Keeping watch in Babylon : the astronomical diaries in context /
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This volume of collected essays, the first of its kind in any language, investigates the Astronomical Diaries from ancient Babylon, a collection of almost 1000 clay tablets which, over a period of some five hundred years (6th century to 1st century BCE), record observations of selected astronomical phenomena as well as the economy and history of Mesopotamia and surrounding regions. The volume asks who the scholars were, what motivated them to 'keep watch in Babylon' and how their approach changed in the course of the collection's long history. Contributors come from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, including Assyriology, Classics, ancient history, the history of science and the history of religion.
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1 online resource. :
9789004397767
Al-Tadhkira fī ʿilm al-hayʾa /
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Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) was an influential philosopher, theologian, mathematician and astronomer, besides being the first director of the famous observatory at Marāghah near Tabriz as well as a man of politics. The author of a large number of works, he is especially famous for such treatises as his Tajrīd al-iʿtiqād on theology; the Zīj-i Īlkhānī on astronomy; the Ḥall mushkilāt al-Ishārāt ; his influential commentary on Avicenna's (428/1037) Kitāb al-ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt on philosophy and logic; and his Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī on ethics. Another famous work is his Tadhkira fī ʿilm al-hayʾa published here. As stated by the editor, this is one of the most important and influential astronomical works written in the pre-modern Islamic world. It belongs to the second phase of Ṭūsī's academic career and constitutes a synthesis between two earlier works by him, written when he was still working for the Nizārī Ismailis. Arabic text and apparatus, Persian introduction translated from the English edition.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406476
9786002030917
Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī's Memoir on astronomy : al-tadhkira fī ʻilm al-hayʼa /
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Title on spine : Tūsī's Memoir on astronomy.
Translation of : تذکره فى علم الهىئه. :
2 volumes (xiii, 656 pages) : illustrations ; 24 cm. :
Includes bibliographical references (pages [615]-635) and indexes. :
0387940510
Writing science before the Greek s a naturalistic analysis of the Babylonian astronomical treatise MUL.APIN /
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The beginnings of written science have long been associated with classical Greece. Yet in ancient Mesopotamia, highly-sophisticated scientific works in cuneiform script were in active use while Greek civilization flourished in the West. The subject of this volume is the astronomical series MUL.APIN, which can be dated to the seventh century BCE and which represents the crowning achievement of traditional Mesopotamian observational astronomy. Writing Science before the Greeks explores this early text from the perspective of modern cognitive science in an effort to articulate the processes underlying its composition. The analysis suggests that writing itself, through the cumulative recording of observations, played a role in the evolution of scientific thought. \'All in all, the authors should be congratulated for this groundbreaking study. Apart from significant new insights into MUL.APIN it has opened up a new avenue for research on ancient scientific texts that is likely to yield further interesting results, particularly if the cognitive analysis is combined with other approaches.\' Mathieu Ossendrijver, Humboldt University
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004202313 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Arabic Astronomy in Sanskrit : Al-Birjandī on Tadhkira II, Chapter 11 and its Sanskrit Translation /
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This book provides the first presentation of the bilingual textual material that illustrates the transmission of Islamic astronomy to scientists of the Indian Sanskritic tradition. It includes editions of the chapter of the Tadhkira in which the mid-thirteenth century Persian astronomer, Nasīr al-dīn al-ṭūsī discussed the new solutions that he devised to overcome certain technical problems in the lunar and planetary models of Ptolemaic astronomy and of the learned commentary composed by al-Birjandī in the early sixteenth century together with the Sanskrit translation of both made by Nayanasukha at Jaipur in 1729. An English translation of the Arabic texts and a commentary discussing their technical meanings and the deviations from them in the Sanskrit version together with a glossary of the Arabic and Sanskrit technical vocabulary conclude the volume.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004453418
9789004124752
Volkstümliche Astronomie im islamischen Mittelalter : zur Bestimmung der Gebetszeiten und der Qibla bei al-Aṣbaḥī, Ibn Raḥīq und al-Fārisī /
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This volume deals with the determination of the times of Muslim prayer and the direction towards the Kaaba in Mecca (Arabic qibla ) in a little known astronomical tradition of the Islamic Middle Ages. It presents an edition, translation, and explanation of selected chapters from three of the most important folk astronomical treatises, written by al-Aṣbaḥī (Yemen, 13th c.), Ibn Raḥīq (Hejaz, 11th c.), and al-Fārisī (Yemen, 13th c.). The first part introduces the authors and their works and describes the relevant religious and astronomical background. The second part comprises the edition of the selected - and now for the first time published - chapters of the three works and a German translation. The third part contains a lexicographical survey with basic astronomical, religious, and related information, and a commentary on each chapter. The fourth part gives an overview of the topics dicussed.
