Contemporary Authors

• Book 7 of the Collection Springer-Verlag (New York, NY), 1986
• An Eleventh-Century Manual of Arabo-Byzantine Astronomy J.C. Gieben (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1987
• Ptolemy's First Commentator American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia, PA), 1990
• Astronomical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia, PA), 1999
• Ptolemy in Perspective: Use and Criticism of His Work from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century Springer (New York, NY), 2010
• A Mathematician's Journeys: Otto Neugebauer and Modern Transformations of Ancient Science Springer Berlin Heidelberg (New York, NY), 2015
• Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2016
• A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2017

1. Ptolemy's first commentator LCCN 90083199 Type of material Book Personal name Jones, Alexander. Main title Ptolemy's first commentator / Alexander Jones. Published/Created Philadelphia : American Philosophical Society, 1990. Description 61 p. : ill. ; 26 cm. CALL NUMBER QB21 .J65 1990 LANDOVR Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE CALL NUMBER QB21 .J65 1990 LANDOVR Copy 2 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE 2. Astronomical papyri from Oxyrhynchus : (P. Oxy. 4133-4300a) LCCN 99022168 Type of material Book Personal name Jones, Alexander. Main title Astronomical papyri from Oxyrhynchus : (P. Oxy. 4133-4300a) / edited with translations and commentaries by Alexander Jones. Published/Created Philadelphia : American Philosophical Society, 1999. Description 2 v. in 1 : ill., facsims. ; 25 cm. ISBN 0871692333 (cloth) CALL NUMBER Q11 .P612 vol. 233 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms CALL NUMBER Q11 .P612 vol. 233 Copy 2 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms 3. An eleventh-century manual of Arabo-Byzantine astronomy LCCN 88109338 Type of material Book Personal name Jones, Alexander. Main title An eleventh-century manual of Arabo-Byzantine astronomy / by Alexander Jones. Published/Created Amsterdam : J.C. Gieben, 1987. Description 199 p. : ill. ; 30 cm. ISBN 9050630146 CALL NUMBER QB23 .J66 1987 LANDOVR Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE 4. Book 7 of the Collection LCCN 85027788 Type of material Book Personal name Pappus, of Alexandria. Uniform title Mathematical collections. Book 7. English & Greek Main title Book 7 of the Collection / Pappus of Alexandria ; edited with translation and commentary by Alexander Jones. Published/Created New York : Springer-Verlag, c1986. Description 2 v. (x, 748 p.) : ill. ; 25 cm. ISBN 0387962573 : CALL NUMBER QA22 .P3713 1986 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms 5. A portable cosmos : revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, scientific wonder of the ancient world LCCN 2016045108 Type of material Book Personal name Jones, Alexander, author. Main title A portable cosmos : revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, scientific wonder of the ancient world / Alexander Jones. Published/Produced New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, [2017] ©2017 Description xiv, 288 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm ISBN 9780199739349 (hardback) 019973934X (hardback) CALL NUMBER QB107 .J65 2017 CABIN BRANCH Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE 6. Time and cosmos in greco-roman antiquity LCCN 2016936136 Type of material Book Personal name Jones, Alexander R. Main title Time and cosmos in greco-roman antiquity / Alexander R. Jones ; [edited by] Edited by Alexander R. Jones. Published/Produced Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 2016. Projected pub date 1611 Description pages cm ISBN 9780691174402 Library of Congress Holdings Information not available. 7. A mathematician's journeys : Otto Neugebauer and modern transformations of ancient science LCCN 2015959787 Type of material Book Personal name Jones, Alexander. Main title A mathematician's journeys : Otto Neugebauer and modern transformations of ancient science / Alexander Jones. Published/Produced New York, NY : Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2015. Projected pub date 1512 Description pages cm ISBN 9783319258638 Links Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1608/2015959787-d.html Table of contents only http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1608/2015959787-t.html Library of Congress Holdings Information not available. 8. Ancient perspectives : maps and their place in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome LCCN 2012001810 Type of material Book Main title Ancient perspectives : maps and their place in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome / edited by Richard J. A. Talbert. Published/Created Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2012. Description ix, 264 pages, [4] pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 27 cm ISBN 9780226789378 (cloth : alkaline paper) 0226789373 (cloth : alkaline paper) CALL NUMBER GA205 .A64 2012 Copy 1 Request in Reference - Geography & Map Reading Room (Madison, LMB01) 9. Ptolemy in perspective : use and criticism of his work from antiquity to the nineteenth century LCCN 2009940670 Type of material Book Main title Ptolemy in perspective : use and criticism of his work from antiquity to the nineteenth century / Alexander Jones [editor]. Published/Created Dordrecht ; New York : Springer, c2010. Description xv, 229 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm. ISBN 9789048127870 9048127874 Links Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1011/2009940670-d.html Table of contents only http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1011/2009940670-t.html Shelf Location FLM2016 074237 CALL NUMBER Q124.95 .P78 2010 OVERFLOWJ34 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM2) 10. The Oxford handbook of papyrology LCCN 2008031679 Type of material Book Main title The Oxford handbook of papyrology / edited by Roger S. Bagnall. Published/Created Oxford, N.Y. : Oxford University Press, 2009. Description xxi, 688 p. : ill., map ; 26 cm. ISBN 9780195178388 (hardcover : acid-free paper) Links Table of contents only http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0823/2008031679.html CALL NUMBER Z110.P36 O98 2009 Copy 2 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms CALL NUMBER Z110.P36 O98 2009 Copy 3 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms CALL NUMBER Z110.P36 O98 2009 Copy 1 Request in African & Middle Eastern Reading Room (Jefferson, LJ220) 11. Cassius Dio : Greek intellectual and Roman politician LCCN 2016046805 Type of material Book Main title Cassius Dio : Greek intellectual and Roman politician / edited by Carsten Hjort Lange, Jesper Majbom Madsen. Published/Produced Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2016] Description xii, 364 pages ; 25 cm. ISBN 9789004324169 (hardback : acid-free paper) CALL NUMBER DG206.C38 C37 2016 CABIN BRANCH Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE

