18 June 2011 UTC By the way there is no need to be nasty or sarcastic WikiPedia is a cooperative adventure and snide comments do not promote its ends Simply state the facts as you know them My guess is that the spherical shape of the Earth was well known long before Eratosthenes made his measurement of the size of the Earth though I do not know this for a fact offhand and the person who originally posted this claim needs to come up with a citation An authoritative source here doesn t say anything about Eratosthenes having proven that the Earth was spherical I know some historians of astronomy and will consult with them for more authoritative information 23 33