Veröffentlicht von De Gruyter

Science, Technology, and Medicine in Ancient Cultures

Herausgegeben von: Markus Asper, Philip van der Eijk, Mark Geller, Cale Johnson, Dagmar Schäfer, Heinrich von Staden und Liba Taub

ISSN: 2194-976X

e-ISSN 2194-9778

Übersicht
Bände

STMAC aims to advance an inter-disciplinary and inclusive approach to the study of science in the ancient world, ranging from mathematics and physics, medicine and magic to astronomy, astrology, and divination and covering the Mediterranean world, the Near (Middle) East, and Central and East Asia. The series is open to different types of publications including monographs and edited volumes as well as text editions and commentaries.

Zusatzmaterial

Style Sheet STMAC

Fachgebiete

Buch Open Access 2023

Coming to Terms

Approaches to (Ancient) Terminologies

Markus Asper

Band 14 in dieser Reihe

Mehr Zitieren

Terminologies present various challenges to their inventors and to their users, ranging from epistemic adequacy over linguistic concerns to matters of strategy and group construction. With respect to historical terminologies, however, research has been dominated by linguistic approaches. Breaking new ground, Coming to Terms collects eleven articles that combine an interest in the history of knowledge, mostly ancient Greek, with research on scientific terminologies. They all share an interest in terminological practices, that is, questions such as how and when to coin a term and then what to do with it. Among the fields discussed are astronomy, the Roman surveyors, Aristotelian science, Renaissance and modern biology, contemporary medicine, ancient Chinese philosophy, 20^th-century physics, and colonial linguistics. Confronting ancient with modern terminologies, the collection intends to test integrative interpretive approaches. Thus, the collection documents how rich ancient (and modern) terminologies are and shows that they are, beyond lexicography, worth being studied per se.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.0000/9783111314532
ISBN:: 9783111314532
ISBN:: 9783111291864
ISBN:: 9783111314785
Fachgebiet:: Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Klassische Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Philologie
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft
Fachgebiet:: Wissenschaft und Medizin der Antike
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch 2022

Aetius of Amida on Diseases of the Brain

Translation and Commentary of ›Libri medicinales‹ 6.1–10 with Introduction

Ricarda Gäbel

Band 13 in dieser Reihe

Mehr Zitieren

In earlier scholarship, the late antique medical compilations of Oribasius of Pergamon, Aetius of Amida and Paul of Aegina were rather neglected and were believed to add nothing new themselves to what Galen, in particular, had to say. By now, scholarship has undergone a positive change in attitude towards these authors and their works. This book contributes to this modern picture of late antiquity as a vibrant and fascinating period through close analysis of the work of Aetius of Amida (6th century CE). It offers the very first modern translation of chapters 1–10 of the sixth book of Aetius’ Libri medicinales as well as a detailed commentary on these chapters. Together with an extensive introduction it thus makes Aetius’ treatise accessible to a wider audience and takes into account Aetius’ craft as a compiler by analyzing his literary and compilation techniques. Book 6 of Aetius’ compilation is especially interesting because it deals with diseases of the brain and thus also discusses mental illnesses such as phrenitis, melancholia or mania. Therefore, this volume also sheds light on the treatment of brain diseases in late antiquity and furthers our understanding of the history of mental disorders in ancient medical texts.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110795127
ISBN:: 9783110795127
ISBN:: 9783110794366
Fachgebiet:: Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Klassische Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Philologie
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Autoren
Fachgebiet:: Wissenschaft und Medizin der Antike
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch 2022

Poikile Physis

Biological Literature in Greek during the Roman Empire: Genres, Scopes, and Problems

