4 E V O L U T I O N A N D R E V O L U T I O N I N E N G I N E E R I N G A N D S U R V E Y I N GEngineering does not exist in a vacuum, but is integrated into the eight great events which changed human history. These cataclysmic events affected 49human history, and include the rise of agriculture, industrial revolutions, and the creation of urban societies. These fundamental changes in human evolution stimulated engineering development, which in turn accelerated the rate of historical revolutions and change. 50The roots of engineering date back to ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamian temples and to the Romans road and aqueduct construction. Each ancient civilization contributed to the practices and principles of engineering that are still used today. In an urban society like Cincinnati, engineering is stimulated and constantly evolving through the control of the landscape and the manipulation of the built environment.51This in turn stimulates the political, economic, religious, and social factors creating the means by which these activities continue to evolve. 52S U R V E Y H I S T O R Y A N D T H E S Y M M E S P U R C H A S EEngineering could not have reached its current height without the surveying of land and the built environment. In a way, engineering and surveying cannot exist separate from each other. Using surveys as a method of measuring the landscape, like engineering, can be traced to the ancient Egyptians: The Pharaohs measured and divided the land along the banks of the Nile River for taxation purposes. 53Before the development of the link chain in the late 1500s, surveyors would use wooden poles and rope or cord. In 1620, English astronomer Edmund Gunter developed a new measuring tool, which became known as Gunters chain. It was made up of 100 links stretching 66 feet. 54This chain remained the standard surveying measure until the steel tape measuring device was developed in the mid-1800s. The chain was used for most of the early surveys in the United States including public lands surveyed during the 1700s and 1800s. 5521