Abstract: Cuneiform texts of the first millennium bc (astrological, ritual, astronomical, and mathematical-astronomical texts) use the term "lumāšu" to denote celestial bodies. This article examines its attestations in neo-Assyrian and Late Babylonian texts with regard to text genre, writing, and meaning. "Lumāšu" is interpreted in group I texts as the god associated with a star or constellation; in group II texts, it may denote a constellation; and, in group III texts, following the introduction of the zodiacal belt, it may denote a zodiacal constellation, a zodiacal sign, or even a zodiacal position. These semantic distinctions are reflected in genre-specific orthographic practices. How to cite: Fincke, J. C. and M. F. Schreiber. “The Term «lumāšu» in Late Babylonian Texts”. Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science (2024) 5: std02 1–50. https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v5.46192
How to cite: Gerolemou, M. rev. The Mechanical Tradition of Hero of Alexandria: Strategies of Reading from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period by Courtney Ann Roby. Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science 5: rev06 1–7. https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v5.46216
How to cite: Runia, D. T. rev. Procli Diadochi in Platonis Timaeum Commentaria / Proclus: Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. Books 1–5 edited by Gerd Van Riel. Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science (2024) 5: rev05 1–7. https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v5.46227
Foreword Volume 4 of the new series of Aestimatio is now complete. Though the move to a print-when-ready model of publication took longer than we anticipated, we are finding that it works well for us and will, we trust, benefit our readers and authors also. As we close this volume and start work on the next, we find it a good time to reiterate the journal’s aim and to clarify some of the ways in which we want to pursue it going forward. When we established Aestimatio (new series), we stated our focus as the history of science from antiquity to the early modern period. We still recognize that the appropriate geo-cultural scope of science in the Old World before the modern era encompasses cultures in Eurasia and Africa. This chronological and geo-cultural scope allows Aestimatio to publish research situated in sources from Arabic, Byzantine, Syriac, and Slavic cultures. We are pleased that scholars in the sciences of these languages and cultures see a home for their work in our journal. As an example, volume 4 includes the publication of Florentina Badalanova Geller’s “Galen’s Nachlass in Slavonic Intellectual Landscapes: Knowledge Transmission in the Byzantine” [https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/aestimatio/article/view/44904] and volume 5 will include a focus section entitled “Diagrams in Medieval Europe: Magic, Science and Ritual” edited by Sophie Page and Richard Kieckhefer. We continue to promote work that seeks to place science in its Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, and Latin cultural contexts, but want now to encourage submissions of research on the Syriac, Aramaic, Byzantine, and Old Church Slavonic as well as Arabic materials that all contribute to our knowledge of the sciences in late antique and medieval contexts. In pursuit of this goal, Chessie and I have invited and are delighted to welcome Anne-Laurence Caudano (University of Winnipeg) to our editorial staff. Anne-Laurence is a highly esteemed medievalist with a special interest in the history of Byzantine science. With her expertise and input, the journal stays true to its original and continuing commitment to the study of the sciences in the ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean worlds and their later legacy in Byzantium, Western and Eastern Europe. Alan C. Bowen and Francesca Rochberg bowen@IRCPS.org frochberg@gmail.com How to cite: Bowen, A. C. and F. Rochberg, “From the Editors”. Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History 0f Science (2024) 5: vii–viii
How to cite: Van Nuffelen, P. rev. Time for the Ancients: Measurement, Theory, Experience by Peter N. Singer. Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science (2024) 5: rev03 1–3. https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v5.45501
Abstract: The current publication offers the first English translation of a cluster of medieval and early modern Slavonic renditions of Byzantine Greek editions of ancient medical compositions, the authorship of which is attributed to Galen. Among the emblematic texts deserving special attention are his celebrated commentaries on the Corpus Hippocraticum, the direct Greek Vorlage of which remains unidentified. The Slavonic translations of these Galenic paraphrases refer to various medical conditions as well as human anatomy and physiology; they contain discussions on diagnosis, therapeutics, and health care (including dietetics), as well as astral medicine (e.g., calendrical templates of recommended procedures according to the zodiac, winter and summer solstices, autumn and vernal equinoxes, lunar phases, the position of the Pleiades). While the earliest extant Slavonic manuscript witnesses are dated to the first quarter of the 15th century, their protographs must have originated much earlier among the cloistral scriptoria of Mt Athos and further disseminated through monastic networks within the Byzantine Commonwealth, from the Balkans to Russia. These texts represent a small but important contribution to the reception history of Galenic heritage within the Slavonic world, which has hardly been recognized. How to Cite: Badalanova Geller, F. “Galen’s Nachlass in Slavonic Intellectual Landscapes: Knowledge Transmission in the Byzantine Commonwealth”. Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science (2023): src03 1–83. https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/aestimatio/article/view/44904
