Professorship of the Cluster of Excellence – History of Science of the Pre-Modern World

Prof. Dr. Annette Warner (Imhausen)

The academic focus of the cluster professorship is on two topics: 1) the study of pre-modern science, especially ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian scientific practices and their manifestations; and 2) the historiography of pre-modern, especially early ancient scientific sources.

Normative orders (and their changes) in the field of early science are captured through the analysis of scientific sources, as scientific texts form formally structured systems of norms. The importance of casuistic procedures, regional and temporal influences as well as the necessity of consistency and coherence in their logical structure allow statements to be made about the nature of systems of order, which can also be relevant for research into more recent and newest developments.

The professorship’s research can be roughly divided into three areas:

1) The development of Egyptian mathematics from the invention of the number system to the Greco-Roman period
The development of Egyptian mathematics can be traced over a total period of 3000 years against the background of various social and cultural constellations (publication: Ancient Egyptian Mathematics. A contextual history). This is possible in the greatest detail for the periods from which so-called mathematical texts are available (Middle Kingdom and Greco-Roman period). These can be analyzed as algorithms according to their procedural character (ongoing project).

2) The normativity of formal orders and procedures in antiquity. A comparison of mathematical and legal rule systems
Central cluster project, see report: http://www.normativeorders.net/de/forschung/forschungsprojekte-2012-2017/66-forschung/forschungsprojekte-2012-2017/1316-die-normativitaet-formaler-ordnungen-und-prozeduren-in-der-antike-mathematische-und-rechtliche-regelsysteme-im-vergleich

3.) (Daliah Bawanypeck’s book project) “Mesopotamian Scholars and their Texts – Normative Orders and Cuneiform Knowledge Concepts” (original working title: On the Function of Normative Orders in the Transmission of Knowledge in Mesopotamia)
Daliah Bawanypeck’s book project “Mesopotamian Scholars and their Texts – Normative Orders and Cuneiform Knowledge Concepts” (original working title: On the Function of Normative Orders in the Transmission of Knowledge in Mesopotamia) was continued. The study, which deals with cuneiform knowledge texts, literate experts and the places of knowledge accumulation, aims to illustrate the conditions under which Mesopotamian knowledge cultures were formed, who the knowledge carriers were and which cognitive processes and instruments played a role in the formation, establishment, transmission and development of written knowledge.

The central results can be outlined as follows: In a publication on two workshops from the first term of the cluster, a total of eight case studies from the fields of medicine, magic and ritual, astronomy, mathematics and law were examined to analyze scientific sources in the field of early science. As written knowledge was preserved and passed on in a planned manner in both cultures, the paradigms of institutional knowledge preservation can be reflected in the texts. The case studies offer both overviews of the textual traditions of some fields of knowledge and considerations of particular aspects of certain text corpora.
The monograph on Egyptian mathematics is the first to present a history of Egyptian mathematics, beginning with the invention of the number system and ending with the last indigenous demotic sources. For the description of the individual epochs, Egyptian mathematics was embedded in its social and cultural context in order to better understand the developments.

Following the conference and publication “Writing of Early Scholars in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Rome and Greece”, which dealt with translations of ancient scientific texts, a handbook on translating early scientific texts was compiled and has since been published. Experts from the individual cultures used case studies from the fields of ancient medicine, astronomy, astrology and mathematics to provide concrete examples of how to proceed when translating pre-modern scientific texts. The individual contributions also provide subject-specific references to translation and annotation methods as well as subject-specific overviews of resources to facilitate the translation, understanding and evaluation of existing translations of ancient scientific texts.

The study “Mesopotamian Scholars and their Texts – Normative Orders and Cuneiform Knowledge Concepts” showed that Mesopotamian scholarship was based on procedures and conditions (e.g. systematization of knowledge in the form of lists; hermeneutics based on the functioning of cuneiform writing; bilingual scribal training) that had been in place since the beginning of the invention of writing and had developed further over the course of three millennia.

The most important publications of this professorship of the Cluster of Excellence:

Imhausen, Annette: Ancient Egyptian Mathematics. A Contextual History, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.

Imhausen, Annette & Tanja Pommerening (eds.): Translating Writings of Early Scholars in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece and Rome. Methodological Aspects with Examples (Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 344) , Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016.

Bawanypeck, Daliah & Annette Imhausen (eds.): Traditions of Written Knowledge in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 403),Münster: Ugarit, 2014.

Imhausen, Annette & Tanja Pommerening (eds.): Writings of Early Scholars in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Rome and Greece (Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 286),Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010.

Bawanypeck, Daliah & Annette Imhausen: “Mesopotamia and Egypt”, in: M. Sommer/ S. Müller-Wille/C. Reinhardt (eds.), Handbuch Wissenschaftsgeschichte,Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 2017, pp. 108-117.

The most important events and presentations of this professorship of the Cluster of Excellence:

International Conference: Joint Maths Meeting in San Antonio, USA, January 2015.

International Conference: “History of ancient Astronomy and Mathematics” in Xi’an, China, August 23-29, 2015.

Public Lecture: “Schriftentstehung in Ägypten und Mesopotamien”, Goethe Lectures, Offenbach, Germany, October 12, 2015.

2nd annual Huxley Lecture on the History of Mathematics, Maynooth University, Ireland, April 24, 2017.