Diego De Brasi, Francesco Fronterotta

Band 12 in dieser Reihe

Mehr Zitieren

Biological literature of the Roman imperial period remains somehow ‘underestimated’. It is even quite difficult to speak of biological literature for this period at all: biology (apart from medicine) did not represent, indeed, a specific ‘subgenre’ of scientific literature. Nevertheless, writings as disparate as Philo of Alexandria’s Alexander, Plutarch’s De sollertia animalium or Bruta ratione uti, Aelian’s De Natura Animalium, Oppian’s Halieutika, Pseudo-Oppian’s Kynegetika, and Basil of Caeserea’s Homilies on the Creation engage with zoological, anatomic, or botanical questions. Poikile Physis examines how such writings appropriate, adapt, classify, re-elaborate and present biological knowledge which originated within the previous, mainly Aristotelian, tradition. It offers a holistic approach to these works by considering their reception of scientific material, their literary as well as rhetorical aspects, and their interaction with different socio-cultural conditions. The result of an interdisciplinary discussion among scholars of Greek studies, philosophy and history of science, the volume provides an initial analysis of forms and functions of biological literature in the imperial period.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110796858
ISBN:: 9783110796858
ISBN:: 9783110796735
ISBN:: 9783110796926
Fachgebiet:: Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Klassische Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Philologie
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft
Fachgebiet:: Wissenschaft und Medizin der Antike
Fachgebiet:: Biologie
Fachgebiet:: Botanik
Fachgebiet:: Zoologie
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch 2020

Thinking in Cases

Ancient Greek and Imperial Chinese Case Narratives

Markus Asper

Band 11 in dieser Reihe

Mehr Zitieren

Who is afraid of case literature? In an influential article ("Thinking in Cases", 1996), John Forrester made a case for studying case literature more seriously, exemplifying his points, mostly, with casuistic traditions of law. Unlike in modern literatures, case collections make up a significant portion of ancient literary traditions, such as Mesopotamian, Greek, and Chinese, mostly in medical and forensic contexts. The genre of cases, however, has usually not been studied in its own right by modern scholars. Due to its pervasiveness, case literature lends itself to comparative studies to which this volume intends to make a contribution. While cases often present truly fascinating epistemic puzzles, in addition they offer aesthetically pleasing reading experiences, due to their narrative character. Therefore, the case, understood as a knowledge-transmitting narrative about particulars, allows for both epistemic and aesthetic approaches. This volume presents seven substantial studies of cases and case literature: Topics touched upon are ancient Greek medical, forensic, philosophical and mathematical cases, medical cases from imperial China, and 20th-century American medical case writing. The collection hopes to offer a pilot of what to do with and how to think about cases.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110668957
ISBN:: 9783110668957
ISBN:: 9783110640700
ISBN:: 9783110669039
Fachgebiet:: Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Klassische Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Philologie
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft
Fachgebiet:: Wissenschaft und Medizin der Antike
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch Open Access 2019

Visualizing the invisible with the human body

Physiognomy and ekphrasis in the ancient world

J. Cale Johnson, Alessandro Stavru

Band 10 in dieser Reihe

Mehr Zitieren EPUB downloaden PDF downloaden

Physiognomy and ekphrasis are two of the most important modes of description in antiquity and represent the necessary precursors of scientific description. The primary way of divining the characteristics and fate of an individual, whether inborn or acquired, was to observe the patient’s external characteristics and behaviour. This volume focuses initially on two types of descriptive literature in Mesopotamia: physiognomic omens and what we might call ekphrastic description. These modalities are traced through ancient India, Ugaritic and the Hebrew Bible, before arriving at the physiognomic features of famous historical figures such as Themistocles, Socrates or Augustus in the Graeco-Roman world, where physiognomic discussions become intertwined with typological analyses of human characters. The Arabic compendial culture absorbed and remade these different physiognomic and ekphrastic traditions, incorporating both Mesopotamian links between physiognomy and medicine and the interest in characterological ‘types’ that had emerged in the Hellenistic period.
This volume offer the first wide-ranging picture of these modalities of description in antiquity.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110642698
ISBN:: 9783110642698
ISBN:: 9783110642681
ISBN:: 9783110618266
Fachgebiet:: Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Klassische Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Philologie
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft
Fachgebiet:: Wissenschaft und Medizin der Antike
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch 2019