• NYU - Institute for Study of the Ancient World - http://isaw.nyu.edu/people/faculty/isaw-faculty/alexander-jones

  ALEXANDER JONES
  Leon Levy Director
  Professor of the History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity
  alexander.jones@nyu.edu (212) 992.7839
  Alexander Jones studied Classics at the University of British Columbia and the history of the ancient mathematical sciences in the Department of the History of Mathematics at Brown University. Before coming to NYU, he was for sixteen years on the faculty of the Department of Classics and the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto. His work centers on the history and transmission of the mathematical sciences, especially astronomy.

  He is the author of several editions of Greek scientific texts, among them Pappus of Alexandria's commentary on the corpus of Hellenistic geometrical treatises known as the "Treasury of Analysis"; an anonymous Byzantine astronomical handbook based on Islamic sources; and a collection of about two hundred fragmentary astronomical texts, tables, and horoscopes from the papyri excavated a century ago by Grenfell and Hunt at Oxyrhynchus. His current research interests include the contacts between Babylonian and Greco-Roman astronomy and astrology, the Antikythera Mechanism and other artifacts of Hellenistic and Roman period astronomy, and the scientific work of Claudius Ptolemy. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a full member of the Académie Internationale d'Histoire des Sciences, and recipient of several awards and honors including a Guggenheim fellowship and the Francis Bacon Award in the History of Science.

  Together with Christine Proust, he curated ISAW's 2011 exhibition on Babylonian Mathematics, Before Pythagoras, and he also curated the 2016-2017 ISAW exhibition Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity.

  Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

  Publications only (PDF)

  ====

  cv

  Alexander Raymond Jones
  Curriculum Vitae (August 2017)
  Address.
  Education and degrees.
  Positions held.
  Awards.
  Professional Affiliations and Activities. University Committees.
  Research Interests and Work in Progress. Research Funding.
  Publications.
  Exhibitions.
  Conferences Organized.
  Oral Presentations.
  Address.
  Institute for the Study of the Ancient World New York University
  15 East 84th Street
  New York, NY 10028
  Telephone (212) 992-7816
  Fax (212) 992-7809
  Email alexander.jones@nyu.edu
  Education and degrees.
  Ph.D., 1985, Brown University. (History of Mathematics)
  Dissertation: Book 7 of Pappus’s Collection: Edition, translation, and commentary.’ (Supervisor: G. J. Toomer).
  B.A., 1981: University of British Columbia. (Honours Classics)
  Positions held.
  Academic positions.
  2008 - present. Professor of the History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University. Professor of Mathematics

  (Associated Faculty), Courant Institute, New York University.
  1997 - 2008. Professor, Department of Classics and Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IHPST), University of Toronto. Full member of School of Graduate Studies. Appointment is 83% in Classics, 17% in IHPST.
  1994 - 1997. Associate Professor (with tenure), Department of Classics and IHPST, University of Toronto. Full member of School of Graduate Studies. Appointment 83% in Classics, 17% in IHPST.
  1992 - 1994. Assistant Professor, Department of Classics, University of Toronto. Full member (limited term) of School of Graduate Studies. Cross-appointed to IHPST.
  1988 - 1992. Canada Research Fellow (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada), IHPST, University of Toronto.
  1987 - 1988. Post-doctoral Fellow (SSHRC), IHPST, University of Toronto 1986 - 1987. Kenneth O. May Fellow, IHPST, University of Toronto
  1985 - 1986. Junior Byzantine Fellow, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, Washington D.C.
  Administrative positions.
  2017 - present. Leon Levy Director, ISAW
  2016 - 2017. Interim Director, ISAW
  2013 - 2014. Vice Director, ISAW
  2013 (Jan-June). Acting Leon Levy Director, ISAW
  2009 - 2012. Director of Graduate Studies, ISAW
  1999 - 2002. Graduate Coordinator and Associate Chair, Department of Classics, University of Toronto.
  2003 (Jan-June). Acting Chair, Department of Classics, University of Toronto 2006-2008. Undergraduate Coordinator, Department of Classics, University of Toronto
  Visiting appointments.
  2015. Guest professorship, Sonderforschungsbereich "Materiale Textculturen," University of Heidelberg, June-July.
  2008. Visiting scholar, Université de Paris 7 Diderot, May-June.
  2008. Francis Bacon Visiting Professor, California Institute of Technology, January- March
  2005-2006. Member, School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
  1998-1999. Fellow, Dibner Institute for the History of Science, M.I.T. 1996. Visiting Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford, Hilary Term
  Awards.
  CAENO Foundation Chronology Scholar, June, 2006
  Francis Bacon Award, California Institute of Technology, March, 2006
  Guggenheim Fellow, 2005-2006 (see below under Research Funding)
  Fellow, Royal Society of Canada (elected 2000, inducted 2001)
  Member, American Philosophical Society (elected 1998)
  Pollock/Dudley Award, Dudley Observatory, 1993 (see below under Research Funding). Corresponding Member, Académie internationale d'histoire des sciences (elected 1993) Henry and Ida Schuman Prize, History of Science Society (1983).
  University medal for arts and sciences, University of British Columbia (1981).
  Professional Affiliations and Activities.
  President, Commission for the History of Ancient and Medieval Astronomy, International Union of History and Philosophy of Science (2009-2017). Past President (2017-present).
