Author: Alexander Jones
Publisher: American Philosophical Society
ISBN: 9780871692337
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 890
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Book Description
Presents 200 hitherto unpub. astronomical texts & horoscopes written in Greek on papyrus, which were excavated a century ago in the rubbish heaps of Oxyrhynchus, a district capital of Roman Egypt. Through these documents we obtain the first coherent picture of the range of astronomical activity, chiefly in the service of astrology, during the Roman Empire. The astronomy of this period turns out to have been much more varied than we previously thought, with Babylonian arithmetical methods of prediction coexisting with tables based on geometrical models of orbits. Editions of the texts are accomp. by facing translations & explanatory & philological commentaries. The intro. provides the first comprehensive treatment of astronomical papyri, explaining their contents & purpose, the underlying astronomical theories, & strategies for analyzing & dating them. Tables & graphs.
Author: George H. van Kooten
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004308474
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 718
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Book Description
This book is the fruit of the first ever interdisciplinary international scientific conference on Matthew's story of the Star of Bethlehem and the Magi, held in 2014 at the University of Groningen, and attended by world-leading specialists in all relevant fields: modern astronomy, the ancient near-eastern and Greco-Roman worlds, the history of science, and religion. The scholarly discussions and the exchange of the interdisciplinary views proved to be immensely fruitful and resulted in the present book. Its twenty chapters describe the various aspects of The Star: the history of its interpretation, ancient near-eastern astronomy and astrology and the Magi, astrology in the Greco-Roman and the Jewish worlds, and the early Christian world – at a generally accessible level. An epilogue summarizes the fact-fiction balance of the most famous star which has ever shone.
Author: Jean-Claude Martzloff
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3662497182
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 485
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Book Description
Presented from the viewpoint of the history of mathematics, this book explores both epistemological aspects of Chinese traditional mathematical astronomy and lunisolar calendrical calculations. The following issues are addressed: (1) connections with non-Chinese cultural areas; (2) the possibility or impossibility of using mathematics to predict astronomical phenomena, a question that was constantly raised by the Chinese from antiquity through medieval times; (3) the modes of representation of numbers, and in particular the zero, found in the context of Chinese calendrical calculations; and (4) a detailed analysis of lunisolar calendrical calculations. Fully worked-out examples and comparisons between the results of calculations and the content of Chinese historical calendars from various periods are provided. Traditional Chinese calendrical and mathematical astronomy consists of permanently reformed mathematical procedures designed to predict, but not explain, phenomena pertaining to astronomy and related areas. Yet, despite appearances, models of the mathematical techniques hidden behind this voluminous corpus reveal that they depend on a limited number of clear-cut mathematical structures. Although only a small fraction of these techniques have been fully studied, what is known surprisingly broadens our knowledge of the history of Chinese mathematics. Sinologists interested in the history of Chinese science, and anyone interested in the history of Chinese mathematics, the Chinese calendar, and the history of Chinese mathematical astronomy from its origin (104 BC) to its European reform (AD 1644) will find this book very useful. The present English language edition is a fully revised and updated version of the French original. Even though this is a research monograph in sinology, no particular sinological background is required, although a basic understanding of ‘concrete mathematics’ is needed. From the reviews of the French edition: This is a demanding, rigorous book to read ... worth the concentrated study it requires. The rewards are not only in the details but in the general overview that ...[it] provides. Joseph Dauben, EASTM, 2011 ...first Work in a Western language to turn to for anyone interested in the details of Chinese calendrical computations. Benno Van Dalen, ISIS, 2011 Martzloff’s careful scholarship and his overall look at the calendar beyond astronomical calculations, ..., make this book a most valuable contributions to a field of increasing interest. U. D’Ambrosio, Mathematical Reviews, 2013
Author: Theodore Markopoulos
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199539855
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
"The future has attracted the interest of almost all scholars working on the history of Greek, but no satisfactory set of arguments for the developments prior to the emergence of the modern form has ever been produced. In this book Theodore Markopoulos explores and elucidates the stages that led up to the appearance of the modern future in the sixteenth century."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: Roger S. Bagnall
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199843694
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 711
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Book Description
Thousands of documentary and literary texts written on papyri and potsherds, in Egyptian, Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Persian, have transformed our knowledge of many aspects of life in the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds. Here experts provide a comprehensive guide to understanding this ancient documentary evidence.
Author: Francesca Rochberg
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004183892
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 469
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Book Description
"In the Path of the Moon" offers a collection of essays concerning Babylonian celestial divination. It investigates various aspects of cuneiform celestial omens, horoscopes, and astronomy and their wide-ranging influences on later Hellenistic science and philosophy.
Author: Helen R. Jacobus
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004284060
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 555
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Book Description
The ancient mathematical basis of the Aramaic calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls is analysed in this investigation. Helen R. Jacobus re-examines an Aramaic zodiac calendar with a thunder divination text (4Q318) and the calendar from the Aramaic Astronomical Book (4Q208 - 4Q209), all from Qumran. Jacobus demonstrates that 4Q318 is an ancestor of the Jewish calendar today and that it helps us to understand 4Q208 - 4Q209. She argues that these calendars were taught in antiquity as angelic knowledge described in 1 Enoch and the Book of Jubilees. The study also encompasses Babylonian, Hellenistic, Byzantine astronomy and astrology, and classical and Jewish writings. Finally, a medieval Hebrew zodiac calendar related to 4Q318 with an astrological text is published here for the first time.
Author: Ragep
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004625747
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 625
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Book Description
In this volume of conference papers originally presented at the University of Oklahoma, a distinguished group of scholars examines episodes in the transmission of premodern science and provides new insights into its cultural, philosophical and historical significance.
Author: Albrecht Classen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110215586
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 2822
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Book Description
This interdisciplinary handbook provides extensive information about research in medieval studies and its most important results over the last decades. The handbook is a reference work which enables the readers to quickly and purposely gain insight into the important research discussions and to inform themselves about the current status of research in the field. The handbook consists of four parts. The first, large section offers articles on all of the main disciplines and discussions of the field. The second section presents articles on the key concepts of modern medieval studies and the debates therein. The third section is a lexicon of the most important text genres of the Middle Ages. The fourth section provides an international bio-bibliographical lexicon of the most prominent medievalists in all disciplines. A comprehensive bibliography rounds off the compendium. The result is a reference work which exhaustively documents the current status of research in medieval studies and brings the disciplines and experts of the field together.
Author: Francesca Rochberg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022675958X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 380
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Book Description
In the modern West, we take for granted that what we call the “natural world” confronts us all and always has—but Before Nature explores that almost unimaginable time when there was no such conception of “nature”—no word, reference, or sense for it. Before the concept of nature formed over the long history of European philosophy and science, our ancestors in ancient Assyria and Babylonia developed an inquiry into the world in a way that is kindred to our modern science. With Before Nature, Francesca Rochberg explores that Assyro-Babylonian knowledge tradition and shows how it relates to the entire history of science. From a modern, Western perspective, a world not conceived somehow within the framework of physical nature is difficult—if not impossible—to imagine. Yet, as Rochberg lays out, ancient investigations of regularity and irregularity, norms and anomalies clearly established an axis of knowledge between the knower and an intelligible, ordered world. Rochberg is the first scholar to make a case for how exactly we can understand cuneiform knowledge, observation, prediction, and explanation in relation to science—without recourse to later ideas of nature. Systematically examining the whole of Mesopotamian science with a distinctive historical and methodological approach, Before Nature will open up surprising new pathways for studying the history of science.
