posted
Hieroglyphics cracked 1,000 years earlier than thought
3 October 2004
Western scholars were not the first to decipher the ancient language of the pharaohs, according to a new book that will be published later this year by a UCL researcher.
Dr Okasha El Daly of UCL’s Institute of Archaeology will reveal that Arabic scholars not only took a keen interest in ancient Egypt but also correctly interpreted hieroglyphics in the ninth century AD – almost 1,000 years earlier than previously thought.
It has long been thought that Jean-Francois Champollion was the first person to crack hieroglyphics in 1822 using newly discovered Egyptian antiquities such as the Rosetta stone. But fresh analysis of manuscripts tucked away in long forgotten collections scattered across the globe prove that Arabic scholars got there first.
Dr Okasha El Daly, of UCL’s Institute of Archaeology, explains:
“For two and a half centuries the study of Egyptology has been dominated by a Euro-centric view, which has virtually ignored over a thousand years of Arabic scholarship and enquiry encouraged by Islam.
“Prior to Napoleonic times little was known in the West about the ancient civilisation of Egypt except what had been recorded in the Bible. It was assumed that the world of the pharaohs had long since been forgotten by Egyptians, who were thought to have been incorporated into the expanding Islamic world by the seventh century.
“But this overhasty conclusion ignores the vast contribution of medieval Arabic scholars and others between the seventh and 16th centuries. In reality a huge corpus of medieval writing by both scholars and ordinary people exists that dates from long before the earliest European Renaissance. Analysis reveals that not only did Moslems have a deep interest in the study of Ancient Egypt, they could also correctly decipher hieroglyphic script.”
Following the Roman invasion of Egypt in 30 BC the use of hieroglyphics began to die out with the last known writing in the fifth century AD.
While Western medieval commentators believed that hieroglyphics were symbols each representing a single concept Dr El Daly has shown that Arab scholars grasped the fundamental principle that hieroglyphics could represent sounds as well as ideas.
Using his unique expertise in both Egyptology and medieval Arabic writers, Dr El Daly began a seven year investigation of Arabic writing on ancient Egypt.
“The manuscripts were scattered worldwide in private as well as public collections and were mostly not catalogued. Even when they were, they were often wrongly classified so I had to go through each one individually - it is not like researching in modern books with an index which you can check for relevant information,” says Dr El Daly.
“A specialist in only Arabic or Islamic studies reading these manuscripts would fail to grasp their significance to Egyptology. Conversely Egyptologists think that Arabs and Moslems had nothing useful to say about ancient Egypt, so there wasn’t any need to look at manuscripts that were mainly the domain of scholars within the disciplines of Arabic/Oriental studies.”
The breakthrough in Dr El Daly’s research came from analysis of the work of Abu Bakr Ahmad Ibn Wahshiyah, a ninth century alchemist. Ibn Wahshiyah’s work on ancient writing systems showed that he was able to correctly decipher many hieroglyphic signs. Being an alchemist not a linguist, his primary interest was to identify the phonetic value and meaning of hieroglyphic signs with the aim of accessing the ancient Egyptian scientific knowledge inscribed in hieroglyphs.
“By comparing Ibn Wahshiyah’s conclusions with those in current books on Egyptian Language, I was able to assess his accuracy in understanding hieroglyphic signs,” says Dr El Daly.
“In particular I looked at the Egyptian Grammar of Sir Alan Gardiner which has a sign list at the end, it revealed that Ibn Wahshiyah understood perfectly well the nature of Egyptian hieroglyphs.”
Dr El Daly added: “Western culture misinterprets Islam because we think teaching before the Quran is shunned, which isn’t the case. They valued history and assumed that Egypt was a land of science and wisdom and as such they wanted to learn their language to have access to such vast knowledge.
“Critically they did not, unlike the West, write history to fit with the religious ideas of the time, which makes their accounts more reliable. They were also keen on the universality of human history based on the unity of the origin of human beings and the diversity of their appearance and languages. Furthermore, there are likely to be many hidden manuscripts dotted round the world that could make a significant contribution to our understanding of the ancient world.
Dr Okasha El Daly is based in UCL’s Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, one of the world’s largest collections of artefacts covering thousands of years of ancient Egyptian prehistory and history. On Wednesday 6 October UCL launches the biggest university fundraising campaign, Advancing London’s Global University - the Campaign for UCL, which will seek to raise £300 million over the coming decade, including £25 million to build a purpose built museum, the Panopticon, that will house UCL’s collections of Egyptology, art and rare books in an environment that preserves them for all to see.