  President, Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Mathematics (2006-2008).
  Editorial board, Journal for the History of Astronomy (2008-present), Archive for History of Exact Sciences (1992-present), Annals of Science (1998-present), SCIAMVS (1999-present), Phoenix(1993-1996), Isis (1993-1995).
  Member, Académie internationale d’histoire des sciences (elected Corresponding Member 1993, Full Member 2010).
  SSHRC doctoral fellowships adjudication committee (2000-2002).
  University Committees.
  New York University.
  University: Joint Committee of NYU Stakeholders (2013-2014).
  University of Toronto.
  Dept. of Classics: Executive (1999-2003 and 2006-2009, entails membership in most permanent committees of the department), Speakers Coordinator (2003-2005), Resources (1992-2001 and 2004-2005, convener 1993-1996), Curriculum (1992-1995), Graduate (1993-2004), Senior and Promotions (1997-2005), Greek literature search (1994-1995), Tenure committee (chair, 1999-2000), ROS positions search (2001-present, chair 2002- 2003), CRC search (2001-2002), Tenure committee (2002), Promotion committee (2003, chair), Tenure committee (2003, chair), Greek history search (2004-2005), Roman literature and culture search (2006-2007).
  Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology: May fund (1991- present), Graduate appeals (1992-2000), Senior and Promotions (1997-present), History of Physics Search (1993-1995), History of Physics search (2004-2005).
  School of Graduate Studies: Admissions and Programs Committee (2000-2002), Review and Directorial search, IHPST (1997-1998). SSHRC doctoral fellowship ranking (2004- 2005)
  Faculty of Arts and Science: Chair search, Classics (2001), Chair search, Classics (1994-
  1995), Jackman Program Committee (2002-2005).
  University: Academic Board (2000-2003), Academic Policy & Programs (2000-2001), Research Advisory Board (1995-1998).
  Other: Toronto School of Theology, Advanced Degree Council (2000-2001), Committee on Conference on Editorial Problems (2000-present).
  Research interests and work in progress.
  Mathematical and physical sciences and pseudosciences in antiquity, Middle Ages, and early modern Europe. Current work concerns astronomy and astrology in the ancient Near East and the Greek world, the Antikythera Mechanism, the scientific work of Ptolemy, material culture of Greco-Roman science, and Greek mathematical sciences in general. Papyrology, manuscript traditions and textual criticism.
  Research Funding.
  2005-2006. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Fellowship, 'Ptolemy's sciences,' US$34,000
  2002-2007. Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, Standard Research Grant, ‘Ptolemy and the science of his time’, $80,500.
  2001-2002. SSHRC, Conference Grant, 'Reconstructing Ancient Texts: the 37th annual Conference on Editorial Problems', $10,000.
  1998-99. Resident Fellowship, Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Cambridge, Mass. Includes research stipend of US$28,000.
  1998-2002. Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, Standard Research Grant, ‘The composition and tradition of Ptolemy’s Geography’, $28,300.
  1996. Visiting Fellowship, All Souls College, Oxford.
  1994-97. Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, Standard Research Grant, ‘Astronomy and astrology during the Roman period’, $32,000.
  1993-94. Connaught Matching Grant, ‘Astronomical and Astrological Papyri from Oxyrhynchus’, $9,500.
  1993-94. Herbert C. Pollock/Dudley Award (Dudley Observatory, Schenectady, N.Y.), ‘Astronomical and Astrological Papyri from Oxyrhynchus’, US$4,000.
  1993-94. Norwood Travel Award (Univ. of Toronto), $11,000.
  1992-94. Connaught New Staff Grant (University of Toronto), ‘Astronomy and Astrology 200 B.C. - A.D. 500’, $10,000.
  1992-97. Startup Grant (Univ. of Toronto), $5000 per year for 5 years.
  Publications.
