The burial place of the great Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse. On a pillar above the tomb stands stands a sphere inscribed within a cylinder, commemorating, as recounted by Plutarch, what Archimedes felt was his greatest accomplishment: the proof that the volume and the surface area of a sphere were equal to two-thirds of the volume and the surface area of the containing cylinder.

The tomb was lost over the course of the next century or so, but it was rediscovered and cleared of underbrush by Cicero in 75 B.C. while he was a questor in Sicily. Historians have since noted that cleaning Archimedes' tomb was probably the the most notable Roman contribution to the field of mathematics.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.