You might not guess it from all of the fancy technological tools available to the Pensacola surveyor today, but the principles behind the science are quite old. Land surveying techniques have been found in cultures as old as history itself and the very idea of land ownership. Today of course, land surveying is used for much more than that single purpose.

The surveying techniques of the ancient Egyptian were particularly advanced for their period. The Nile River would periodically overflow and destroy the boundary lines between neighboring farms. The surveyor used the simple geometric concepts that they had mastered at the time to re-establish these boundaries.

The surveying prowess of ancient Egyptians is also on display at the Great Pyramid of Giza. Constructed around 2700 BC, the pyramid is exceptionally square, and has a nearly perfect north-south orientation. The errors are so small that the massive structure is only off by inches.

One of the earliest recorded boundary stones was placed in Babylon around 1200 BC. The Babylonian Kudurru bore the inscriptions that described the property, the owner’s name, the name of the surveyor, and the list of previous owners. This “corner stone” technique is still in use today, although fewer of them are made of stone anymore.

The Egyptians were eventually observed by the Greeks, who adopted many of the surveying techniques by 500 BC. Egypt was a place of study for both Pythagoras and Thales where they both learned geometry, which they returned teach to Greek mathematicians

Alexandria was made famous by Aristotle, Plato, and Archimedes as a learning center to study science and other disciplines.

Another civilization well known for its surveying prowess was the Roman Empire. They were the first recorded culture to establish the land surveyor as a separate profession known as Agrimensores. They were able to cut perfect right angles and run straight lines as early as the first century BC. Some of their work survives today, but not in as good o condition as the Great Pyramid.

Like the Greeks before them with the Egyptians, the ancient Romans took their land surveying knowledge from another culture. As we learn more and develop new technology, land surveying will continue to advance. What new and fantastic tools will the Pensacola surveyor of the future use?