On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 8:57 AM, Stephen Stubbs <fartreader@gmail.com> wrote:

{Stephen}: The Ancient Greeks did not have major keys nor minor keys.  
The 'modes' used by the Medieval European monks were not the same as the 
original modes of the Ancient Greeks.  A great deal was lost in the 
translation, or perhaps it was due to fragmentary sources.

http://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/

specifically: http://www.huygens-fokker.org/docs/scalesdir.txt

You will find that there are over 4000 diferent scales there.

the notion that there are only a handful of scales can be a moderately accurate as a description of typical musical practice at a given point in time in a given culture.

but on the other hand it also is a wildly inaccurate and simplistic idea that robs humanity of a good part of its cultural heritage.