TOP GREAT FIGURES IN ANCIENT TIMES

Six of the world’s top 10 great figures were Greek, a list compiled for the Massachusetts Institute of Techology Pantheon Project shows, although Homer is identified as Turkish and number 11, Archimedes, as Italian based on methodology identifying people from ancient times based on maps of today.

Number one is Aristotle, followed by Plato, Jesus Christ, Socrates, Alexander the Great, Leonardo Da Vinci, Confucius, Julius Caesar, Homer and Pythagoras in the top 10.

The project, part of the MIT Media Lab, aims to create a data-driven view of history by collecting and analyzing data on the biographies of major historical characters but also indicates Herodotus – the so-called Father of History – was Turkish, as were the ancient philosophers Thales, Heraclitus and Diogenes.

“This means that Albert Einstein is an export of Germany (since he was born in Ulm) and that individuals born in the ancient city of Babylon were assigned to Iraq,” MIT said without explaining why that doesn’t distort history.

Because of the method used, Turkey at 6.7 percent, was listed above Greece at 5.95 percent as the birthplace of globally known philosophers, none of whom were Turkish. That also meant that only 2 percent of politicians were from Greece while 4.77 percent were from Turkey, giving today’s country credit for people who weren’t born there.