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CONTENTS
List of Illustrations page x

Notes on Contributors xii
General Editors’ Preface xvii
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction 1
PART I MESOPOTAMIA 5
1 Science and Ancient Mesopotamia 7
francesca rochberg
2 Babylonian Medicine as a Discipline 29
markham j. geller
3 Mesopotamian Mathematics 58
jens høyrup
4 Babylonian and Assyrian Astral Science 73
john m. steele
PART II EGYPT 99
5 The Cultural Context of (Mathematical) Experts in Ancient Egypt 101
annette imhausen
6 Egyptian Medicine 120
john nunn
7 Egyptian Calendars and Astronomy 131
rolf krauss
vii
viii Contents
8 Egyptian Mathematics 144
jens høyrup
PART III GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN 161

9 Physical and Cosmological Thought Before Aristotle 163
daniel w. graham
10 Aristotle: An Overview 181
andrea falcon
11 Aristotle’s Physical Theory 196
eric lewis
12 Aristotle and the Origins of Zoology 215
james g. lennox
13 Botany 238
laurence totelin
14 Science After Aristotle: Hellenistic and Roman Science 248
liba taub
15 Late Antiquity: Science in the Philosophical Schools 278
miira tuominen
16 Medicine in Early and Classical Greece 293
philip van der eijk
17 Hellenistic and Roman Medicine 316
vivian nutton
18 Greek Mathematics 345
nathan sidoli
19 Greco-Roman Astronomy and Astrology 374
alexander jones
20 Greek and Greco-Roman Geography 402
klaus geus
21 Greek Optics 413
a. mark smith
22 Harmonics 428
andrew barker
23 Greek Mechanics 449
serafina cuomo
24 Greco-Egyptian Alchemy 468
cristina viano
Contents ix
PART IV INDIA 483
25 Astronomy and Astrology in India 485
kim plofker
26 Mathematics in Early India (1000 bce–1000 ce) 501
clemency montelle
27 Indian Medicine and Ayurveda 532
philipp a. maas
PART V CHINA 551

28 Mathematical Knowledge and Practices from Early Imperial
China until the Tang Dynasty 553
karine chemla
29 Medicine and Healing in Han China 574
vivienne lo
30 Chinese Astronomy in the Early Imperial Age: A Brief Outline 595
christopher cullen
Index 617
ILLUSTRATIONS
2.1 Catalog tablets from the Esagil-kīn-apli school page 36

3.1 The procedure of BM 13901 nº 1 67
8.1 Method for finding the area of a circle 154
11.1 Schematic showing the relationship between 200
elements and qualities
11.2 Diagram of the cosmos representing the natural positions 201
of the four elements
14.1 Roman mosaic described as depicting the Academy of Plato 250
14.2 The philosophical schools of Hellenistic Athens 251
14.3 Pythagoras, depicted on a coin produced at Samos, under 262
Trajan Decius, Emperor 249–51 ce
19.1 Homocentric spheres 387
19.2 A simple eccentric model for Mars 389
19.3 A simple epicyclic model for Mars 389
20.1 The cosmology of Anaximander 404
20.2 The system of five geographical zones 405
20.3 Modern reconstruction of the map of Hecataeus 407
20.4 Schematic reconstruction of the world map of Ephorus 407
21.1 Binocular vision according to Ptolemy 419
21.2 Equal-angles law of reflection according to Euclid 420
21.3 Equal-angles law of reflection according to Hero of Alexandria 420
21.4 Equal-angles law of reflection according to Ptolemy 421
21.5 Principles determining image location in reflection 422
21.6 Analysis of reflection in concave mirrors 422
21.7 Analysis of refraction 424
21.8 Ptolemy’s experiment to determine the angle of refraction 424
from air to water
21.9 Ptolemy’s tabulations for refraction from air to water 425
21.10 Atmospheric refraction according to Ptolemy 426
21.11 Refractive image distortion according to Ptolemy 427
x
List of Illustrations xi
24.1 Alembic 475
24.2 Kerotakis 476
24.3 Ouroboros 478
24.4 Inkwell from Vaison la Romaine, first century bce, Louvre 481
26.1 Examples of the nāgarī numerals from various manuscripts 512
26.2 Various trigonometric components 524
29.1 Black lacquer figurine excavated from a tomb 582
at Shuangbao shan 雙包山
29.2 The earliest extant diagram of the vulva, Mawangdui 584
tomb 3, closed 168 bce
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Andrew Barker is Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of

Birmingham and a Fellow of the British Academy. He has published 8
books and over 100 articles on ancient Greek music and musical theory.
Karine Chemla, Researcher (CNRS, laboratory SPHERE) has edited: The
History of Mathematical Proof in Ancient Traditions (2012); Texts, Textual
Acts and the History of Science (with Virbel, 2015); The Oxford Handbook of
Generality in Mathematics and the Sciences (with Chorlay and Rabouin,
2016); and Cultures without Culturalism (with Fox Keller, 2017).
Christopher Cullen read Engineering Science at Oxford, and later did a PhD
in Classical Chinese at SOAS, University of London, under the supervision
of D. C. Lau. He has published widely on the history of science in China,
and served as editor of the Science and Civilisation in China series. He is
Emeritus Director of the Needham Research Institute and an Emeritus
Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge.
Serafina Cuomo is Professor of Ancient History at Durham University. She
works on the history of science and technology in ancient Greece and Rome,
and has published on ancient mathematics, land-surveying, and military
technology. She is completing a book on ancient numeracy.
Andrea Falcon is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at
Concordia University, Montreal. He is the author of Corpi e Movimenti. La
fortuna del “De caelo” nel mondo antico (2001); Aristotle and the Science of
Nature: Unity without Uniformity (Cambridge 2005); Aristotelianism in the
First Century BCE: Xenarchus of Seleucia (Cambridge 2012); and Aristotelismo
(2017). He is the editor of Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Aristotle
(2016).
Markham J. Geller is Professor für Wissensgeschichte at the Freie
Universität Berlin and Topoi Excellence Cluster since 2010, on secondment
xii
Notes on Contributors xiii

