybody in the world. Pythagoras (570–495 BC), Plato (428–
348 BC), Aristotle (384-322 BC), Eratosthenes (275–194 BC), Ptolemy (83–161
BC)

500 BC : Pythagoras thought and proposed that earth is not like a disk, it is round as a
sphere

450 BC : Herodotus (484-425 BC), make a World map

350 BC : Aristotle prove Pythagoras’s thesis.

230 BC : Eratosthenes, made a survey in Egypt using sun’s angle of elevation in Alexandria
and Syene (now Aswan) in order to calculate Earth circumferences. As a result of
that survey he calculated the Earth circumferences about 46.000 km Moreover he
also make the map of known World, c. 194 BC.

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 150 : Ptolemy (AD 90-168) argued that the earth was the center of the universe. As a
result of thatgeocentric earth system had been referred. Ptolemais also make a
map of known World.

827 : During middle ages in Europe center of surveying and mapping developments
move to Arabic World. Al Mamun made meridian arc survey in Bagdad and
calculate the Radius of the Earth. Words we use today such as Azimuth, Zenith,
Nadir, Alidade and etc. had been adopted to other languages from that period of
Arabic language.

1492 : Christopher Columbus, discovered America

1543 : Nicolaus Copernicus (19.02.1473 - 24.05.1543), described his heliocentric

system and theory. He accurately calculated many astronomical constants, such
as the period of the planets, time of the solar and lunar eclipses, and the
instantaneous motion of the moon.

1569 : Gerardus Mercator (3.5.1512 - 2.12.1594), He developed a map projection and

he published a map of the World, 1569

1600s : Telescope developed by Johannes Kepler (27.12.1571 – 15.11.1630) open a new

period in astronomy and surveying World

1614 : Willebrord van Roijen Snellius, (1580-30.10.1626) introduced resection method for
obtaining coordinates of a point by observing only directions.

1735+ : Those days center of mapping and surveying actives move to France. Bides precise
meridian arc calculation, during French Revolution a common metric system was
introduced.

1801 : Meter unit legally accepted as 1/40000000 of the earth’s circumferences around the
poles.

1808 : Napoleon cadaster process was began and relative to that Bavaria cadaster
institution began surveying for 1:5000 scale map production and decided to use those
outputs also for 1:25000 scale map production. All those work was done by using
plane table surveying technique and that process completed in 1840

1830 : Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (22.7.1784 - 8.4.1846) studied for determining the earth
shape and introduce an ellipsoid that has been used as reference ellipsoid.

1832-1847 : Carl-Friedrich Gauß (30.4.1777 - 23.2.1855), developed and introduced least square
techniques.

1873 : Gauss described it first as «mathematical figure of the earth» in 1828 and J.F.Listing
firstly used the term of “Geoid”

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Meeting 3
 1st World
War+ : Photogrammetry turn to a very powerful spatial data acquisition technique,.

1924 : International ellipsoid was accepted. That is Hayford Ellipsoid 1909.

2nd World
War+ : Radar technology was used as the primary electronic distance measurement. EDM
Measurement, calculation and computer systems and data determination periods was
began.

1957 : First geodetic satellite was launched, Sputnik

Thereafter : Period of positioning determination by using satellite systems and techniques

began.

Till Today : Terrestrial surveying systems turn to robotic systems.

Systems’ integrations getting more efficient and affordable.

Most of the surveying systems turn to electronic, computerized and unmanned

systems.

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Meeting 4
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Meeting 5
 Reconstruction of the Oikoumene (inhabited world), ancient map based on Herodotus, c. 450 BC

Map Found in Çatalhöyük

(6000-5000 BC)

Map obtained in 1963 in

Çatalhöyük/MidAnatolia/Turkey is the
oldest map known. This founding takes
the history of surveying almost 2400
years back.

This map shows the settlement plan of

Çatalhöyük village.

It is displayed in «Anadolu Medeniyetleri

Müzesi- Anatolian Civilization Museum»
in Ankara.

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Meeting 6
 Aristotle observed "there are stars seen in Egypt and Cyprus which are not seen in the
northerly regions. "Since this could only happen on a curved surface, he too believed
Earth was a sphere" of no great size, for otherwise the effect of so slight a change of
place would not be quickly apparent."

Aristotle provided physical and observational arguments supporting the idea of a spherical
Earth:

• Every portion of the Earth tends toward the center until by compression and
convergence they form a sphere.

• Travelers going south see southern constellations rise higher above the horizon;
and

• The shadow of Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse is round.

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Meeting 7
 19th-century reconstruction of Eratosthenes' map of the known world, c. 194 BC

Ptolemy’s world map, reconstituted from Ptolemy's Geography (circa 150) in the 15th century, indicating "Sinae"
(China) at the extreme right, beyond the island of "Taprobane" (Sri Lanka, oversized) and the "Aurea
Chersonesus" (Southeast Asian peninsula).

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Meeting 8
 Copernicus’ heliocentric view of the Universe

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Meeting 9
 The Keplerian Telescope,
invented by Johannes Kepler in
1611, is an improvement on
Galileo’s design. It uses a
convex lens as the eyepiece
instead of Galileo’s concave
one. The advantages of this
arrangements is that the rays
of light emerging from the
eyepieces are converting. This
allows for a much wider field
of view and greater eye relief,
but the image for the viewer is
inverted.

Woodcut illustration of a 46 m (150 ft) focal length

Keplerian astronomical refracting telescope built by
Johannes Hevelius.

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Meeting 10
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Meeting 11
 ∞ ...................
Robotic Instruments
Mobility
1900-2000 2000

Land Management
Remote Sensing
GPS
1990
GIS

Navigation, Inertial Systems

Digital Image Processing
Spatial Information Systems
Surveying with Satellite Techniques
Personal Computers
Automatic Digital and Graphical Data Processing
1980
Automatic Archiving
Orthophoto
Digitizing
Analytic Photogrammetric Drawing
1970
Automatic Drawing

Electronic Data Processing

Electronic Distance Measurement
1960 Electronic Calculators


Mechanical Desktop Calculator
Natural Values of Trigonometric Functions
1950

1940
Arial Photogrammetry

Double Image Tacheometer, Steel Tape

1930

1920 Glass Circle Theodolite

1910 Repetition Tacheometer, Prizm, Surveying Rod,

Prof. Dr. Herbert J. MATTHIAS,
Logarithm, Slide Ruler

PİRİ REİS
(1470-1554)

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Meeting 12
 Piri Reis

Cyprus

ATLAS, No: 146-Mayıs 2005

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Meeting 13
 Mytilene

ATLAS, No: 146-Mayıs 2005

Close Future

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Meeting 14
 A better future can only be built on Past Experiences

Wish you successful feature…

Contact: celikn@itu.edu.tr

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Meeting 15