The Panopticon, which means ‘all-visible’ in Greek, will be unlike any other museum in the UK because the entire collection will be on display and publicly accessible. Other highlights will include works by Durer, Rembrandt, Turner and Constable; an unrivalled collection of John Flaxman’s drawings and sculpture; the first edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost and the George Orwell archives.
For further information, please contact:
Judith H Moore Media Relations Manager University College London Tel: +44 (0)20 7679 7678 Mobile: +44 (0)77333 07596 Email: Judith.moore@ucl.ac.uk
Notes to editors
‘The missing millennium: ancient Egypt in Arabic medieval writing’ will be published in December by UCL press
posted
That Islamic scholars would have shown an interest in and made progress towards the translation of Heiroglyphs is not surprising. Islam is given a bad rap these days for being a dark conservative anti-intellectual force but the fundamentalist nature of Islam today is to a large extent a reaction to western imperialism. One has to recall that the introduction of Arab/Islamic scholarship into Europe was responsible for bringing it out of the dark ages. Works such as The Almagest, in which Arab/Islamic scholars revived more ancient learning (in this case the Greek Ptolemy's work) revived Astronomy and science in the west. Supercar, Do you know to what extent Egypt was the nexus between Islamic scholarship and more ancient body's of knowledge? In other words: Egypt was a font of knowledge for the Greeks(as has been discussed on this forum in many threads), indeed Ptolemy wrote the Almagest in Canopus Egypt. Was the conquest of Egypt by Arabs and the scholarly tradition encountered there the thing that spurred Islamic culture and learning? I'd appreciate your (or any one else's comment on this).
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Arab scholars were in Egypt long before Europeans, so what do you expect?
Posts: 26252 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Calypso: That Islamic scholars would have shown an interest in and made progress towards the translation of Heiroglyphs is not surprising.
The need to be surprised at such revelations isn't the intended point of focus, but more the issue of Eurocentric tactics of obscuring history that doesn't place Europeans at the center of matters. As the article quite candidly states:
"It has long been thought that Jean-Francois Champollion was the first person to crack hieroglyphics in 1822 using newly discovered Egyptian antiquities such as the Rosetta stone. But fresh analysis of manuscripts tucked away in long forgotten collections scattered across the globe prove that Arabic scholars got there first."
quote:Calypso: Islam is given a bad rap these days for being a dark conservative anti-intellectual force but the fundamentalist nature of Islam today is to a large extent a reaction to western imperialism. One has to recall that the introduction of Arab/Islamic scholarship into Europe was responsible for bringing it out of the dark ages. Works such as The Almagest, in which Arab/Islamic scholars revived more ancient learning (in this case the Greek Ptolemy's work) revived Astronomy and science in the west. Supercar, Do you know to what extent Egypt was the nexus between Islamic scholarship and more ancient body's of knowledge? In other words: Egypt was a font of knowledge for the Greeks(as has been discussed on this forum in many threads), indeed Ptolemy wrote the Almagest in Canopus Egypt. Was the conquest of Egypt by Arabs and the scholarly tradition encountered there the thing that spurred Islamic culture and learning? I'd appreciate your (or any one else's comment on this).
Well, expansion of Islam was largely responsible for the growth and golden era of Arab-Muslim culture in the Middle ages. I refer to “Arab-Muslim” here, because not all those involved in the progress of the culture were Muslim or Arab, but all those who helped it progress, used Arabic as a common communication medium, whether or not their first tongue was Arabic, or their religion was Islam.