from University College London. The PI of the ERC Advanced Grant
Project, BabMed (2013–2018), he is also co-PI with Philip van der Eijk on
a multi-year project, The Transfer of Medical Episteme in the “Encyclopaedic”
Compilations of Late Antiquity, within the Collaborative Research
Center Episteme in Bewegung at the Freie Universität Berlin. He has worked
extensively on Sumerian, Akkadian, and Aramaic magic and medicine.
Klaus Geus is an ancient historian, philologist, and geographer. In 2009 he
was appointed professor of the historical geography of the ancient
Mediterranean at the Freie Universität Berlin. Geus works in the areas of
ancient geography and astronomy. He has published 20 books and 250
papers and articles.
Daniel W. Graham is Professor of Philosophy at Brigham Young University.
He is president of the International Association for Presocratic Studies. His
books include Explaining the Cosmos (2006); (with co-editor Patricia Curd)
The Oxford Handbook of Presocratic Philosophy (2008); The Texts of Early
Greek Philosophy (2010); and Science before Socrates (2013).
Jens Høyrup was educated as a physicist at Copenhagen University. From
1973 he taught first in the domain of social, then human sciences, at Roskilde
University, Denmark, until he retired in 2005. Much of his research has
dealt with the conceptual, cultural, and social history of pre-modern
mathematics.
Annette Imhausen studied mathematics, chemistry, and Egyptology at
Mainz University and the Freie Universität Berlin. She completed her
doctoral dissertation in the history of mathematics and held fellowships at
the Dibner-Institute (Cambridge, MA) and Trinity Hall (Cambridge,
England). Since 2009 she has been Professor for the History of Early
Science at Frankfurt University.
Alexander Jones is Leon Levy Director and Professor of the History of the
Exact Sciences in Antiquity at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient
World, New York University. His research interests include contacts
between Babylonian and Greco-Roman astronomy and astrology, texts
and artifacts of Hellenistic and Roman period astronomy, and the scientific
work of Claudius Ptolemy.
Rolf Krauss studied Egyptology, history, and geography at the Freie
Universität Berlin, earning a doctorate in 1981 with his dissertation
“Problems of the Egyptian Calendar.” In 1996 his “Astronomical Concepts
in the Pyramid Texts” was accepted at Hamburg University for German
Habilitation (2nd dissertation). From 1982 until 2007 he was on the aca-
demic staff of the State Museums in Berlin.
xiv Notes on Contributors

James G. Lennox is Professor Emeritus of History and Philosophy of Science
at the University of Pittsburgh. His research in history and philosophy of
biology includes a translation with commentary of Aristotle’s On the Parts of
Animals (Oxford 2002), Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology (Cambridge 2001),
and many articles and book chapters on Aristotle and Charles Darwin.
Eric Lewis is an associate professor of Philosophy at McGill University. He
has published in ancient philosophy, and the philosophy of music and new
media art.
Vivienne Lo 羅維前 is the Director of the UCL China Centre for
Health and Humanity. Her research focuses on the social and cultural
origins of self-care. She translates and analyzes manuscript material from
early and medieval China and studies the transmission of scientific
knowledge along the so-called Silk Roads through to the modern
Chinese medical diaspora.
Philipp A. Maas is an Indologist who currently works at the University of
Leipzig, Germany. His main interests are the pre-modern cultural and
intellectual history of South Asia and the multiple genres of Sanskrit
literature. Maas has published widely, especially on early classical
Ayurveda and Yoga.
Clemency Montelle is Associate Professor in the School of Mathematics and
Statistics at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. She
has research interests in the mathematical history of early cultures, including
Mesopotamia, Greece, India, and the Islamic Near East. Her Chasing
Shadows: Mathematics, Astronomy, and the Early History of Eclipse
Reckoning (Johns Hopkins University Press) focuses on the theoretical
treatment of eclipse phenomena in the ancient world. She is, with Kim
Plofker, completing a book on the history of Sanskrit astronomical tables in
the second millennium.
John F. Nunn retired from his role as Head of the Anaesthesia Division of
the Clinical Research Centre, British Medical Research Council. He has
published widely on ancient Egyptian medicine, including a book with that
title (British Museum Press, 1996).
Vivian Nutton, FBA, is Professor of the History of Medicine at the First
Moscow State Medical University. His recent books include Ancient
Medicine (2nd edn, 2013), a translation of Johann Guinter and Andreas
Vesalius’ Principles of Anatomy according to the Opinion of Galen, 1538
(2017), and John Caius, An Autobibliography.
Kim Plofker is Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at
Union College in Schenectady, New York, USA. Her areas of interest
Notes on Contributors xv
include the history of mathematics and astronomy in India and the
medieval Islamic world, and the cross-cultural transmission of scientific
models.
Francesca Rochberg is Catherine and William L. Magistretti Distinguished
Professor of Near Eastern Studies in the Department of Near Eastern
Studies and the Office for the History of Science and Technology at the
University of California, Berkeley. She publishes widely on the Babylonian
astral sciences, especially celestial divination and astronomy.
Nathan Sidoli received his PhD from the University of Toronto, in the
History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, and is currently
Associate Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at Waseda
University, Tokyo. His research focuses on the Greek mathematical sciences
and their development in medieval Arabic sources.
A. Mark Smith is Curators’ Distinguished Professor of History at the
University of Missouri. He has published widely in the history of optics
and visual theory from antiquity to the seventeenth century, with special
focus on the work of Ibn al-Haytham.
John Steele is Professor of the History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity in
the Department of Egyptology and Assyriology at Brown University. A
historian of astronomy, much of his work focuses on the development of
the astral sciences in Babylonia.
Liba Taub is Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the
University of Cambridge, where she is Director of the Whipple Museum
of the History of Science; she is also a Fellow of Newnham College. Having
published extensively on Greco-Roman science, as well as scientific instru-
ments and models, her most recent monograph is Science Writing in Greco-
Roman Antiquity (CUP, 2017).
Laurence Totelin is a senior lecturer in ancient history at Cardiff University.
Her research focuses on Greek and Roman botany and pharmacology. She is
the author of Hippocratic Recipes: Oral and Written Transmission of
Pharmacological Knowledge in Fifth- and Fourth-Century Greece (Brill,
2009) and, with Gavin Hardy, Ancient Botany (Routledge, 2016).
Miira Tuominen (PhD 2002, University of Helsinki) is tenured at the
University of Jyväskylä. She has published on a wide array of topics,
including two monographs, Ancient Philosophers on Starting Points for
Knowledge (2007) and Ancient Commentators on Plato and Aristotle
(2009). She is now finishing a monograph on Porphyry’s ethics in his
On Abstinence.
xvi Notes on Contributors

