The Directions and Names of the Winds: [Aristotle], Ventorum situs et nomina

2023-05-18 22:27:41 | Contributor(s): Alan C Bowen

The anonymous text Ventorum situs et nomina, once held to be by Aristotle himself, gives the local names of 10 topic winds as well as their directions. It is not an elaboration of the wind-rose that Aristotle, for example, describes in Meteor. 2.5, though many scholars have assumed this, but a...

The Dependence of Ancient Greek Geometry and Metaphysics on Craft-Culture

2023-05-18 22:27:16 | Contributor(s): Philip Thibodeau

A discussion of Robert Hahn’s The Metaphysics of the Pythagorean Theorem: Thales, Pythagoras, Engineering, Diagrams, and the Construction of the Cosmos out of Right Triangles. Published Online (2021-04-30)Copyright © 2021 by Philip Thibodeau Article PDF Link:...

The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology

2023-05-18 22:26:49 | Contributor(s): Levente László

A discussion of Dorian Greenbaum’s The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology: Origins and Influence. Published Online (2021-04-30)Copyright © 2021 by Levente László Article PDF Link: https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/aestimatio/article/view/37575/28591 Corresponding Author: Levente László...

The Arabic, Latin and Hebrew Reception of Avicenna’s Physics and Cosmology edited by Dag Nikolaus Hasse and Amos Bertolacci

2023-05-18 22:26:20 | Contributor(s): Damien T Janos

The book is a collection of 13 articles written by specialists in their respective fields covering a large array of issues, with an emphasis on the physical notions of place, time, and motion, as well as on meteorology. The studies successfully combine philological expertise with insightful...

Science et exégèse. Les interprétations antiques et médiévales du récit biblique de la création des éléments (Genèse 1, 1–8) edited by Béatrice Bakhouche

2023-05-18 22:25:50 | Contributor(s): David Lemler

Biblical exegetes from Antiquity and the Middle Ages continuously confronted the cosmogonic narrative offered in Genesis with the scientific cosmological theories of their times. Besides addressing theological questions raised by the text, most exegetes of the past were occupied with harmonizing...

Remarks on the Historiography of Mathematics

2023-05-18 22:25:20 | Contributor(s): Aldo Brigaglia

In this paper, I examine aspects of the methodological debate that originated in 2010, when the distinguished historian of mathematics Sabetai Unguru reviewed Roshdi Rashed’s edition of the Arabic translation of Apollonius’ Conics. In his review, Unguru criticized what Rashed calls “l’usage...

Plato’s Timaeus and the Latin Tradition by Christina Hoenig

2023-05-18 22:24:50 | Contributor(s): Luc Brisson

This books contains five chapters: the first is on the Timaeus and its interpretation,while the others are on Cicero, Apuleius, Calcidius, and Augustine.Reviewed by: Luc Brisson, Published Online (2021-04-30)Copyright © 2021 by Luc Brisson Article PDF Link:...

Paul Kalligas, Chloe Balla, Effie Baziotopoulou-Valavani, and Vassilis Karasmanis, Plato’s Academy: Its Workings and Its History

2023-05-18 22:24:16 | Contributor(s): Máté Veres

When it comes to ancient Greek philosophy, the story of Plato’s Academy is as romantic as it gets. In a familiar version, the story begins with Plato’s return from his travels around the Mediterranean. Having acquired a piece of land in a public Athenian garden bearing the name of the mythical...

MondSymbolik – MondWissen. Lunare Konzepte in den ägyptischen Tempeln griechisch-römischer Zeit by Victoria Altmann-Wendling

2023-05-18 22:23:44 | Contributor(s): Stefan Bojowald

This publication comprises the slightly revised version of the author’s doctoral dissertation, which was submitted in 2017 to the Philosophical Faculty of Eberhard Karls University, Tubingen. The study concerns the embedding of lunar phenomena and the Moon’s cycle in religious contexts, while the...

Markham J. Geller and Strahil V. Panayotov, Mesopotamian Eye Disease Texts

2023-05-18 22:23:20 | Contributor(s): Franziska Desch

In spite of an abundance of primary sources, the study of the history of medicine in ancient Near Eastern cultures has never gained as much attention as other genres and texts concerning those cultures. Thus, most of the material is published in copies of the cuneiform texts but not as...