“Kruisciunas then points that during the Middle Ages the principal astronomers were Muslims, Jews, and some Christians, and what they had in common was that they wrote in Arabic.This was the principal language of astronomy of the 9th through 11th centuries, just as English is today.” - Dr. Salah Zaimeche, Research Assistant, UMIST, Manchester, UK and Researcher at FSTC
“…amongst the Muslims, only a number of such scientists were Arabs; most were instead Turks, Iranians, Spanish Muslims, Berbers, Kurds...thus a myriad of people and origins brought under the mantel of Islam, a religion open to all who sought to, and excelled in learning. And that was the first, and by far, the most multienthnic culture and civilisation that had ever existed, and not equalled in many respects, even today, not even in countires and institutions which keep adverstising their equal opportunity status.” - Dr. Salah Zaimeche
The Arabs incorporated knowledge that they came across from the various regions they had come into contact with, in their quest to expand Islam. So yes, the Arabs did incorporate knowledge they came across in Egypt, with the learning center in Alexandria of particular note, but this was not exclusive to Egypt. Knowledge was incorporated from regions as far as northwest Africa, the “Near East”, and Southeast Asia [e.g. India and China]. Internal factors in some of these regions, in turn helped in the progress towards the Arab-Muslim golden age.
“Secondly, a "renaissance of culture" is said to have occurred, starting in the beginning of the ninth century A.D. after the overthrow of the Umayyads by the Abbasids. This cultural rebirth is characterized mainly by an increased interest in the sciences (especially astronomy and chemistry) on behalf of the government. Rulers began to sponsor astronomical research through such activities as building observatories and funding scholars. Thus, the phenomenon may be at least partially explained by this conjunction of a succession of rulers who actively supported astronomical research and the increased availability of both Greek and Indian astronomical data, theories, and observations.” - Joseph Hell
“Whilst universality of learning was a fundamental element in Islamic civilization, science was the ‘hobby of the masses, with paupers and kings competing to obtain knowledge…’ Whereas in western Christendom, as Haskins observes, ‘….relatively few could read and write, these being chiefly ecclesiastics and, save for the very moderate attainments of an individual parish priest, men of education were concentrated in certain definite groups separated from one another by wide stretches or rural ignorance.” - Dr. Salah Zaimeche
Arab world took pre-existing knowledge and refined it further throughout the years. In addition to this, new ideas were brought to the fore, allowing science to flourish and expand. So, science was progressing during the so-called Europeans “Dark Ages”; it didn’t come to a standstill as Eurocentrists would have us believe. For example,…
“There are those who seem to be under the impression that all the Arabs ever contributed to astronomy was to have preserved the knowledge and observations of the Greeks during Europe's "Dark Ages", only to hand this information back to them at a later date so that the Europeans could continue advancing the science of astronomy. This, however, is entirely untrue. The Arabs advanced astronomy significantly during the middle ages. Not only did they take pre-existing theories and instruments and improve upon them, but they also invented entirely new theories and made their own discoveries.” - Joseph Hell.
quote:Supercar, Do you know to what extent Egypt was the nexus between Islamic scholarship and more ancient body's of knowledge? In other words: Egypt was a font of knowledge for the Greeks(as has been discussed on this forum in many threads), indeed Ptolemy wrote the Almagest in Canopus Egypt. Was the conquest of Egypt by Arabs and the scholarly tradition encountered there the thing that spurred Islamic culture and learning? I'd appreciate your (or any one else's comment on this).
Many people often forget that alot of the knowleadge of the early Arabs came from learning centers that existed with the Sassanid period.Sassanids were Persians who had a large empire that also included some parts of Arabia like Yemen. Centers of learning existed in many sciences including astronomy.
Much of the Hellenistic material lost during the dark ages was preserved by Syriac Christians in their monasteries. Egypt too had monasteries that preserved written texts both in the various dialects of Coptic and Greek. Most of the material found here was religious in nature but a few mathematical papyri survive dating to the Coptic era around the monasteris in modern Medinet Habu[Djeme in Coptic] in Upper Egypt. I'm sure there might be more texts from the various Coptic monasteries that might unveil more information.
Here is an older thread made by a fomer poster here named kovert about the influence of Egypt during the Medieval period:
Indeed the western myth that Islam is a rather stagnent religion compaired to Christianity is just that. We observe that written in Hadiths is ''Seek knowledge "even though it be in China." ' and another is ''The ink of a scholar is more sacred than the blood of a martyr.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Even in the early years of Arab conquest, may non-Arab tribes embraced the vision of Islam and each expressed that vision into different ways. There was cooperation between Persian, Turk, Kurd and Central Asians and the influences abound. Loan word of all abound in various frequences as they did from the cultural sphere of the main group.
Just like Spanish absorbed many loan words from Arabic (alcazar, aljabr (algebra), Guadalquivir (wadi al-kabir), Gibraltar (jebral tariq-rock of Tariq, the Berber who named the rock, etc, ojala (inshallah-if god wishes), etc and Arabic absorbed works from Persian or other sources.
