Surveying: Did you mean...?

An expert making a detailed survey in the sanctuary of the Great Temple. In the background —from left to right— the seated statues of Ptah, Amun, Rameses II and Harakhte. Abu Simbel, Nubia, Egypt (March 1960)

A young George Washington surveys the property of Lord Thomas Fairfax in the Shenandoah Valley in 1748. Illustration from The Northwest under three flags, 1635-1796 by Charles Moore, 1900.

The youth of George Washington (1732-1799), the first President of the United States, remains the least understood chapter of his life, shrouded in folklore and myths. Yet the experiences of his youth, and the bond he...

The Enuma Elish (also known as The Seven Tablets of Creation) is the Babylonian creation myth whose title is derived from the opening lines of the piece, "When on High". The myth tells the story...

The Romans assimilated earlier Greek science for their own purposes, evaluating and then accepting or rejecting that which was most useful, much as they did in other fields such as warfare, art, and theatre. This assimilation of...

Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) was an English navigator and hydrographer. He was the first person to map the coastal outline of Australia in 1801-1803, following his circumnavigation of the 7.692 million square kilometres (2.96...

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American philosopher, writer, naturalist, and political activist. He is best known for his book Walden, published in 1854, which recounts his two-year experiment living alone in a small...

The Romans built roads over ancient routes and created a huge number of new ones. Engineers were audacious in their plans to join one point to another in as direct a line as possible whatever the difficulties in geography and costs...

Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean on the northwest corner of the Barents Shelf. It is 800 kilometres (497 mi) north of mainland Norway and sits roughly midway between the top of Norway and the North Pole. It is...

The Romans are known for their remarkable engineering feats, be they roads, bridges, tunnels, or their impressive aqueducts. Their constructions, many of them still standing, are a testament to their superior engineering skills...