Why did it take until classical Greece for people to realize

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This goes for all the ancient near east. The firmament is like metal layer that holds the waters above (until it's opened and a deluge comes and ends the world). Basically waters above and waters below. Poetic language in the Bible like the "heaven of heavens" actually make literal sense in their conception of the world.

I also wonder wtf they thought was happening when a ship disappeared over the horizon

>>1743841
They probably dismissed it as the ship getting smaller and smaller because of distance.

Because most cultures weren't nearly as nautical as Greece was. Greek civilization (Or at least the important parts that survive to us today) were centered around the water.

Then eventually Pythagoras comes along, says the world is round, and Eratosthenes comes up with mathematical support for the idea.

>>1743844
but you can see the masts of the ship above the horizon and the bottom of the ship below it when it's at a certain distance

well how the fuck were they supposed to know different ?

>>1743790
Egyptians did know the earth was round. They thought it was rolled by a giant dung beetle.

>>1743895

That's very hard to see unless you're looking at a very tall ship through a telescope.

>>1743831
wow that's such a shitty cosmology

>>1743895
It's pretty easily explainable as the bottom of the ship getting covered by closer waves. Also:
>>1746794