Philip van der Eijk is Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Classics and
History of Science at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He has published
on ancient medicine, philosophy, and science, and comparative literature
and patristics. Among his most recent publications is Galen, Works on
Human Nature, Vol. 1: Mixtures (De temperamentis) (Cambridge, 2018)
(co-authored with P. N. Singer).
Cristina Viano is Senior Researcher (Directeur de Recherche) at the Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, Centre Léon Robin. Her main
research fields concern the history of philosophy and ancient science, in
particular Aristotle (natural philosophy, ethics, and rhetoric) and
Alexandrian alchemy. She has published La matière des choses. Le livre IV
des Météorologiques d’Aristote, et son interprétation par Olympiodore (Paris:
Vrin, 2006).
GENERAL EDITORS’ PREFACE
The idea for The Cambridge History of Science originated with Alex
Holzman, former editor for the history of science at Cambridge University
Press. In 1993, he invited us to submit a proposal for a multivolume history
of science that would join the distinguished series of Cambridge histories,
launched over a century ago with the publication of Lord Acton’s fourteen-
volume Cambridge Modern History (1902–12). Convinced of the need for a
comprehensive history of science and believing that the time was auspicious,
we accepted the invitation.
Although reflections on the development of what we call “science” date
back to antiquity, the history of science did not emerge as a distinctive field
of scholarship until well into the twentieth century. In 1912, the Belgian
scientist-historian George Sarton (1884–1956), who contributed more than
any other single person to the institutionalization of the history of science,
began publishing Isis, an international review devoted to the history of
science and its cultural influences. Twelve years later, he helped to create
the History of Science Society, which by the end of the century had attracted
some 4,000 individual and institutional members. In 1941, the University of
Wisconsin established a department of the history of science, the first of
dozens of such programs to appear worldwide.
Since the days of Sarton, historians of science have produced a small
library of monographs and essays, but they have generally shied away from
writing and editing broad surveys. Sarton himself, inspired in part by the
Cambridge histories, planned to produce an eight-volume History of Science,
but he completed only the first two installments (1952, 1959), which ended
with the birth of Christianity. His mammoth three-volume Introduction to
the History of Science (1927–48), more a reference work than a narrative
history, never got beyond the Middle Ages. The closest predecessor to The
Cambridge History of Science is the three-volume (four-book) Histoire
Générale des Sciences (1957–64), edited by René Taton, which appeared in
an English translation under the title General History of the Sciences (1963–4).
xvii
xviii General Editors’ Preface

Edited just before the late twentieth-century boom in the history of science,
the Taton set quickly became dated. During the 1990s, Roy Porter began
editing the very useful Fontana History of Science (published in the United
States as the Norton History of Science), with volumes devoted to a single
discipline and written by a single author.
The Cambridge History of Science comprises eight volumes, the first four
arranged chronologically from antiquity through the eighteenth century, the
latter four organized thematically and covering the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Eminent scholars from Europe and North America, who together
form the editorial board for the series, edit the respective volumes:
Volume 1: Ancient Science, edited by Alexander Jones, University of Toronto,
and Liba Taub, University of Cambridge
Volume 2: Medieval Science, edited by David C. Lindberg and Michael H.
Shank, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Volume 3: Early Modern Science, edited by Katharine Park, Harvard University,
and Lorraine Daston, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
Volume 4: Eighteenth-Century Science, edited by Roy Porter, late of Wellcome
Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London
Volume 5: The Modern Physical and Mathematical Sciences, edited by Mary Jo
Nye, Oregon State University
Volume 6: The Modern Biological and Earth Sciences, edited by Peter J. Bowler,
Queen’s University of Belfast, and John V. Pickstone, University of Manchester
Volume 7: The Modern Social Sciences, edited by Theodore M. Porter, University
of California, Los Angeles, and Dorothy Ross, Johns Hopkins University
Volume 8: Modern Science in National and International Context, edited by Ronald
L. Numbers, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Hugh Richard Slotten,
University of Otago, and David N. Livingstone, Queen’s University of Belfast
Our collective goal is to provide an authoritative, up-to-date account of

science – from the earliest literate societies in Mesopotamia and Egypt to
the end of the twentieth century – that even nonspecialist readers will find
engaging. Written by leading experts from every inhabited continent, the
essays in The Cambridge History of Science explore the systematic investigation
of nature and society, whatever it was called. (The term “science” did not
acquire its present meaning until early in the nineteenth century.) Reflecting
the ever-expanding range of approaches and topics in the history of science,
the contributing authors explore non-Western as well as Western science,
applied as well as pure science, popular as well as elite science, scientific
practice as well as scientific theory, cultural context as well as intellectual
content, and the dissemination and reception as well as the production of
scientific knowledge. George Sarton would scarcely recognize this collabora-
tive effort as the history of science, but we hope we have realized his vision.
David C. Lindberg
Ronald L. Numbers
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers for the invitation to

edit Volume 1 on Ancient Science in The Cambridge History of Science. David
Lindberg was committed to this volume having broad coverage; with this in
mind, we are pleased to have persuaded authors to contribute chapters
covering such a wide geographical and chronological span. We are very
sad that David did not live to see the final product, and we record our
gratitude to him for his encouragement and thoughtful guidance. Ron
Numbers was also extremely helpful and encouraging; for his continued
enthusiasm, we are grateful.
Editorial staff at Cambridge University Press have been supportive
throughout, providing skillful oversight and suggestions. In particular, we
thank Alex Holzman, Eric Crahan, Deborah Gershenowitz, Dana Bricken,
Kristina Deusch, Bethany Thomas, and Cassi Roberts, as well as Joshua Hey
and Auriol Griffith-Jones. In Cambridge, Frances Willmoth, Emma
Perkins, and Arthur Harris gave valuable assistance at various stages as did
Michael Coxhead (London). Finally, we thank the authors for their con-
tributions, patience, and good humor in bringing this volume to
publication.
Alexander Jones
Liba Taub
xix
INTRODUCTION
Alexander Jones and Liba Taub
Volume One of The Cambridge History of Science traces the principal