Mathematische Modellierung bei Platon zwischen Thales und Euklid

Claas Lattmann

Band 9 in dieser Reihe

Mehr Zitieren

Wissenschaftliche Mathematik ist eine der wichtigsten Kulturleistungen des antiken Griechenland. Doch wann und wo genau hatte sie ihren Ursprung? Die Einschätzung der Antike, zwischen Thales und Euklid habe Platon eine maßgebliche Rolle gespielt, gilt als Fiktion. Diese Studie wirft einen neuen, modelltheoretischen Blick auf die Zeugnisse und erweist im Gegenteil, dass in der Tat Platon als Schöpfer von axiomatisch-deduktiver Mathematik gelten muss.
Grundlage der Analyse ist eine Neubewertung des Diagramms als zentralen Charakteristikums griechischer Mathematik aus modelltheoretischer Perspektive. Eine Untersuchung der Quadratverdopplung im Menon und zur Würfelverdopplung (Delisches Problem) zeigt, dass eine theoretische Mathematik erstmals für Platon bezeugt ist. Dass weiter auch nur Platon ein Motiv hatte, sie zu erfinden, ergibt sich aus der Explikation von Platons Theorie der mathematischen Modellierung anhand des Liniengleichnisses in Verbindung mit dem Nachweis, dass der Timaios als deren praktische Umsetzung fungiert.
Die Studie bietet wissenschaftshistorisch neue Einsichten zur Entstehung von Mathematik, philosophiehistorisch zu Platons Ontologie und Epistemologie und modelltheoretisch zu Theorie und Praxis von Modellierung.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110616491
ISBN:: 9783110616491
ISBN:: 9783110615005
ISBN:: 9783110613827
Fachgebiet:: Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Klassische Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Philologie
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft
Fachgebiet:: Wissenschaft und Medizin der Antike
Fachgebiet:: Philosophie der Antike
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch 2018

Revolutions and Continuity in Greek Mathematics

Michalis Sialaros

Band 8 in dieser Reihe

Mehr Zitieren

This volume brings together a number of leading scholars working in the field of ancient Greek mathematics to present their latest research. In their respective area of specialization, all contributors offer stimulating approaches to questions of historical and historiographical ‘revolutions’ and ‘continuity’. Taken together, they provide a powerful lens for evaluating the applicability of Thomas Kuhn’s ideas on ‘scientific revolutions’ to the discipline of ancient Greek mathematics. Besides the latest historiographical studies on ‘geometrical algebra’ and ‘premodern algebra’, the reader will find here some papers which offer new insights into the controversial relationship between Greek and pre-Hellenic mathematical practices. Some other contributions place emphasis on the other edge of the historical spectrum, by exploring historical lines of ‘continuity’ between ancient Greek, Byzantine and post-Hellenic mathematics. The terminology employed by Greek mathematicians, along with various non-textual and material elements, is another topic which some of the essays in the volume explore. Finally, the last three articles focus on a traditionally rich source on ancient Greek mathematics; namely the works of Plato and Aristotle.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110565959
ISBN:: 9783110565959
ISBN:: 9783110565270
ISBN:: 9783110563658
Fachgebiet:: Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Klassische Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Philologie
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft
Fachgebiet:: Wissenschaft und Medizin der Antike
Fachgebiet:: Mathematik
Fachgebiet:: Geschichte und Philosophie
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch 2018

Syrische Astrologie und das Syrische Medizinbuch

Stefanie Rudolf

Band 7 in dieser Reihe

Mehr Zitieren

Erstmals wird eine Gesamtschau der Astrologie in der syrisch-orthodoxen Literatur geboten. Die Frage, ob alte mesopotamische oder ägyptische Vorläufer in dieser Literatur aufgegangen sind, begleitet die historische Einführung in Astrologie und Divination.

Auch wenn die Astrologie als "scientia non grata" für die Orthodoxie ein vermeintliches Schattendasein führen musste, ist sie in den verschiedensten Textgattungen der syrischen Literatur zu finden.

Die bedeutendste Quelle für diese Texte, das Syrische Medizinbuch, ist als Kompendium in mehrfachem Sinne fruchtbar. Zum einen wird durch die kompilative Gestaltung der Gebrauch solcher Texte, die im Grunde Anweisungen darstellen, deutlich. Die Bezüge zu anderen Wissensbereichen wie der Landwirtschaft, der Astronomie, Kalender- und Heilkunde bezeugen ihre nahezu universellen Anwendungsbereiche. Zum anderen konnte die Analyse des Materials bisher nicht identifizierte Texte zu Tage fördern, darunter ein Auszug aus den hippokratischen Aphorismen und den Geoponica in syrischer Übersetzung, eine bisher unbekannte Rezension einer syrischen Kosmologie von Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagites und zahlreiche Intertexte in syrischer, griechischer, arabischer und mandäischer Sprache.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110565737
ISBN:: 9783110565737
ISBN:: 9783110565263
ISBN:: 9783110563641
Fachgebiet:: Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Klassische Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Philologie
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft
Fachgebiet:: Wissenschaft und Medizin der Antike
Fachgebiet:: Wirkungs- und Rezeptionsgeschichte
Fachgebiet:: Altorientalistik und Vorderasiatische Archäologie
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch 2018

