Early History
It is claimed that Stonehenge (3100 BC – 2200 BC) has golden ratio proportions between its concentric circles. Kimberly Elam proposes this relation as early evidence of human cognitive preference for the golden ratio. However, others point out that this interpretation of Stonehenge "may be doubtful" and that the geometric construction that generates it can only be surmised.
Various authors discern golden ratio proportions in Egyptian, Sumerian and Greek vases, Chinese pottery, Olmec sculptures, and Cretan and Mycenaean products from the late Bronze Age, which predates by about 1,000 years the Greek mathematicians who were first known to have studied the golden ratio. However, the historical sources are obscure, and the analyses are difficult to compare because they employ differing methods.
The Great Pyramid of Giza (constructed c. 2570 BC by Hemiunu) exhibits the golden ratio according to various pyramidologists, including Charles Funck-Hellet. John F. Pile, interior design professor and historian, has claimed that Egyptian designers sought the golden proportions without mathematical techniques and that it is common to see the 1.618:1 ratio, along with many other simpler geometrical concepts, in their architectural details, art, and everyday objects found in tombs. In his opinion, "That the Egyptians knew of it and used it seems certain."
Even before the beginning of these theories, some other historians and mathematicians have always proposed alternative theories for the pyramid designs that are not related to any use of the golden ratio, and are instead based on purely rational slopes that only approximate the golden ratio. The Egyptians of those times apparently did not know the Pythagorean theorem; the only right triangle whose proportions they knew was the 3:4:5 triangle.
Carlos Chanfón Olmos states that the Sculpture of King Gudea (c. 2350 BC) clearly has golden proportions between all of its secondary elements repeated many times at its base.
Read more about this topic: List Of Works Designed With The Golden Ratio
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