How to cite: Anderssen, E. A. rev. The Greco-Egyptian Magical Formularies: Libraries, Books, and Individual Recipes edited by Christopher A. Faraone and Sofia Torallas Tovar. Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science (2024) 5: rev04 1–8. https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v5.45502
How to cite: Segev, M. rev. Aristotle’s Theology: The Primary Texts Translated with Introduction and Notes by C. D. C. Reeve. Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science (2024) 5: rev02 1–6. https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v5.45500
Abstract: The inclination of the path of the Sun in the sky with respect to the celestial equator, that is, the obliquity of the ecliptic, has been a major concern for astronomers since Antiquity. Many of them adopted values for it that departed from those of their predecessors and hardly any were the result of observation. Solar declination depends strictly on the obliquity, and many tables for determining solar positions were compiled during the Middle Ages. In this paper, we examine several of them, particularly those by Abraham ibn Ezra, Giovanni Bianchini, and Regiomontanus, the last two associated with tables for the conversion of ecliptic to equatorial coordinates. How to cite: Goldstein, B. R. and J. Chabás†. “Tables of Declination from Ptolemy to Regiomontanus”. Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science (2024) 5: std01 1–37. https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v5.45497
How to cite: Schäfer, D. rev. Overlapping Cosmologies in Asia edited by Bill M. Mak and Eric Huntington. Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science (2024) 5: rev01 1–7. https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v5.45499
A discussion of La poésie astrologique dans la littérature grecque et latine by Vanessa Monteventi that contextualizes this meritorious yet imperfect monograph in modern research on ancient astrological poetry and focuses on the whole range of its philological, astronomical, and astrological aspects. It is shown that Monteventi’s title promises a broader perspective than what her book actually covers. A more fitting title would be La poésie didactique astrologique dans la littérature grecque et latine de l’Antiquité. Numerous poems relevant to her actual title yet not taken into account by the author are collected here for the first time ever without any pretense to completeness [see Appendix 2, p. 62], and their relevant characteristics briefly sketched, including discussions of two anything but trivial mathematical riddles contained in anonymous astrological poems. Besides a plethora of details that call for minor addenda/corrigenda, a few of Monteventi's topics are discussed in depth, such as the autobiographical horoscope by the first didactic poet writing under the pseudonym of Manetho and the sources of the smaller astrological poem by John Camaterus. How to cite: Heilen, S. “Greek and Latin Astrological Poetry Reconsidered”. Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science (2023) 4: dsco2 1–74
Please note that the editorial foreword does not include an abstract. How to cite: Bowen, A. C., and Rochberg , F. "From the Editors/Mot des éditeurs". Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science (2023) 4: vii–viii. https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v4.43006
Abstract: "Liber de wazalkora" is the title of an unpublished Latin treatise on the construction and use of the planispheric astrolabe, which appears to have been compiled in southeast Germany (Bavaria) in the second half of the 12th century. It is to a large extent derived from other astrolabe sources available in the Latin West before 1100, but also contains material that has no precedent in any of the known literature. The analysis presented in this article concentrates on the Liber de wazalkora’s section on the use of the astrolabe, which is unusual for both its extraordinary length and frequently atypical astronomical content. A study of the Arabic loan vocabulary in this section leads to the conclusion that some parts of the text were derived from an unidentified Arabic source, presumably via a Latin intermediary. How to cite: Nothaft, C. P. E. “On the Liber de wazalkora, A 12th-Century Treatise on the Astrolabe”. Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science (2023) 4: src02 1–58. https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v4.44061
Abstract: This book is not only an excellent translation and study of the extant Greek and Arabic sources for Diophantus’ Arithmetica, it is also an important piece of scholarship in the history of premodern mathematics. The historiographic significance of this book comes from both its argument for the place of the Arithmetica in our understanding of the history of algebra and from the methodologies that the authors employ in order to make their case. Correction: Page 12, 4 lines from the bottom, corrected text: n² + 64 – 16n How to cite: Sidoli, N. rev. The Arithmetica of Diophantus: A Complete Translation and Commentary by Jean Christianidis and Jeffrey Oaks. Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science (2023) 4: rev03 1–18. https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v4.4123