scientific traditions of the Old World in antiquity that have left substantial
textual evidence. Some of these traditions are also represented by other sorts
of evidence – archaeological, visual, and material. However, our under-
standing of what these traditions were is in every instance grounded pri-
marily in texts. In fact, it is not merely the case that written sources are
a primary source of knowledge of these traditions, but these traditions were
in themselves functions of literate scholarly cultures.
These traditions eventually became part of the interconnected intellectual
world of the Middle Ages, especially through the wide circulation of knowl-
edge that was facilitated by the spread of Islam. As a general phenomenon
this interconnectedness became apparent only retrospectively; in many
cases, however, there was much interaction already in antiquity.
Historians of ancient science have long recognized the significance of
transmissions and transformations crossing geographical and linguistic
boundaries; more recently we are increasingly conscious that knowledge
transfers occurred within individual cultures, between distinct communities
of people separated by education, self-identification, and other differentiat-
ing factors. For example, we can investigate not just transmission of astro-
nomical knowledge between Mesopotamia and Greece, but between
specialists and non-specialists or between distinct groups of specialists (for
example, mathematicians, astrologers, philosophers, even physicians).
We are not always able to construct detailed narratives, because we are
always dealing with fragmentary evidence, which may be densely abundant
for one particular context and chronological period but otherwise almost
nonexistent. We are seldom offered a direct glimpse of moments of dis-
covery or innovation; biographical information about key figures in the
processes of change is usually scanty or unreliable. What we can best describe
and investigate are the practices that subsisted between and as a consequence
of such moments.
1
2 Alexander Jones and Liba Taub

Our understanding of ancient scientific traditions has changed for
a number of reasons, including the discovery of new evidence (through
archaeology, say, or rediscovered manuscripts) as well as the emergence of
new historiographical questions and methods. A particularly important
example of such a change is the shift in emphasis in current scholarship
from preoccupation with scientific concepts and methods to the people who
engaged in scientific work, their education, their motivations, and their
professional status. Who counted as a ‘professional’ varies from culture to
culture. For example, in China and Mesopotamia – but not, apparently, in
Greece – astronomers were professionals holding appointments and carrying
out set duties. Many cultures had various types of health professionals,
including physicians, midwives, and root-cutters. Where there were profes-
sions, this implied professional training, but not necessarily formal
accreditation.
While we recognize that applying the name ‘Science’ – as if there ever
existed in antiquity a unifying conception even approximately coextensive
with the modern one – is an anachronism, nevertheless it is a convenient and
useful anachronism. Rather than applying a single criterion for what con-
stituted a scientific tradition, we take into consideration three elements that
did not all have to be present in a particular tradition: the collection and
organization of information and knowledge; prediction; and causal explana-
tion. While thus refusing to define science in a reductive manner, we regard
some combination of these activities as characterizing scientific endeavors.
The ancient scientific traditions dealt with in this volume were not
exclusively theoretical, pursued purely or even primarily as knowledge for
knowledge’s sake. Even traditions such as Greek mathematics, which were
caricatured even in antiquity as ‘ivory-tower’ pursuits, had practical applica-
tions and social roles. Conversely, it is sometimes impossible to tell from the
surface level of many of the texts whether they were truly concerned with
real-world problems, because many of these problems are cast as practical,
but were actually artificially constructed intellectual or didactic exercises.
We have not felt it necessary to attempt to cover every ancient scientific
tradition, either geographically or culturally, nor is the aim of this volume to
discuss every single tradition that might qualify as scientific according to the
principles we have given. We believe that we have included the most
important and well-documented scientific traditions of antiquity, and
that, broadly speaking, the chapters reflect the variety of such traditions in
each major culture to the extent that this is possible in the present state of
historical scholarship. Our aim is to be representative, not comprehensive.
We resist the temptation to project the categories of modern scientific
culture backwards; thus it is not meaningful to write a history of ‘chemistry’
or ‘physics’ in any ancient context. We recognize that even a term such as
‘astronomy’ did not mean the same thing in any ancient context that it
would in a modern university, but there did at least exist more or less
Introduction 3
coherent intellectual traditions in which the heavenly bodies were the
primary objects of study. Both the areas of ancient science and the ways in
which they have come to be categorized have to a large extent been deter-
mined by the trajectories of past scholarship, and by the readiness of present-
day scholars to study what they regard as scientific or technical fields.
Nevertheless, we have attempted to be inclusive when considering what
counts as science. For example, chapters treat botany, understood in anti-
quity primarily as being about classification and materia medica; music
theory as an explanatory and mathematical science largely concerned with
the pitch systems of ancient music; and astrology and astral divination as
complex systems with close ties to astronomy and cosmology.
Each chapter’s author has determined the appropriate chronological
range to cover: generally, each one starts from the earliest documented
period, but where ‘antiquity’ ends is a matter of convention that varies
from culture to culture. So, for example, as we see in the chapter on
Indian mathematics, some styles of teaching and learning persist down to
the present. Labels like ‘antiquity’, ‘classical’, and ‘medieval’ are thus terms
of convenience.
In some of the cultures considered here, notably Egypt, Mesopotamia,
and China, institutional and administrative settings established the frame-
works for some scientific traditions. In Mesopotamia, for example, literacy,
scholarship, and scientific activities were closely related, and largely over-
lapped. Institutions and governmental structures were less significant in
other cultures, while other social and cultural factors had a greater impact
in shaping scientific and technical work. In Greece and Rome, certain
scientific pursuits were associated with specific philosophical sects or
‘schools’ (e.g. zoology and botany with the Peripatetics), but institutions
or patronage supporting science – when they existed at all – tended to be
short-lived.
In some cultural contexts scientific practices were embedded within
hieratic institutions: for example, observational and mathematical astron-
omy in the temples of Babylonia. Elsewhere we find the coexistence of
religion-based and science-based practices, such as physicians operating
within the confines of temples of Asclepius where divine dream-based
healing was practiced. Even in the most apparently secular approaches to
scientific questions, terms like ‘divine’ frequently occur. One is hard-pressed
to find any instance in which a scientific author attacks institutionalized
religion; indeed, within the cultures under consideration here, there is
almost no evidence of any adversarial relationship between religion and
science.
Each chapter of this volume is intended to be self-standing while con-
tributing to the larger project of The Cambridge History of Science. As editors,
we have not imposed a single approach on the authors of individual chapters.
Some are presented chronologically, some thematically; contributors have
4 Alexander Jones and Liba Taub

adopted whatever approach they regard as most illuminating. They were not
discouraged from giving an informed, personal interpretation of material;
hence, the chapters do not always present a totally neutral ‘take’ on the
subject. For the most part, individual authors have not presented their
subject as the precursor of something that happens later. Rather, each
chapter considers the science of that culture as something worth under-
standing in its own right and in its own context. While the contributors have
aimed to make their subject comprehensible to non-specialists, there is
much that will be of interest even to specialists. From our own experience
as editors, we know that we have each learned much through reading the
chapters presented here.
Part I
MESOPOTAMIA
1
SCIENCE AND ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA
Francesca Rochberg1
How the study of physical phenomena in ancient Mesopotamia relates to the

