John Steele and Mathieu Ossendrijver (Eds.), Studies on the Ancient Exact Sciences in Honour of Lis Brack-Bernsen, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2017

Abstract

THE ANCIENT EXACT SCIENCES are the main subject in this collection of papers, offered in honor of Lis Brack-Bernsen by her colleagues and friends. The topics of the articles are linked by the themes that have been at the center of much of Lis’s own work: the Babylonian observational record, and the relationship between observation and theory; the gnomon, sundials, and time measurement; and the relationship between different scientific activities in the ancient world, especially the connections between mathematics and astronomy. Lis Brack-Bernsen has been a key figure in tranforming the study of Babylonian astronomy from an almost exclusive focus on the mathematical astronomy of the late period to embracing a much broader consideration of all aspects of the subject, both early and late, mathematical and observational, astronomical and astrological, and their relationships between one another. The papers demonstrate the wide variety of questions asked and approaches used by historians of ancient science.

Content

7–9 John Steele, "Introduction", in: John Steele and Mathieu Ossendrijver (Eds.), Studies on the Ancient Exact Sciences in Honour of Lis Brack-Bernsen, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2017, 7–9
11–15 Norbert A. Roughton, "Foreword: An Essay in Story Form, Honoring Babylonian Astronomers and Connecting Them with Scholars Who Study the Tablets Today", in: John Steele and Mathieu Ossendrijver (Eds.), Studies on the Ancient Exact Sciences in Honour of Lis Brack-Bernsen, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2017, 11–15
19–68 Peter Huber, "Dating by Month-Lengths Revisited", in: John Steele and Mathieu Ossendrijver (Eds.), Studies on the Ancient Exact Sciences in Honour of Lis Brack-Bernsen, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2017, 19–68
69–81 John Steele, "A Text Containing Observations of Mars from the Time of Nebuchadnezzar II", in: John Steele and Mathieu Ossendrijver (Eds.), Studies on the Ancient Exact Sciences in Honour of Lis Brack-Bernsen, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2017, 69–81
83–103 Gerd Graßhoff and Erich Wenger, "The Coordinate System of Astronomical Observations in the Babylonian Diaries", in: John Steele and Mathieu Ossendrijver (Eds.), Studies on the Ancient Exact Sciences in Honour of Lis Brack-Bernsen, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2017, 83–103
105–126 Teije de Jong, "On the Origin of the Lunar and Solar Periods in Babylonian Lunar Theory", in: John Steele and Mathieu Ossendrijver (Eds.), Studies on the Ancient Exact Sciences in Honour of Lis Brack-Bernsen, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2017, 105–126
127–146 Mathieu Ossendrijver, "BM 76488 - a Babylonian Compendium about Conjunctions and other Planetary Phenomena", in: John Steele and Mathieu Ossendrijver (Eds.), Studies on the Ancient Exact Sciences in Honour of Lis Brack-Bernsen, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2017, 127–146
149–163 Hermann Hunger, "The So-Called Report on Seasonal Hours (K 2077+): A New Interpretation", in: John Steele and Mathieu Ossendrijver (Eds.), Studies on the Ancient Exact Sciences in Honour of Lis Brack-Bernsen, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2017, 149–163
165–182 Elisabeth Rinner, "Ancient Greek Sundials and the Theory of Conic Sections Reconsidered", in: John Steele and Mathieu Ossendrijver (Eds.), Studies on the Ancient Exact Sciences in Honour of Lis Brack-Bernsen, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2017, 165–182
183–203 Alexander Jones, "The Roofed Spherical Sundial and the Greek Geometry of Curves", in: John Steele and Mathieu Ossendrijver (Eds.), Studies on the Ancient Exact Sciences in Honour of Lis Brack-Bernsen, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2017, 183–203
207–224 Jens Høyrup, "Practitioners - School ‘Mathematicians’: The Divisions of Pre-Modern Mathematics and Its Actors", in: John Steele and Mathieu Ossendrijver (Eds.), Studies on the Ancient Exact Sciences in Honour of Lis Brack-Bernsen, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2017, 207–224
225–232 John Steele and Wayne Horowitz, "A Mysterious Circular Tablet with Numbers and Stars", in: John Steele and Mathieu Ossendrijver (Eds.), Studies on the Ancient Exact Sciences in Honour of Lis Brack-Bernsen, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2017, 225–232
233–260 Francesca Rochberg, "An Ancient Celestial Empire of Benevolent Knowledge", in: John Steele and Mathieu Ossendrijver (Eds.), Studies on the Ancient Exact Sciences in Honour of Lis Brack-Bernsen, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2017, 233–260
263–269 John Steele and Mathieu Ossendrijver, "In Honor of Lis Brack-Bernsen", in: John Steele and Mathieu Ossendrijver (Eds.), Studies on the Ancient Exact Sciences in Honour of Lis Brack-Bernsen, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2017, 263–269