Fast forward to the 1950s, and surveyors got a bit of help from photogrammetry, detailed photos taken from the air that they could use to measure heights and distances.
You see, about a thousand years before the Greek astronomers were looking at the night sky. You've got Babylonian surveyors who have their own unique understanding of right triangles and rectangles, and they're using it.
Last week, a violent clash broke out after government surveyors and security forces began to demarcate land that Tanzania reportedly would turn over to a foreign firm for a game reserve for commercial hunting.
Five surveyors of the expedition team were first to arrive at 8,830 meters to set up the meteorological station at around 12: 30 p.m., a couple of hours later than planned.
Surveyors measure two points on the ground and from each point they measure the angle between them and the top of the mountain to give them a triangle.
But we were recently informed by our surveyor that the whole roof will have to be replaced: which is of course a severe blow when you think it's only five years since we replaced the roof of the church itself.
This lake was something that I really wanted to reach because George Franklin, an early colonial surveyor, found these pencil pines here, these glorious pencil pines, which he called Pine of Olympus.
Then, at Fort Elliott in Texas, he worked as a surveyor and cartographer and led an investigation into illegal ammunition sales, resulting in the court-martial and conviction of a white quartermaster sergeant.
After finishing secondary school, he initially trained as a surveyor but then opted for a more traditional Lappish occupation: for two years now, he's been working on a reindeer ranch.
Anthony Wayne was a Pennsylvania farmer and land surveyor who, on hearing the clash of arms, read a few books on war, raised a regiment, and offered himself for service.