ʿĪsā ibn ʿAlī's Book on the Useful Properties of Animal Parts

Edition, translation and study of a fluid tradition

Lucia Raggetti

Band 6 in dieser Reihe

Mehr Zitieren

The ‘Science of properties’ represents a large and fascinating part of Arabic technical literature. The book of ʿĪsā ibn ʿAlī (9th cent.) ‘On the useful properties of animal parts’ was the first of such compositions in Arabic. His author was a Syriac physician, disciple of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq, who worked at the Abbasid court during the floruit of the translation movement. For the composition of his book, as a multilingual scholar, he collected many different antique and late antique sources. The structure of the text itself—a collection of recipes that favoured a fluid transmission—becomes here the key to a new formal analysis that oriented the editorial solutions as well. The ‘Book on the useful properties of animal parts’ is a new tile that the Arabic tradition offers to the larger mosaic representing the transfer of technical knowledge in pre-modern times. This text is an important passage in that process of acquisition and original elaboration of knowledge that characterized the early Abbasid period.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110550368
ISBN:: 9783110550368
ISBN:: 9783110549942
ISBN:: 9783110549867
Fachgebiet:: Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Klassische Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Wissenschaft und Medizin der Antike
Fachgebiet:: Islam- und Nahostwissenschaft
Fachgebiet:: Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Kultur und Gesellschaft
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch 2017

Hellenistic Science at Court

Marquis Berrey

Band 5 in dieser Reihe

Mehr Zitieren

The development of science in the modern world is often held to depend on such institutions as universities, peer-reviewed journals, and democracy. How, then, did new science emerge in the pre-modern culture of the Hellenistic Egyptian monarchy? Berrey argues that the court society formed around the Ptolemaic pharaohs Ptolemy III and IV (reigned successively 246-205/4 BCE) provided an audience for cross-disciplinary, learned knowledge, as physicians, mathematicians, and mechanicians clothed themselves in the virtues of courtiers attendant on the kings. The multicultural Greco-Egyptian court society prized entertainment that drew on earlier literature, mixed genres and cultures, and highlighted motion and sound. New cross-disciplinary science in the Hellenistic period gained its social currency and subsequent scientific success through its entertainment value as court science. Ancient court science sheds light on the long history of scientific interdisciplinarity.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110541939
ISBN:: 9783110541939
ISBN:: 9783110658880
ISBN:: 9783110539776
ISBN:: 9783110540154
Fachgebiet:: Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Klassische Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Philologie
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft
Fachgebiet:: Wissenschaft und Medizin der Antike
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch 2017

Collecting Recipes

Byzantine and Jewish Pharmacology in Dialogue

Lennart Lehmhaus, Matteo Martelli

Band 4 in dieser Reihe

Mehr Zitieren

With a clear comparative approach, this volume brings together for the first time contributions that cover different periods of the history of ancient pharmacology, from Greek, Byzantine, and Syriac medicine to the Rabbinic-Talmudic medical discourses. This collection opens up new synchronic and diachronic perspectives in the study of the ancient traditions of recipe-books and medical collections. Besides the highly influential Galenic tradition, the contributions will focus on less studied Byzantine and Syriac sources as well as on the Talmudic tradition, which has never been systematically investigated in relation to medicine. This inquiry will highlight the overwhelming mass of information about drugs and remedies, which accumulated over the centuries and was disseminated in a variety of texts belonging to distinct cultural milieus. Through a close analysis of some relevant case studies, this volume will trace some paths of this transmission and transformation of pharmacological knowledge across cultural and linguistic boundaries, by pointing to the variety of disciplines and areas of expertise involved in the process.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501502538
ISBN:: 9781501502538
ISBN:: 9781501510779
ISBN:: 9781501502552
Fachgebiet:: Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Klassische Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Wissenschaft und Medizin der Antike
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Studien
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Rabbinisches Judentum
Fachgebiet:: Theologie und Religion
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Rabbinisches Judentum
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch 2015

