as an aside:
why do so many modern people operate on the blithe assumption that the ancients were stupid or monumentally unobservant?
I just stepped outside to check on my dog. my house fronts the west. I caught a lovely view of the waning crescent moon.
the full disc of the circumference was plainly evident as a pale lavender (with some orange hints) against the deeper blue of the night sky, with plain visual cues that it is a sphere backlit by light reflected from the earth (volumetric shading); the Mare were discernable; the lit crescent was a brilliant yellow-white, with trace of green and blue on the edges; the terminator also had a bit of volumetric shading.
Now, yes: my eyes are about twice as sensitive to light as is the norm for my species. this is a result of a combination of the effects of one of the inherited mutations I carry that mentioned earlier plus a persistent infection of my tear ducts which causes my tears to act a bit like light-gathering coatings on good optics. Plus, I have keen distance-vision: L20:12/R20:15
OTOH, this condition is far from unique to me, nor is it recent in provenance. There have been people with eyes like mine for a very long time - at least from Roman times. Additionally, one would think that back then the skies were less hazy than they are now.
SURELY the ancients could observe what I have observed.
How has it come to pass that we believe the ancients believed that the moon actually changed its shape???
this is but one example.
don't even get me started on the whole "gods/aliens must have built the pyramids because they are so precise" bullshyte.
I thought I alone was cursed with acute color vision. I stopped pointing out any but the most blatant sky color effects to anybody long ago.