From discovery.com: Ancient Tiles Reveal Complex Geometry.
Those wondrously intricate tile mosaics that adorn medieval Islamic architecture may cloak a mastery of geometry not matched in the West for hundreds of years.
Historians have long assumed that sheer hard work with the equivalent of a ruler and compass allowed medieval craftsmen to create the ornate star-and-polygon tile patterns that cover mosques, shrines and other buildings that stretch from Turkey through Iran and on to India.
Now a Harvard University researcher argues that more than 500 years ago, math whizzes met up with the artists and began creating far more complex tile patterns that culminated in what mathematicians today call “quasi-crystalline designs.”
Quasicrystal patterns weren’t demonstrated in the West until the 1970s.
“It shows us a culture that we often don’t credit enough was far more advanced than we ever thought,” contends Harvard graduate student Peter J. Lu, who studied the question after a vacation in Uzbekistan left him marveling at the tilework. [continue]
I don’t mean to be snarky about this, but Islamic art, mathematics, and other subjects were well advanced while Europeans were still wondering what the navel was indicative of. In our arrogance to glorify our own culture and our glorious renaissance, we completely ignored Arab and Chinese and Indian contributions to civilizations art and science. Ooops… I’ll get down off my high horse now.