history of science is a question as important for the study of ancient
Mesopotamia as it is for the history of science. It addresses both the nature
of knowledge in the oldest literate culture as well as the historical reach of
what we call science. If the essence of science is to be found in its system-
atization of knowledge about phenomena and in the various practices
associated with such knowledge systems – practices such as celestial observa-
tion, prediction, and explanation – then science was a central part of cunei-
form intellectual culture.
Divination, magic, and medicine were integral parts of what the scribes
termed “scholarship” (tupsarrūtu, literally “the art of the scribe”) as well as
˙
“wisdom” (nēmequ). Scholarship and wisdom were classified as a “secret of
the great gods” (pirišti ilāni rabûti), referring to a conception of the origins of
knowledge with the divine. Cuneiform knowledge was thus reserved for
initiates, and injunctions against scribes who were not among the privileged
few with access to texts classified as “secret” (pirištu) or “guarded” (nisirtu)
are known from the Middle Babylonian (ca. sixteenth to eleventh centuries ˙
bce) to the Late Babylonian (ca. fourth to first centuries bce) periods.2
The classification of knowledge as secret applied to divinatory texts, incanta-
tions, apotropaic rituals against ominous signs, medical texts, scholarly
commentaries on divinatory texts, and astronomical texts, and by the late
first millennium the interrelations among these forms of knowledge become
more apparent. A Late Babylonian astronomical text giving rules for calcu-
lating month lengths and intervals of lunar visibility around the full moon,
1
There are various abbreviations that are standard within Assyriology. Those unfamiliar with these
may consult http://cdli.ox.ac.uk/wiki/abbreviations_for_assyriology.
2
See A. Lenzi, Secrecy and the Gods: Secret Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia and Biblical Israel (State
Archives of Assyria Studies 19; Helsinki: University of Helsinki Press, 2008), pp. 64–6, and cf.
P.-A. Beaulieu, “New Light on Secret Knowledge in Late Babylonian Culture,” ZA 82 (1992), 98–111.
7
8 Francesca Rochberg
for example, begins with the statement: “Tablet of the guarded secret of
heaven, secret knowledge of the great gods.”3
The sources for cuneiform scholarship span two millennia, beginning in
the Old Babylonian Period (ca. 1800–1600 bce) and continuing until the
early centuries of the Common Era. This chapter focuses first on the content
of cuneiform scholarship and wisdom, follows with aspects of the methods
of the scholar-scribes – observation, prediction, and explanation – particu-
larly with respect to celestial divination and astronomy, and closes with
a note on the modern nomenclature and classification of cuneiform astro-
nomical/astrological texts.
CUNEIFORM SCHOLARSHIP AND WISDOM
Assyro-Babylonian scholarly divination originated in Babylonia in

the second millennium bce, where collections of texts for the reading of
signs, particularly those from the heavens and from the exta of sacrificed
sheep, were typically formulated in the casuistic, or case form “If P then Q,”
style, as in the following:
If water secretes inside the gall bladder: The flood will come.4
If the gall bladder is turned and has wrapped around the “finger”:
The king will seize the enemy country.5
The tradition was both systematic and authoritative, and tablet series
containing celestial and terrestrial signs (Akkadian ittātu) became part of
the spread of cuneiform writing to the west of Babylonia during
the second millennium, to Emar, Harādum, Alalakh, and Qatna, as
well as to the Hittite capital of Hattusas, as important components of
an international cuneiform scribal tradition.6 Development of scholarly
divination in the Middle Babylonian (ca. 1600–1100 bce) and Middle
Assyrian periods (ca. 1400–1050 bce) indicates the formation at that time
of authoritative series, which later, especially in the seventh century bce,
assumed a prominent place in the state libraries of Nineveh, Nimrud, and
3
BM 42282+42294 obv. 1 [tu]ppi nisirtu šamê pirištu ilāni rabûti; see L. Brack-Bernsen and H. Hunger,
“BM 42282+42294 and the ˙ Goal-Year
˙ Method,” SCIAMVS 9 (2008), 6.
4
A. Goetze, Old Babylonian Omen Texts (Yale Oriental Series 10; New Haven, CT and London: Yale
University Press, 1947), no. 31, col. ii, ll. 38–41.
5
Ibid., no. 31, col. ii, ll. 24–30.
6
The 13th century bce Emar omens are found in D. Arnaud, Recherches au pays d’Astata Emar, vol. 6
(Paris: Recherche sur les civilisations, 1987); Nos. 650–65 are celestial omens. The Har~dum text is
published in F. Joannès, “Un Précurseur Paléo-Babylonien de la Série Šumma Ālu,” in H. Gasche,
M. Tanret, C. Janssen, and A. Degraeve (eds.), Cinquante-deux réflexions sur le Proche-Orient ancien
offertes en hommage à Léon de Meyer (Mesopotamian History and Environment, Occasional
Publications 2; Leuven: Peeters, 1994), pp.305–12.
Science and Ancient Mesopotamia 9

7
Assur. Cuneiform scribal culture continued in the Babylonia of the Neo-
Babylonian, Hellenistic, and Parthian periods, preserving as well as
expanding upon the traditional knowledge of omens, rituals, prayers,
hemerologies, commentaries, and medical, magical, and astronomical/
astrological texts, until the end of cuneiform writing itself.
Compilations of omens in lists represent the result of scholarly system-
atization and theorization about the meaning of signs, thus establishing in
our minds their connection to science. To the divinatory sciences, there-
fore, belong all the cuneiform scholarly texts formulated in the casuistic
manner, which associated a protasis (if-clause) with an apodosis (then-
clause) such that a phenomenon was systematically “explained.”
Explanation in this context is meant in the sense used by David Pingree
when he defined science as “a systematic explanation of perceived or
imaginary phenomena or else [it] is based on such an explanation.”8
In Pingree’s view, Babylonian divination was “a systematic explanation
of phenomena based on the theory that certain of them are signs sent by the
gods to warn those expert in their interpretation of future events.”9 While
this statement only opens up for debate what the nature of explanation is in
the divinatory sciences, one way in which divination was explanatory has
to do with the relation of an omen apodosis to its protasis and how events
were thought to be connected to one another. The establishment of
connections, referred to in the texts as divine decisions or judgments,
further manifests the Babylonian notion of divine causality and the view
of an intimate involvement of the gods in physical phenomena.10
The divine judgments came in the form of socially relevant events
such as attack by enemies, fall of market prices, hunger and want,
devastation by flood, pestilence, or plagues of locusts. Fortune or mis-
fortune for the ruling elite (king, prince, lord) was the main concern, as
in the following:
If Venus stands behind the Moon: the king will have no rival.
If Venus stands in the Moon’s position: the king’s land will revolt
against him.
7
In addition to the text series, see the correspondence between scholars and the kings Esarhaddon and
Assurbanipal in S. Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, 2 vols.
(Neukirchen-Vluyn: Butzon and Bercker Kevelaer, 1970–83), vol. 1: Texts; vol. 2: Commentary and
Appendices; H. Hunger, Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings (State Archives of Assyria (= SAA) 8;
Helsinki: University of Helsinki Press, 1992); and S. Parpola, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian
Scholars (State Archives of Assyria (= SAA) 10; Helsinki: University of Helsinki Press, 1993).
8
D. Pingree, “Hellenophilia Versus the History of Science,” Isis 83 (1992), 554–63, quotes from 559–60.
9
Ibid.
10
F. Rochberg, In the Path of the Moon: Babylonian Celestial Divination and Its Legacy (Leiden and
Boston, MA: Brill, 2010), pp. 411–24.
If Venus reaches the Moon and enters into the Moon: the king’s son will seize
his father’s throne.11
Such public apodoses were generally found in celestial divination, mal-