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Originally presented as the author's thesis (Doctoral)--Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, 2005. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [731]-765) and index. :
9789047420507 :
0169-8729 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
al-Qāmūs al-falakī wa-al-ibrāj wa-sụwar al-nujūm, aw, kawkibātuhā wa-asmāʼuhā al-ʻArabīyah /
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Imprint on added title page : Beirut, American Mission Press, 1950.
Title on added title page : Astronomical dictionary ; the zodiac & the constellations. Arabic star-names, their meaning, transliteration and pronunciation. :
326, [3] pages : illustrations, portraits ; 23 cm.
Head of all years : astronomy and calendars at Qumran in their ancient context /
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Rather than being an isolated, primitive body of knowledge the Jewish calendar tradition of 364 days constituted an integral part of the astronomical science of the ancient world. This tradition-attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Pseudepigrapha-stands out as a coherent, novel synthesis, representing the Jewish authors' apocalyptic worldview. The calendar is studied here both "from within"-analyzing its textual manifestations -and "from without"-via a comparison with ancient Mesopotamian astronomy. This analysis reveals that the calendrical realm constituted a significant case of inter-cultural borrowing, pertinent to similar such cases in ancient literature. Special attention is given to the "Book of Astronomy" (1 Enoch 72-82) and a variety of calendrical and liturgical texts from Qumran.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [289]-307) and indexes. :
9789047424192 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Astral sciences in Mesopotamia /
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Astronomy and astrology, or the astral sciences, played an enormous, if not a key role in the political and religious life of the Ancient Near East, and, later, of the Greek and Roman world. This is the first comprehensive and up-to-date account of the origins of the astral sciences in the Ancient Near East. Every type of Sumerian or Akkadian text dealing with descriptive or mathematical astronomy, including many individual tablets are thoroughly dealt with. All aspects, such as the history of discovery, reconstruction, and interpretation come to the fore, accompanied by a full bibliography. At that the reader will find descriptions of astronomical contents, an explanation of their scientific meaning and the place a given genre or tablet has in the development of astronomy both within the Mesopotamian culture and outside of it. Because celestial omens are intimately related to astronomy in Mesopotamian science, these are also discussed extensively. The material is arranged both chronologically and thematically, so as to help make Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia a reference work on the subject in its truest sense.
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1 online resource (xviii, 303 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 278-292) and index. :
9789004294134 :
0169-9423 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
On Both Sides of the Strait of Gibraltar : Studies in the history of medieval astronomy in the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghrib /
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"In On Both Sides of the Strait of Gibraltar Julio Samsó studies the history of medieval astronomy in al-Andalus (Muslim Spain), the Maghrib and the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. He proves that the Arabic, Latin, Hebrew, Castilian and Catalan sources belong to the same tradition whose origin can be dated in the 11th century due to the changes in Ptolemy's astronomical theory introduced by the Toledan astronomer Ibn al-Zarqālluh/Azarquiel. The book also analyses the role of al-Andalus and the Iberian Peninsula in the transmission of Islamic astronomy to Europe and justifies the fact that Eastern Islamic works published after ca. 950 CE were not accessible to medieval European scholars because they had not reached al-Andalus"--
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004436589
9789004436565
The Star of Bethlehem and the Magi : interdisciplinary perspectives from experts on the ancient Near East, the Greco-Roman world, and modern astronomy /
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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.
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Papers edited from a colloquium The Star of Bethlehem: Historical and Astronomical Perspectives held October 22-24, 2014 in Groningen, Netherlands. :
1 online resource (xxii, 695 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004308473 :
1388-3909 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.