Posts: 1290 | From: usa | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
Much of the Hellenistic material lost during the dark ages was preserved by Syriac Christians in their monasteries.
That's another Eurocentric ruse I don't fall for.
Agreed, it seems to me that the concept of Western Civilization is inherently racist.
quote:PASSING OF THE TORCH DOCTRINE: Claims a chain of cultural transmission from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Greece to Rome to western Europe to the USA, leaving vast gaps where the history of the rest of the world should be. (The discussion never returns to Egypt or Iraq to consider what happened there after the fall of their ancient empires.) Most of the planet's cultures are discussed only in relation to the European conquest, if mentioned at all. As a result, few people have any idea of the history of Sumatra, Honduras, Niger, Ecuador, Mozambique, Ohio, Hokkaido, Samoa, or even European countries such as Lithuania or Bosnia.
I often hear defenders of this Eurocentric concept attribute Islamic and Middle Eastern ingenuity to their preservation of Hellenic texts, but I have never seen a source for such claims. Do we know how much of Islamic intellectual ingenuity in the middle ages was passing on Greco-Roman knowledge and how much of it was their own innovation and invention?
Posts: 1203 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:PASSING OF THE TORCH DOCTRINE: Claims a chain of cultural transmission from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Greece to Rome to western Europe to the USA, leaving vast gaps where the history of the rest of the world should be. (The discussion never returns to Egypt or Iraq to consider what happened there after the fall of their ancient empires.) Most of the planet's cultures are discussed only in relation to the European conquest, if mentioned at all. As a result, few people have any idea of the history of Sumatra, Honduras, Niger, Ecuador, Mozambique, Ohio, Hokkaido, Samoa, or even European countries such as Lithuania or Bosnia.
I often hear defenders of this Eurocentric concept attribute Islamic and Middle Eastern ingenuity to their preservation of Hellenic texts, but I have never seen a source for such claims. Do we know how much of Islamic intellectual ingenuity in the middle ages was passing on Greco-Roman knowledge and how much of it was their own innovation and invention?
I provided a link to an earlier discussion, and in it, I posted "some" examples of Arab-Islamic contribution...
Interesting roots of what became the tool of European imperialism...
Gunpowder:
The Chinese knew gunpowder in the 11th century, but didn’t know the right proportions of getting explosions and didn’t achieve the necessary purification of potassium nitrate. The first Chinese book, which details the explosives proportion, was in 1412 by Huo Lung Ching. [1]
Al-Rammah’s book is the first to explain the purification procedure for potassium nitrate and described many recipes for making gunpowder with the correct proportions to achieve explosion. This is necessary for the development of canons. Partington [ 3] says “the collection of recipes was probably taken from different sources at different times in the author’s family and taken down. Such recipes are described as tested.” Al-Razi, Al-Hamdany, and an Arabic-Syriaque manuscript of the 10th century describe potassium nitrate. Ibn Al-Bitar describes it in 1240. The Arab-Syriaque manuscript of the 10th century gives some recipes of gunpowder. It is assumed that these were added in the 13th century.
The Latin book “Liber Ignium” of Marcus Graecus is originally Arabic (translated in Spain) gives many recipes for making gunpowder the last four of which must have been added to the book in 1280 or 1300. “Did Roger Bacon derive his famous cryptic gunpowder in his Epistola of ca. 1260 from the crusader Peter of Maricourt, some other traveler or from a wide range of reading from Arabic and alchemical books”. References [1], [3], and Joseph Needham, doubt the correctness and effectiveness of the recipe of Bacon.
The German scientist Albert Magnus obtained his information from the “Liber Ignium” originally an Arabic book translated in Spain.
Evidence of the use of gunpowder during the crusades in Fustat, in Egypt, 1168 was found in the form of traces of potassium nitrate. Such traces were also found in 1218 during the siege of Dumyat and in the battle of Al-Mansoura in 1249.
Winter mentions, “the Chinese may have discovered saltpeter (gunpowder) or else that discovery may have been transmitted to them by the Muslims whom they had plenty of opportunities of meeting either at home or abroad. Sarton is referring to Arab-Muslim traders to China, as well as Arab inhabitants in China. As early as 880 an estimated 120,000 Muslims, Jews and Persians liven in Canton alone.”