formed birth omens (of the series Šumma izbu), and extispicy. Other
omen series (as in the physiognomic omens of Alamdimmû or the birth
omens of Iqqur īpuš) focused on the stability of a man’s household, personal
health, wealth, happiness, and lifespan. Private apodoses would later be
integrated within natal astrological omens and horoscopes.12
As most clearly represented in the surviving texts of the library at
Nineveh, the corpora of five distinct scholarly professions represent the
scholars’ repertoire of knowledge, namely, those of the “scribe of Enūma
Anu Enlil” (tupšar Enūma Anu Enlil), who was expert in astral phenomena,
the “one who ˙ inspects (the liver and exta)” (bārû), i.e., the diviner expert in
extispicy; the “exorcist” (āšipu), who treated human beings afflicted by
divine disfavor via incantations and rituals aimed at re-establishment of
the right relationship between human and divine; the “physician” (asû),
who treated the body in the grip of demonic or divine influence (what we
call disease); and the “lamentation priest” (kalû), who was responsible for
religious ritual performance (songs of lamentation, also the playing of the
kettledrum for the ritual against the evil of a lunar eclipse).13 Rigid distinc-
tions did not obtain between these scribal professions and the texts they
wrote, copied, and utilized. Omens (including astral, abnormal birth, and
human physiognomic) and astronomical texts are, for example, within the
professional domain of āšipus and kalûs.
Astral omens begin to appear in the Old Babylonian period with parti-
cular attention to lunar eclipses. Eventually the canonical Enūma Anu Enlil
encompassed a range of phenomena of the moon, sun, planets, fixed stars,
and weather. Of particular though not exclusive interest to the scholars were
periodic phenomena, and the understanding of astronomical periodicities
was therefore increasingly of importance. The letters to the Assyrian kings
Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal in the seventh century reflect some ability to
predict astronomical phenomena such as planetary appearances and even
lunar eclipses, at least in the short term. Also attested in the seventh century,
in a tablet that gives celestial omens in a numerical cryptography, are periods
11
E. Reiner and D. Pingree, Babylonian Planetary Omens, Part 3 (Groningen: Styx, 1998), p. 45, lines
38–9 and 46.
12
F. Rochberg, The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 202–6, and passim. See also F. Rochberg,
Babylonian Horoscopes (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 88; Philadelphia, PA:
American Philosophical Society, 1998).
13
P.-A. Beaulieu and J. P. Britton, “Rituals for an Eclipse Possibility in the 8th Year of Cyrus,” Journal
of Cuneiform Studies (henceforth “JCS”) 46 (1994), 73–86; D. Brown and M. Linssen, “BM 134701 =
1965–10–14,1 and the Hellenistic Period Eclipse Ritual from Uruk,” RA 91 (1997), 147–66; and M.
Linssen, The Cults of Uruk and Babylon: The Temple Ritual Texts as Evidence for Hellenistic Cult
Practice (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2004), pp. 306–20.

