The research group worked at the interface between the history of medicine and philosophy. The group examined how the faculties of the soul and the diseases of mind were localized in ancient times and how these ancient theories have contributed to the concepts of modern times. AT A GLANCE 18 Researchers 5 Research Projects 4 […]
Research Topic: "mapping"
Diffusion of Science (D-1-5)
Research projectIn this project the transformation and diffusion of ancient science was investigated with a focus on two key periods of change: a formative period, 400–330 BC, during which mathematical astronomy developed in Babylonia; a subsequent expansive period, 330 BCE–500 AD, during which there was a marked increase in the exchange of scientific knowledge and practices between Babylonia and its neighbouring cultures in the eastern Mediterranean region.
Organisation of Ancient Science (D-1-4)
Research projectThis project was concerned with organisational, practical and other contextual aspects of scholarship in Babylonia, Greece, the Greco-Roman world and Egypt during the period 600 BCE – 400 AD. Scholarly communities and their relation to the temples and other institutions are investigated on the basis of textual, archival and archaeological evidence. The practical applications of astronomy, astrology, geography and medicine and the mutual relations between these scholarly disciplines are explored.
Causal reasoning (D-1-2)
Research projectThis project investigated how natural phenomena in different realms of nature (celestial, medical, terrestrial) were interpreted as signs, and how the notion of natural sign changed in Babylonia and Greece, as evidenced by innovations in various textual corpora including Babylonian astronomical diaries, predictive astronomical methods (e.g. the Babylonian Goal-Year method and mathematical astronomy) and contemporaneous developments in astrology, other fields of divination and medicine. The main aims of the project were A: To establish a methodology of signs and its connection to modern concepts of causal reasoning; B: To map how theories underlying the interpretation of signs were actually used in various fields of reasoning.
Mathematical astronomy in Babylonia (D-1-1)
Research projectIn this project various operational, mathematical, astronomical, conceptual and theoretical aspects of Babylonian mathematical astronomy were investigated. Babylonian mathematical astronomy comprises about 440 cuneiform tablets and fragments from the Achaemenid, Seleucid and Parthian eras of the Late Babylonian period (400-50 BCE). The tablets were found in Babylon and Uruk, two main centers of Babylonian science.
Space of nature (D-1)
Research GroupThis group investigated how the exact sciences of the natural world developed in antiquity. The focus was on those sciences that deal with the heavens – astronomy and meteorology – as well as geography and medicine, in Mesopotamia and Greece during the pivotal, transformational period from the 5th century BCE to the 1st century AD […]
Italia illustrata (C-5-9)
Research projectThe original subject of this research project was the proto-national conception of Italy that developed in the 15th and 16th century through the interaction of historiographical, geographical and literary media. Contrary to the first idea to cover the whole period, the project was finally built around the “Italia illustrata” of Flavio Biondo (ca. 1450), a detailed historiographical and geographical description of Italy in which the author struggles with a huge number of information cues, such as toponyms (place names, points-of-interest), landmarks, streets, distances, places, rivers, walls, historic sites that are foremost based on ancient authors such as Strabo, Pliny or Livy.
Cognitive perception of space in Mesoamerica (C-5-8)
Research projectThis research project studied prehispanic codices and early colonial map-like documents from Mesoamerica. It shows the changes the representations underwent after contact with the Spaniards. The Prehispanic documents, known as Codices, reflect a distinctive perception by means of a graphical representation system that distinguishes them from the “lienzos” and “mapas” (maps) produced in the course of the Spanish colonization. The study examined the ‘mapped worlds’ in the the ‘art of mapping’ in Mesoamerica and compares the visualization and organization of space in the pictorial documents before and after the Spanish Conquest.
Peutinger Map (C-5-7)
Research projectThis research project investigated the Tabula Peutingeriana from the perspective of the “common sense geography”, theory jointly developed by Topoi research group (C-5) Common Sense Geography. With regard to the significance of this source it is surprising that an academic commentary had not been provided yet.
Paradoxography and Strange Things (C-5-6)
Research projectThis research project consisted in a critical edition and commentary of the Anonymus Florentinus for the Fragmente der griechischen Historiker IV (ed. by Stefan Schorn, Kai Bordersen, Klaus Geus), pursued jointly with an extensive study of the epistemic norms which inform the tradition of paradoxography. This latter, interpretive work is located within the context of a study of norms of rationality and evidence in Greek (primarily: Aristotelian) philosophy and science.