Canons and Rockets:
There are four Arabic manuscripts (Almakhzoun manuscripts; one in Petersburg, two in Paris and one in Istanbul) in 1320 describing the first portable canon with suitable gunpowder. This description is principally the same as for modern guns. Such canons were used in the famous battle of Ain-Galout against the Mongols (1260).
The Mamlouks developed the canons further during the 14th century.
In Spain, Arabs used canons defending Seville (1248), in Granada 1319, in Baza or Albacete 1324, in Huescar and Martos 1325, in Alicante 1331 and in Algeziras 1342-1344. Partington says, “ the history of artillery in Spain is related to that of the Arabs”.
J.R. Partington mentions, “Arabic accounts suggest that the Arabs introduced firearms into Spain, from where they passed to Italy, from there to France, and finally Germany.”
“The Arabs, in any event, appear to have been the first to inherit (and possibly) originate the secret of the rocket, and it was through Arabic writings, rather than the Mongols -- that the Europeans came to know the rocket. The two notable examples of Arabic knowledge of the rocket are the so-called “self-moving and combusting egg” of the Syrian Al-Hassan Al-Rammah (d. 1294 - 1295), details of which may be found in Willey Ley’s popular “Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel” and physician Yusuf ibn Ismail Al-Kutub’s description (1311) of the saltpeter (“they use it to make a fire which rises and moves, thus increasing it in lightness and inflammability”). - Frank H. Winter
Sources: Courtesy of FSTC
As a matter of record, scholar Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi's name was applied to what is now referred to as algorithm, and the term "algebra" is suppose to have come from al-jabr, 'the beginning of the name of one of his publications in which he developed a system of solving quadratic equations, thus beginning Al-gebra - courtesy of encyclopedia of history.
"The importance of Khwarizmi's algebra was recognized, in the twelfth century, by the West, - when Girard of Cremona translated Khwarizmi’s theses into Latin. Until the sixteenth century this version was used in almost all European universities as the principal mathematical text book. But Khwarizmi's influence reached far beyond the universities. We find it reflected in the mathematical works of Leonardo Fibinacci of Pissa, Master Jacob of Florence, and of Leonardo da Vinci." - George Sarton.
More from George Sarton...
"One of the most famous exponents of Muslim universalism and an eminent figure in Islamic learning was Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna (981-1037). For a thousand years he has retained his original renown as one of the greatest thinkers and medical scholars in history. His most important medical works are the Qanun (Canon) and a treatise on Cardiac drugs. The 'Qanun fil-Tibb' is an immense encyclopedia of medicine".
"We know that when, during the crusades, Europe at last began to establish hospitals, they were inspired by the Arabs of the near East, who had had hospitals for centuries....The first hospital in Paris, Les Quinze-vingt, was founded by Louis IX after his return from the crusade in 1254-1260."
"And then there was Al_kindi. (800-873 C.E.). In mathematics, he wrote four books on the number system and laid the foundation of a large part of modern arithmetic. He also contributed to spherical geometry to assist him in astronomical studies".
He was known as Alkindus in Latin and a large number of his books were translated into Latin by Gherard of Cremona. Al-Kindi's influence on development of science and philosophy was significant in the revival of sciences in that period. In the Middle Ages, Cardano considered him as one of the twelve greatest minds on earth. His works, in fact, lead to further development of various subjects for centuries, notably physics, mathematics, medicine and music".
Examples from Joseph Hell...
"In the domain of trigonometry, the theory of Sine, Cosine and tangent is an heirloom of the Arabs. The brilliant epochs of Peurbach, of Regiomontanus, of Copernicus, cannot be recalled without reminding us of the fundamental labor of the Arab Mathematician Al-Battani, (858-929 A.D.)."
"The Arabs were accomplished in mathematics, chemistry, physics, medicine, philosophy, and most notably astronomy. Most Westerners think instantly of Copernicus, Galileo, or of the early Greek philosophers who worked to advance astronomical knowledge, but the contributions made by the Arabs are largely either overlooked or falsely assigned to later European astronomers. In reality, the golden era of Islamic astronomy that took place during the middle ages is of immense importance to the development of modern astronomy. Not only did the Arabs keep alive the works of the Greek and Indian astronomers before them, but they also improved upon and added to this knowledge in various significant ways. In addition, their translated works paved the way for the Copernican revolution.