José Chabás, Computational Astronomy in the Middle Ages

2023-05-18 22:22:54 | Contributor(s): Joh Steele

Astronomical tablets have been a major focus of study by historians of science since the middle of the 20th century. Building upon the pioneering work of E. S. Kennedy, O. Neugebauer, and others, recent scholars have applied a range of techniques drawn from the exact sciences (e.g.,...

Jacques Sesiano, An Ancient Greek Treatise on Magic Squares

2023-05-18 22:22:26 | Contributor(s): Jeffrey A. Oaks

The two earliest Arabic treatises explaining the construction of magic squares date from the 10th century ad. One is found in the Commentary on the Arithmetical [Introduction] (Kitāb tafsīr al-Arithmāṭīqī) by ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad al-Anṭākī (d. 376 H/ad 987). Only book 3 of the original three books is...

Ilsetraut Hadot, Simplicius the Neoplatonist

2023-05-18 22:22:01 | Contributor(s): Marc-Antoine Gavray

Ilsetraut Hadot belongs to those few scholars who have changed the status of Simplicius from that of merely a mine for Presocratic studies and revealed his value, not only for making out Neoplatonic doctrine but also for understanding the ways of commenting and philosophizing in late antiquity....

Everyday Magic in Early Modern Europe edited by Kathryn A. Edwards

2023-05-18 22:21:28 | Contributor(s): Darren Oldridge

Historians have long known that the efforts of religious reformers, both Catholic and Protestant, to challenge the magical beliefs of ordinary people in early modern Europe met with limited success, and that a rich stratum of unorthodox supernatural beliefs survived well into the 18th century....

Dragos Calma, Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes

2023-05-18 22:20:58 | Contributor(s): Sokratis-Athanasios Kiosoglou

There is no doubt that in recent decades there has been an astonishing development in the study of Proclus’ (ad 412–485) philosophy and its reception in the Arabic, Hebrew, and Byzantine worlds. Conferences, monographs, and collective volumes [e.g., d’Hoine and Martijn 2016] dedicated to the...

Clementina Caputo and Julia Lougovaya, Using Ostraca in the Ancient World

2023-05-18 22:20:29 | Contributor(s): Roger S. Bagnall

This remarkable volume provides the richest introduction ever offered to one of the most widespread but understudied writing technologies of the ancient world. Like many such categories, ostraca are a somewhat fuzzy set, and the term “ostracon” is often used imprecisely. Properly speaking, the...

Christián Carman and Rodolfo P. Buzón, Aristarco de Samos

2023-05-18 22:19:58 | Contributor(s): Maria Rosa Massa-Esteve

This work by Aristarchus belongs to ancient science, which may be considered in three fields of development: ∘ mathematics, especially that focused on the geometry in Euclid’s Elements or Archimedes’ works; ∘ astronomy, understood as a science that studies all the objects observed in the sky...

C. J. Crisostomo, E. A. Escobar, T. Tanaka, and N. Veldhuis, “The Scaffolding of Our Thoughts”

2023-05-18 22:19:26 | Contributor(s): Lorenzo Verderame

The volume under review collects 20 essays dedicated by different scholars to Francesca Rochberg, a professor of Assyriology and renowned expert on ancient Mesopotamian celestial divination. Most of the essays deal with Assyriology and discuss cuneiform sources. Reviewed by: Lorenzo...

Before Copernicus and Copernicus

2023-05-18 22:18:53 | Contributor(s): Matjaž Vesel

A discussion of Before Copernicus: The Cultures and Contexts of Scientific Learning in the Fifteenth Century edited by Rivka Feldhay and F. Jamil Ragep. Published Online (2021-04-30)Copyright © 2021 by Matjaž Vesel Article PDF Link:...

Babylonian House Numbers and Squares of Zodiacal Signs: The Origin of the Quadruplicities, Part I

2023-05-18 22:18:28 | Contributor(s): Lis Brack-Bernsen

BM 47762 is the rest of a circular tablet, which was divided into 12 sectors by lines from the center to the rim. Each sector was labelled by a zodiacal sign. Our tablet consists in part of the sectors IX, X, XI, and XII, which are concerned with the zodiacal signs of Sagittarius (month IX),...