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Colloquium

The Institute for the History of Knowledge in the Ancient World and the ERC-project "ZODIAC - Ancient Astral Science in Transformation", in association with the Max-Planck Research Group "Astral Sciences in Trans-Regional Asia" (ASTRA, MPIWG, Berlin)

Wednesday, 18:00-20:00 c.t.

Venue: Inst. f. the History of Knowledge, Freie Universität Berlin, Arnimallee 10, room 010, 14195 Berlin

convenors: J. Cale Johnson, Anuj Misra, Mathieu Ossendrijver

Download the program here

Winter term 2024/25  
   
30. Okober 2024

Jeffrey Kotyk (Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte)

"The zodiac signs in East Asian mandalas"

   
27. November 2024

Levente László (Guest Scientist, ZODIAC Project)

"The Personification of the Planets in Ancient Astrology"

   
04. Dezember 2024

Robert Middeke-Conlin (Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology)

"Another day at the office: Tracking epistemic change in the minutiae of daily work-life in ancient Mesopotamia"
   
15. Januar 2025

Pouyan Rezvani (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften)

"Ptolemy's star catalogue in the medieval Islamic sources"

   
22. Januar 2025

Reimund Leicht (Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Judaistik)

"The dynamics of scientifc decline in Late antiquity: Some tentative thoughts about models of interpretation for the history of science"

   
5. Februar 2025

Tim Brandes (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)

"The Concept of Time in Mesopotamia"

   
Summer term 2024  
   

15. April 2024


Francesca Rochberg (University of California, Berkeley

"The Ontological Turn and Why We Should Be Interested"

   
8. Mai 2024

Ulrike Steinert (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)

"Therapeutic Agents and Medical Knowledge in First Millennium BCE Mesopotamia: New Insights from Women's Health Care Texts (and Beyond)"

   

29. Mai 2024


Andreas Winkler (Freie Universität Berlin)

"A New Animal - the Development of the Egyptian Zodiac"

   
12. Juni 2024

Stamatina Mastorakou (Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte)

"Unveiling the Celestial Imagery at the “Philosopher’s Tomb” at Pella
   
Winter term 2023/24  
13. November 2023

Michael Zellmann-Rohrer (Freie Universität Berlin)

"On the fourteenth day of the Moon, Hope and Peace were born: The earliest Greek lunarium"

   
20. November 2023

Friedhelm Hoffmann (Ludwing-Maximilians-Universität München)

"Zur Überlieferung ägyptischer medizinischer Rezepte im 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. - Beobachtungen am römischen Papyrus Wien D6257"

   
04. Dezember 2023

Jeanette C. Fincke (Leiden)

"The Moon in the 'Cattle Pen': The Halo of the Moon as Seen by Assyrian and Babylonian Astronomers"

   
08. Januar 2024

Frederik Bakker (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen) starts at 17:00!!!

"The Truth of Epicurus' Multiple Explanantions for Celestial Phenomena”

   
15. Januar 2024

Mathieu Ossendrijver (Freie Universität Berlin)

"The Astronomers in Seleucid Uruk Revisited"

   
29. Januar 2024

Marvin Schreiber (Freie Universität Berlin)

"The Babylonian Number Syllabaries in Context: New Evidence and Tentative Interpretation"

   
05. Februar 2024

Annette Imhausen (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt)

"The Conceptualization of Mathmatics in Pharaonic Egypt"

   
Summer term 2023  
19. Juni 2023

Serafina Cuomo (Durham University)

"A distributed cognition framework in the study of ancient Greek and Roman numeracy"

   
12. Juni 2023

Anna Monte (Università degli Studi di Udine)

"Ophthalmology in Graeco-Roman Egypt: a papyrological journey through eye diseases and their ancient treatments"

   
5. Juni 2023

Adrian Pirtea (Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte)

"Celestial Omen Texts in Late Antique and Early Medieval Eurasia. Towards a Connected History of the Astral Sciences"

   
8. Mai 2023

Sebastian Richter (Freie Universität Berlin)

"Al-Rāzī in Upper Egypt? A 9th-/10th-Century Coptic Archive of Medical and Alchemical Manuscripts and its Intellectual Background"

   
24. April 2023

Paul Unschuld (Charité Berlin)

"The manifold messages of the most ancient Chinese medical texts: Who informed the anonymous authors?"

   

Winter term 2022/23

 

13. Februar 2023          

Nils Heeßel (Philipps-Universität Marburg)

"Wie viel wog ein KISAL? Oder: Weshalb gab es neben dem Scheqel noch eine andere Gewichtseinheit in assyrisch-babylonischen Rezepten?"

   
16. Januar 2023

Jacob Dahl (University of Oxford)

"Back to the Future: Proto-Elamite and Linear Elamite"

   
12. Dezember 2022                                              

Stefanie Rudolf (Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte)

A Great Star Falls" - Comets and Meteors in Syriac Literature and Language

   

      

                                 



In ancient astrology, planets were not only associated with or identified as deities but also described using a variety of anthropomorphic metaphors based on their appearances and behaviors. This colloquium will explore these metaphors, providing specific examples from Greek astrological writings.