There are those who seem to be under the impression that all the Arabs ever contributed to astronomy was to have preserved the knowledge and observations of the Greeks during Europe's "Dark Ages", only to hand this information back to them at a later date so that the Europeans could continue advancing the science of astronomy. This, however, is entirely untrue. The Arabs advanced astronomy significantly during the middle ages. Not only did they take pre-existing theories and instruments and improve upon them, but they also invented entirely new theories and made their own discoveries. For example, although both the astrolabe and celestial globe were first invented by the Greeks in their original crude forms, far more sophisticated instruments were developed in medieval Islam. The astrolabe was ameliorated and fine-tuned so considerably that by the beginning of the tenth century it had been developed to the point that it could be used for approximately 300 problems in geography, spherical trigonometry, and mathematical astronomy, and to be "sophisticated enough to be useful for any latitude" [Anon.].
From this ongoing improvement of the astrolabe, the Arabs later developed an instrument called the quadrant. This instrument was sophisticated to the point that it was said to be useable to solve "all standard problems of spherical astronomy" [Anon.]. They also developed other new instruments as well, such as ones that could be used to determine the time of both day and night as well as the pendulum clock."
"A new school of thought emerged in the late 13th century that in itself constitutes a revolution. It is referred to as the Maragha Revolution, and it has been described as "an essential link to Copernican astronomy without which Copernican astronomy will be hard to explain" [Anon.]. The Maragha Revolution was, to put it simply, a rejection of many of Ptolemy's statements, and a sudden surge of new ideas and theories to replace incorrect Ptolemaic assertions. Thus, it turns out that the Arabs had come to many of the same conclusions as Copernicus well before Copernicus' time, although the astronomers of the Arabic Maragha school were still working within the confines of a geocentric model. Nonetheless, these astronomers were the ones who corrected many of Ptolemy's mistakes and made the first real moves towards the final realization of the true workings of the solar system. It is for this reason that many have firmly declared that Copernicus was influenced by the Arabic Maragha school."
-------
If you really want a relatively in-depth knowledge of Arab-Muslim contributions of the Middle Ages, the recommended approach would be to do some homework and familiarize yourself with the names of various Middle Age and early Arab [Near Eastern and North African] and European scholars [e.g., German, Spanish, and Italian scholars] who documented the events of the time. You are going to find very few truth-leaning work from contemporary European scholars.
George Sarton, for example, is among Euro scholars who have done impressive work in putting Arab-Muslim contributions into perspective. Dr. Salah Zaimeche mentions some notworthy names on the subject:
"Sources for writing on Muslim astronomy exist in large abundance in German in particular, the work of Germans and also of others who expressed themselves in German. Heinrich Suter, for one, has numbered over 500 Muslim astronomers and mathematicians, giving for each of these the titles of their works that are known, and their still extant manuscripts. Since Suter more have been added by Brockelmann and Sezgin (all in German). George Sarton in his voluminous Introndution to History of Science (already referred to abundantly) gives a very thorough picture, too, of the vast array of Muslim works in astronomy as in other sciences. Sedillot (in French) and Nalino (in Italian) have delivered plenty good information in the same field, too. Closer to us, David King, Julio Samso, George Saliba, E.S. Kennedy , W. Hartner and A.I. Sabra have added more regular contributions, King, in particular, providing a gigantic contribution to the subject. Other scholars have given very good summaries of Muslim astronomy, first amongs whom being Baron Carra de Vaux and Aldo Mieli, scholars of great repute from earlier in the century. Aldo Mieli founding one of the two greatest reviews on the history of science ARCHEION, (the other being ISIS by George Sarton). Incidentally, both De Vaux and Mieli are being pushed into oblivion by second or third rate modern scholars who today fill departments of history of science. Before leaving the subject on contributions, Rashed, again, managed in volume one of his Encyclopedia of Arabic science to gather a number of excellent contributions to this science, on top of providing an extensive bibliography at the end, very useful for whomsoever wishes to go deeper into the matter."
Again, many of these exemples and snippets were posted in this earlier discussion:
In the meantime, I'll try and get my hands on more material from the works of scholars [and perhaps more names of scholars] like the aforementioned, and info that is relevant to our discussion.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic