Spengler. He thought that you could see the difference between civilizations in their art and mathematics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West< Apollonian Civilization is focused around Ancient Greece and Rome. Spengler saw its world view as being characterized by appreciation for the beauty of the human body, and a preference for the local and the present moment.
< Magian Civilization includes the Jews from about 400BC, early Christians and various Arabian religions up to and including Islam. Its world feeling revolved around the concept of world as cavern, epitomized by the domed Mosque, and a preoccupation with essence. Spengler saw the development of this civilization as being distorted by too influential presence of older cultures, the initial vigorous expansionary impulses of Islam being in part a reaction against this.
< Faustian Civilization began in Western Europe around the 10th century and according to Spengler such has been its expansionary power that by the 20th century it was covering the entire earth, with only a few Regions where Islam provides an alternative world view. The world feeling of Faustian civilization is inspired by the concept of infinitely wide and profound space, the yearning towards distance and infinity.
A gothic cathedral that strives for height can be seen as Faustian. And a Greek sculpture that focuses on the body and can be seen from multiple angles can be seen as apollonian. Greek mathematics was this closed Euclidian space, whereas contemporary mathematics is boundless.
But at a cursory glance, there are some discrepancies. For instance, the Khmer probably invented the zero.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22313665-finding-zeroAnd the Hindu mathematics and religion is all about this really huge and really small numbers. For instance, the Kali Yuga (the shortest and the worst of them) is supposed to last 432000 years. So in comparison to Spengler's idea that a civilization last for 1000 years, he's peanuts. So Spengler basically says that the reason civilization X didn't do Y wasn't the lack of knowledge nor agency, but that they rather didn't want to