for the planetary synodic cycles, some consistent with later so-called goal-
year periods (see, pp. 20 and 24, below).14 Prediction of lunar and planetary
phenomena utilizing the parameters of so-called goal-year periods is also
attested in the sixth-century Strassmaier Cambyses 400.15 By the fifth
century and later, the small group of cuneiform horoscopes (or proto-
horoscopes16) required the calculation of planetary positions, and these
could either be made with goal-year methods, or perhaps by means of
interpolations from the mathematical schemes characteristic of the ephe-
merides of Seleucid Babylonia.17 Predictions for astral phenomena did not
diminish the ominous significance of signs. The response to an occurrence of
a lunar eclipse, even in the Seleucid period (after 300 bce) when prediction
of eclipses is well attested, was the performance of an apotropaic ritual to
dispel its evil.18
Other celestial omens are not from periodic phenomena, such as the
following planetary omens (note that square brackets indicate breaks in
the clay tablet where the text is restored by duplicates):
[If Venus at her appearance is red: (abundance for the people)], the
harvest of the land will succeed, the king of Akkad will experience
[joy] – the east wind blows.
If Venus at her appearance is black: Enlil will glare angrily [at the
land], in the land business will be poor [. . .], the south wind blows.
[If Venus at her appearance is white:] There will be drought in the
land, [. . .] – the north wind blows.19
In addition to celestial and terrestrial omens, medical texts systematized both
symptoms and therapeutic techniques for reference purposes.20 Because the
aetiology of disease was considered divine, demonic, from ghosts (qāt etemmi
“hand of a ghost”), witches (kišpu “witchcraft”), curses (mamītu), or ˙ any-
thing evil (mimma lemnu “whatever is evil”), the āšipu (“exorcist”) specia-
lized in the incantations and liturgy used to appeal to deities who had the
14
See C. J. Gadd, “Omens Expressed in Numbers,” JCS 21 (1967), 52–63, especially p. 61. The periods
in question are Saturn 59, Venus 8, Mars 15, and Jupiter 12. See J. P. Britton, “Studies in Babylonian
Lunar Theory Part II. Treatments of Lunar Anomaly,” Archive for History of Exact Sciences 63
(2009), 357–431, especially p. 349.
15
J. P. Britton, “Remarks on Strassmaier Cambyses 400,” in M. Ross (ed.), From the Banks of the
Euphrates: Studies in Honor of Alice Louise Slotsky (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008), pp. 7–33,
with bibliography.
16
H. Hunger and D. Pingree, Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia (Handbuch der Orientalistik; Leiden,
Boston, MA, and Cologne: Brill, 1999), pp. 26–7.
17
Rochberg, Babylonian Horoscopes, pp. 7–11.
18
See note 12.
19
Reiner and Pingree, Babylonian Planetary Omens, Part 3, pp. 40–3, Group A, VAT 10218 lines
13–15.
20
I. L. Finkel, “On Late Babylonian Medical Training,” in A. R. George and I. L. Finkel (eds.),
Wisdom, God and Literature: Studies in Assyriology in Honor of W. G. Lambert (Winona Lake, IN:
Eisenbrauns, 2000), pp. 137–224; M. J. Geller, Ancient Babylonian Medicine: Theory and Practice
(Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).
power to heal and protect the patient. Incantations could be used in
combination with other prophylactic and apotropaic acts such as fumiga-
tion, the topical application of salves, and the use of amulets as means to
appease the divine sources of illness and pain. Incantations were collected,
standardized up to a point, and had a kind of canonical force in the same way
as did divinatory texts.21
While divinatory texts began with discrete genre boundaries (celestial,
physiognomic, birth, etc.), in the last half of the first millennium,
during Persian (Achaemenid), Hellenistic (Seleucid) and Parthian
(Arsacid) Babylonia, interrelations are increasingly integrated, and
Late Babylonian scholarly commentaries establish more direct connec-
tions between celestial and terrestrial realms. The integration of astral
with terrestrial divinatory sciences seems to have been made possible by
the development of astrology, that is, by the application of celestial signs
for the human being (and the human body) in general, no longer
focusing, as did Enūma Anu Enlil, only on the king. In one commented
text, for example, omen series concerning human appearance, health,
and births were brought into relation with celestial signs. Its opening
lines:
(The omen series) “If a Malformed fetus,” (the omen series)
“Symptoms,” (the omen series) “Physical Characteristics.” Aries,
Taurus, Orion are for predicting the appearance. When they (the
planets?) “reach” (the various zodiacal signs) it refers to physical
characteristics. Observe the secret of heaven and earth!22
The laconic nature of the commentary leaves open the question of exactly
what the connections between birth, medical, physiognomic, and astrologi-
cal phenomena were, yet a decidedly astrological, that is genethlialogical
(birth astrology), turn has been taken. An important feature of later astro-
nomical texts (Diaries and Almanacs) was to track when the planets
“reached” each zodiacal sign. The colophons of Almanacs state that these
texts are “measurements of the ‘reachings’ of the (divine) planets” (mešhi ša
kašādī ša dbibbī). The arrival of a planet into a sign was presumably
astrologically significant, though the statements of these “reachings” in
astronomical texts do not provide an astrological meaning. These same
astronomical texts, namely the Almanacs and Diaries, were very likely
21
For example, the series Šurpu (see E. Reiner, Šurpu: A Collection of Sumerian and Akkadian
Incantations (AfO Beiheft 11; Graz: Archiv der Orientforschung, 1958)); the anti-demon text Udug-
hul (see M. Geller, Forerunners to Udug-Hul: Sumerian Exorcistic Incantations (Wiesbaden:
F. Steiner Verlag, 1985)); the ritual series Mušš’u (see B. Böck, “‘When You Perform the Ritual of
Rubbing’: On Medicine and Magic in Ancient Mesopotamia,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 62
(2003), 1–16, with further bibliography).
22
See B. Böck, “‘An Esoteric Babylonian Commentary’ Revisited,” Journal of the American Oriental
Society 120 (2000), 615–20.

used as sources for the zodiacal positions of the planets quoted in cuneiform
horoscopes.23
Astrology finds a connection to extispicy in the Late Babylonian Period as
well, when traditionally ominous parts of the liver are associated with a god,
one of the twelve months, and a heliacally rising star, thus: “the Path (of the
liver) is Šamaš, Ajāru, Taurus; the gall bladder is Anu, Tašrītu, Libra,” and so
on.24 Magical practice also established new connections to the zodiac, such
as in a list of spells with their correlated regions in the zodiacal signs.25 Even
the term “sign” or “ominous part” (literally “flesh” UZU = šīru) found earlier
in liver omens occurs again in a Seleucid astrological context where dode-
katemoria (1/12ths) of zodiacal signs are referred to as 12 UZU.MEŠ HA.LA
ša múlLÚ.HUN.GÁ (variant, múlLU) “the 12 signs (ominous parts) of the
zodiacal sign Aries.”26
Astronomy and the preservation by the ummânu of esoteric learning in
magical, medical, and liturgical texts dominated the activities of the Late
Babylonian literati in the last centuries of the cuneiform tradition.
Testimony to the continuation of the practice of Babylonian astronomy in
the first century ce comes from the Elder Pliny (23–79 ce), who claims to
have seen the astronomers in Babylon in the “Temple of Jupiter-Bēl.”27
On the surface, the astronomical contents of the quantitative predictive texts
of the Late Babylonian Period do not appear to relate to divinatory knowl-
edge, yet the texts that predict such events as rains and floods, enemy attacks,
and market prices, as well as the few preserved colophons on ephemerides, all
reflect the fact of the identification of the astronomers as members of the
classes of tupšar Enūma Anu Enlil, kalû, and āšipu. Furthermore, a few
preserved ˙rubrics indicate that these tablets were classified by the scribes,
along with other texts of tupšarrūtu, as “secret” (pirištu), as in the following
colophon from a text dated ˙ to the second century bce:
On eclipses of the moon.