In the Wake of the Compendia

Infrastructural Contexts and the Licensing of Empiricism in Ancient and Medieval Mesopotamia

J. Cale Johnson

Band 3 in dieser Reihe

Mehr Zitieren

In the Wake of the Compendia presents papers that examine the history of technical compendia as they moved between institutions and societies in ancient and medieval Mesopotamia.
This volume offers new perspectives on the development and transmission of technical compilations, looking especially at the relationship between empirical knowledge and textual transmission in early scientific thinking. The eleven contributions to the volume derive from a panel held at the American Oriental Society in 2013 and cover more than three millennia of historical development, ranging from Babylonian medicine and astronomy to the persistence of Mesopotamian lore in Syriac and Arabic meditations on the properties of animals. The volume also includes major contributions on the history of Mesopotamian “rationality,” epistemic labels for tested and tried remedies, and the development of depersonalized case histories in Babylonian therapeutic compendia. Together, these studies offer an overview of several important moments in the development of non-Western scientific thinking and a significant contribution to our understanding of how traditions of technical knowledge were produced and transmitted in the ancient world.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501502507
ISBN:: 9781501510762
ISBN:: 9781501502507
ISBN:: 9781501502521
Fachgebiet:: Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Altorientalistik und Vorderasiatische Archäologie
Fachgebiet:: Theologie und Religion
Fachgebiet:: Altes Testament / Altorientalistik
Fachgebiet:: Altorientalistik
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch 2014

Melothesia in Babylonia

Medicine, Magic, and Astrology in the Ancient Near East

Markham Judah Geller

Band 2 in dieser Reihe

Mehr Zitieren

This monograph begins with a puzzle: a Babylonian text from late 5th century BCE Uruk associating various diseases with bodily organs, which has evaded interpretation. The correct answer may reside in Babylonian astrology, since the development of the zodiac in the late 5th century BCE offered innovative approaches to the healing arts. The zodiac—a means of predicting the movements of heavenly bodies—transformed older divination (such as hemerologies listing lucky and unlucky days) and introduced more favorable magical techniques and medical prescriptions, which are comparable to those found in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos and non-Hippocratic Greek medicine. Babylonian melothesia (i.e., the science of charting how zodiacal signs affect the human body) offers the most likely solution explaining the Uruk tablet.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516934
ISBN:: 978-1-61451-775-7
ISBN:: 978-1-61451-693-4
ISBN:: 9781614519348
Fachgebiet:: Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Altorientalistik und Vorderasiatische Archäologie
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch 2013

Writing Science

Medical and Mathematical Authorship in Ancient Greece

Markus Asper, Anna-Maria Kanthak

Band 1 in dieser Reihe

Mehr Zitieren

Scientific and technological texts have not played a significant role in modern literary criticism. This applies to Classics, too, despite the fact that a large part of the field’s extant texts deal with questions of medicine, mathematics, and natural philosophy. Focusing mostly on medical and mathematical texts, this collection aims at approaching ancient Greek science and its texts from the cross-disciplinary perspective of authorship. Among the questions addressed are: What is a scientific author? In what respect does scientific writing differ from ‘literary’ writing? How does the author present himself as an authoritative figure through his text? What strategies of trust do these authors employ? These and related questions cannot be discussed within the typical boundaries of modern academic disciplines, thus most of the sixteen authors, many of them leading experts in the fields of ancient science, bring a comparative perspective to their subjects. As a result, the collection not only offers a new approach to this vast area of ancient literature, thus effectively discovering new possibilities for literary criticism, it also reflects on our current forms of scientific and scholarly written communication.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110295122
ISBN:: 978-3-11-029505-4
ISBN:: 978-3-11-029512-2
Fachgebiet:: Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Klassische Altertumswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Philologie
Fachgebiet:: Griechische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft
Fachgebiet:: Wissenschaft und Medizin der Antike
Fachgebiet:: Philosophie der Antike
Fachgebiet:: Literaturwissenschaft
Fachgebiet:: Geschichte der Literaturwissenschaft
Verlag:: De Gruyter