Abstract: José Chabás Bergón (or simply José Chabás), professor emeritus at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), died on June 9, 2024 in Barcelona of complications following bypass surgery. His contributions to the study of astronomical tables significantly added to our knowledge of technical astronomy as practiced in the Middle Ages. Indeed, he was a leading scholar in this field. How to cite: Goldstein, B. R. "In memoriam José Chabás Bergón (1948–2024)". Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science (2023) 4: mem01 1–8. https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v4.44041
Jeremy Armstrong War and Society in Early Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Claire Bubb. Dissection in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. David H. Camden. The Cosmological Doctors of Classical Greece: First Principles in Early Greek Medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. Nathan Carlig ed. «Mes voeux les meilleurs et santé continuelle». Réponses aux épidémies dans le monde Gréco-Romain. Liège: Presses Universitaires de Liège, 2023. Jean Christianides and Jeffrrey Oaks. The Arithmetica of Diophantus. A Complete Translation and Commentary. Abingdon/New York: Routledge, 2023. Radcliffe G. Edmonds III. Drawing Down the Moon: Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World. Princeton/ Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2019. Ida Fröhlich ed. Science in Qumran Aramaic Texts. Tübingen: Mohr Siebek, 2022. Brian Glenney and José Filipe Silva edd. The Senses and the History of Philosophy. London/New York: Routledge, 2023. Matthias Heiduk, Klaus Herbers, and Hans-Christian Lehner edd. Prognostication in the Medieval World. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2020. Ralph Jackson. Greek and Roman Medicine at the British Museum: The Instruments and Accoutrements of Ancient Medicine. London: British Museum Press, 2023. J. Cale Johnson and Alessandro Stavru. Visualizing the Invisible with the Human Body: Physiognomy and Ekphrasis in the Ancient World. Boston: De Gruyter, 2020. Cécile Michel, and Karine Chemla edd. Mathematics, Administrative and Economic Activities in Ancient Worlds: Why The Sciences of the Ancient World Matter. Cham: Springer, 2020. Iulian Moga. Religious Excitement in Ancient Anatolia: Cult and Devotional Forms for Solar and Lunar Gods. Leuven/Paris/Bristol: Peeters, 2019. Courtney Ann Roby. The Mechanical Tradition of Hero of Alexandria.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. Nathan Sidoli and R. S. D. Thomas. The Spherics of Theodosios. Scientific Writings from the Ancient and Medieval World. Abingdon/New York: Routledge, 2023. Virginia Trimble and David A. Weintraub edd. The Sky Is for Everyone: Women Astronomers in Their Own Words. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022. Benno van Dalen. Ptolemaic Tradition and Islamic Innovation: The Astronomical Tables of Kūshyār ibn Labban. Turnhout: Brepols, 2021. How to cite: Mastorakou, S. "2023 Books Received/Livres Reçus". Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science (2023) 4: bm01 1–2. https://doi/10.33137/aestimatio.v4.43007
Abstract: Recently, we have been fortunate to see the start of a new research project, Mathematical Sciences in the Ancient World (the SAW Project), and the publication of a new book series, Why the Sciences of the Ancient World Matter. The SAW Project was funded by an advanced research grant from the European Research Council from 2011 to 2016, which had Karine Chemla as the principal investigator, together with Christine Proust and Agathe Keller, all researchers in the history of ancient mathematics of, respectively, China, Mesopotamia, and South Asia. The book series started in 2018 and it has been one of the most important vehicles to make public the extraordinary amount of material produced by the research project. How to cite: Gonçalves, C. rev. Mathematics, Administrative and Economic Activities in Ancient Worlds edited by Cécile Michel and Karine Chemla. Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science (2023) 4: rev02 1–40. https://doi/10.33137/aestimatio.v4.43350.
A discussion of Visualizing the Invisible with the Human Body, Physiognomy and Ekphrasis in the Ancient World, edited by J. Cale Johnson and Alessandro Stavru, that focuses on what common ground the numerous ancient cultures that the book encompasses share and on how this bears on the study of Mesopotamian culture. How to cite: Geller, M. J. Labeling Thoughts. Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science (2023) 4: 1-7. https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v4.43078
The papers in this special section derive, directly or indirectly, from a workshop on current methods and approaches in emotion research held at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz on 25–26 February 2019 in association with the tenure of a Mercator Fellowship (2018–2019) by Douglas Cairns (Edinburgh) under the aegis of the Mainz Graduiertenkolleg (GRK) 1876, Frühe Konzepte von Mensch und Natur: Universalität, Spezifität, Tradierung (Early Concepts of Humans and Nature: Universal, Specific, Interchanged), funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). byDouglas CairnsUniversity of Edinburghorcid.org/0000-0003-4408-8967douglas.cairns@ed.ac.uk