Tablet of Anu-bēl-šunu, lamentation priest of Anu, son of Nidintu-
Anu, descendant of Sin-lēqi-unninni of Uruk. Hand of Anu-[aba-utêr,
his son, scri]be of Enūma Anu Enlil of Uruk. Uruk, month I, year 12[1?]
Antiochus [. . .]
23
F. Rochberg, “Babylonian Horoscopy: The Texts and Their Relations,” in N. M. Swerdlow (ed.),
Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), pp. 39–60, and see
also Rochberg, Heavenly Writing, pp. 145–57.
24
SpTU 14, 159; see U. Koch-Westenholz, Babylonian Liver Omens: The Chapters Manzāzu, Padānu,
Pān tākalti of the Babylonian Extispicy Series Mainly from Assurbanipal’s Library (The Carsten
Niebuhr Institute of Near Eastern Studies Publications, 25; Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum
Press, 2000), pp. 24–5.
25
BRM 4 20, with BRM 4 19 (and parallels with STT 300 although without the zodiacal references),
see M. J. Geller, Melothesia in Babylonia: Medicine, Magic, and Astrology in the Ancient Near East
(Science, Technology, and Medicine in Ancient Cultures 2; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), pp. 28–57.
26
TCL 6 14:11, 12, 13, and 20; see A. J. Sachs, “Babylonian Horoscopes,” JCS 6 (1952), 49–75, p. 66.
27
Pliny, The Natual History VI 123, VII 193.
Whoever reveres Anu and Antu [. . .]
Computational table. The wisdom of Anu-ship, exclusive knowl-
edge of the god [. . .]
Secret knowledge of the masters. The one who knows may show (it) to
an[other one who knows]. One who does not know may not [see it.
It belongs to the forbidden things] of Anu, Enlil [and Ea, the great gods].28
CELESTIAL OBSERVATION29
Astronomical texts do not appear prior to the Old Babylonian period

(2000–1600 bce). No astronomical texts are known in the Sumerian lan-
guage; however, some rudimentary recognition of observed astronomical
phenomena is attested in the early third millennium bce (Uruk level IV) in
an Uruk cultic text concerning offerings to the goddess Inanna as the
morning and evening star. A cult to the astral Inanna continued in
Sumerian city-states through the third millennium. Otherwise, poetic
descriptions, such as of the moon god and his many “cattle,” i.e., the stars,
are found in Sumerian literature,30 and lists of star names are found in
Sumerian lexical texts of the Old Babylonian period (Ura 5, together with
geographical names31), roughly contemporaneous with the earliest evidence
for systematic attention to the celestial bodies as signs.
One of the modern debates about the role of observation in the
cuneiform tradition has to do with the origins of omen divination,
namely whether the observation of co-occurences of phenomena led to
the idea that one phenomenon (P) could indicate another (Q).32
The evidence is clear that signs were studied for their appearances,
regularities, and irregularities, and the patterns of their occurrence.
No evidence for an observational connection of signs to portents, how-
ever, can be demonstrated. A variety of non-observational principles can
28
O. Neugebauer, Astronomical Cuneiform Texts, 3 vols. (London: Lund Humphries, 1955), No. 135,
reading of the date is uncertain, see p. 19 for discussion; also H. Hunger, Babylonische und Assyrische
Kolophone (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 2; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener Verlag des Erziehungsvereins, 1968), No. 98.
29
See also F. Rochberg, “Scientific Observation and Knowledge of the World in Cuneiform Culture”
in E. Robson and K. Radner (eds.), Oxford Companion to Cuneiform Culture (Oxford: Oxford
University Press), pp. 618–36.
30
See F. Rochberg,“Sheep and Cattle, Cows and Calves: The Sumero-Akkadian Astral Gods as
Livestock,” in S. Melville and A. Slotsky (eds.), Opening the Tablet Box: Near Eastern Studies in
Honor of Benjamin R. Foster (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East, 42; Leiden and Boston,
MA: Brill, 2010), pp. 347–59.
31
See http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/dcclt/Q000042, lines 387–410.
32
For example, P. Huber, “Dating by Lunar Eclipse Omina with Speculations on the Birth of Omen
Astrology,” in J. L. Berggren and B. R. Goldstein (eds.), From Ancient Omens to Statistical
Mechanics: Essays on the Exact Sciences Presented to Asger Aaboe (Copenhagen: University Library,
1987), pp. 3–13.
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Transcriber’s note
Minor punctuation errors have been changed
without notice. The following printer errors have
been changed.
CHANGED FROM TO
“always some thing “always something
Page 12:
to be” to be”
Page 19: “Go in an win” “Go in and win”
“An Uncommercial “The Uncommercial
Page 26:
Traveller.” Traveller.”
Page 31: “what ever it is” “whatever it is”
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The Cambridge History of Science.

Volume 1: Ancient Science 1st Edition

A Mathematician s Journeys Otto Neugebauer and Modern

The Cambridge History of Medieval Music 1 The Cambridge

A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism,

Philosophy of Science Alexander Christian

The Cambridge Handbook of International Prevention

Philosophy of Science Volume 1 From Theory to Problem

The Cambridge History of Music Criticism The Cambridge

A Scheme of Heaven The History and Science of Astrology

List of Illustrations page x

PART III GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN 161

PART V CHINA 551

2.1 Catalog tablets from the Esagil-kīn-apli school page 36

Andrew Barker is Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of

Notes on Contributors xiii

xiv Notes on Contributors

xvi Notes on Contributors

GENERAL EDITORS’ PREFACE

xviii General Editors’ Preface

Our collective goal is to provide an authoritative, up-to-date account of

We thank David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers for the invitation to

Volume One of The Cambridge History of Science traces the principal

2 Alexander Jones and Liba Taub

4 Alexander Jones and Liba Taub

How the study of physical phenomena in ancient Mesopotamia relates to the

CUNEIFORM SCHOLARSHIP AND WISDOM

Assyro-Babylonian scholarly divination originated in Babylonia in

Science and Ancient Mesopotamia 9

Such public apodoses were generally found in celestial divination, mal-

Science and Ancient Mesopotamia 11

Science and Ancient Mesopotamia 13

On eclipses of the moon.

Astronomical texts do not appear prior to the Old Babylonian period

Second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes,

A Tale of Two Cities.

It’s much easier to talk

here’s the good of putting

Money ... some people find their gratification

Only the wisdom that holds the clue to

Every man came into this world for something.

Perfect coolness and self-possession

The hill has not lifted its face to Heaven yet,

If you can’t get to be uncommon

heerful of spirit and guiltless

The Uncommercial Traveller.

Live at least, in peace, and trust in God

Reflect upon your present blessings—

All other swindlers upon earth are nothing

here’s a moral in everything, if

Dombey and Son.

It is the highest part of the highest creed

There is nothing, no, nothing innocent or

Old Curiosity Shop.

It does not follow that the more talkative a

Blustering assertion goes for proof half

From rough outsides serene and gentle influences

A generous nature is not prone to strong

ork: don’t make fine playing

If I do my duty, I do what I ought, and

Dombey and Son.

Do not strive and struggle to enrich

People accustomed from infancy to lie on