  Books and Monographs (sole or joint author or editor).
  A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Wonder of the Ancient
  Scientific World. Oxford University Press USA. xiv+288 pp. (2017)
  (editor) Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity. Institute for the Study of the
  Ancient World/Princeton University Press. 206 pp. 2016.
  (co-editor with L. Taub) Cambridge History of Science, vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. (forthcoming)
  (co-editor with J. M. Steele and C. Proust) A Mathematician's Journeys: Otto Neugebauer and Modern Transformations of Ancient Science. Archimedes. Springer. xii+342 pp. (2016)
  (revising editor) O. Pedersen, A Survey of the Almagest, with Annotation and New Commentary by Alexander Jones. Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences. Springer. 480 pp. (2011)
  (editor) Ptolemy in Perspective: Use and Criticism of his Work from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. Archimedes, vol. 23. Springer. 232 pp. (2010)
  (with J. L. Berggren) Ptolemy's Geography: The Theoretical Chapters. Princeton University Press (2000). 232 pp.
  Astronomical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus. Philadelphia (1999). Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 233. 2 vols. in 1, xii + 368 pp., 471 pp.
  (with M. W. Haslam, F. Maltomini, M. L. West, and others) The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume LXV. London, 1998. Egypt Exploration Society, Graeco-Roman Memoirs 85. 212 pp.
  Ptolemy’s first commentator. Philadelphia, 1990. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 80.7. 62 pp.
  An Eleventh-century manual of Arabo-Byzantine astronomy. Amsterdam (Gieben), 1987. Corpus des astronomes byzantins, 3. 199 pp.
  Pappus of Alexandria. Book 7 of the Collection. Edited with translation and commentary by Alexander Jones. 2 vols. Berlin, etc. (Springer Verlag), 1986. Sources in the History of Mathematics and the Physical Sciences, 8. viii + 748 pp.
  Journal Articles.
  (with Dorian Greenbaum) P.Berl. 9825: An Elaborate Horoscope for 319 CE and its Significance for Greek Astronomical and Astrological Practice. ISAW Papers 12 (forthcoming).
  (with coauthors as listed below) Inscriptions of the Antikythera Mechanism. Almagest 7(1), 2016 (special issue).
  The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project: M. Allen, W. Ambrisco, M. Anastasiou, D. Bate, Y. Bitsakis, A. Crawley, M. G. Edmunds, D. Gelb, R. Hadland, P. Hockley, A. Jones, T. Malzbender, H. Mangou, X. Moussas, A. Ramsey, J. H. Seiradakis, J. M. Steele, A. Tselikas, and M. Zafeiropoulou. 1. General Preface to the Inscriptions. 4-35.
  A. Jones. Historical Background and General Observations. 36-66.
  Y. Bitsakis and A. Jones. The Front Dial and Parapegma Inscriptions. 68-137.
  M. Anastasiou, Y. Bitsakis, A. Jones, J. M. Steele, and M. Zafeiropoulou. The Back Dial and Back Plate Inscriptions. 138-215.
  Y. Bitsakis and A. Jones. 5. The Back Cover Inscription. 216-248.
  M. Anastasiou, Y. Bitsakis, A. Jones, X. Moussas, A. Tselikas, and M. Zafeiropoulou. 6. The Front Cover Inscription. 250-297
  Supplementary Illustrations. 298-310.
  (with Seham Diab Almasry Aish) Another Greek Papyrus Concerning Babylonian Lunar
  Theory. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 199, 2016, 131-136.
  More Babylonian Lunar Theory in the Astronomical Papyrus P.Colker. Zeitschrift für
  Papyrologie und Epigraphik 199, 2016, 137-143.
  The Miletos Inscription on Calendrical Cycles: IMilet inv. 84 + inv. 1604. Zeitschrift für
  Papyrologie und Epigraphik 198, 2016, 113-127.
  Unruly Sun: Notes on PFouad inv. 267 A. Journal for the History of Astronomy 47, 76-
  99.
  Claudius Ptolemäus — einflussreicher Astronom und Astrologe aus Alexandria. Akademie Aktuell. Zeitschrift der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 03/2013, 14- 17.
  The Antikythera Mechanism and the Public Face of Greek Science. Proceedings of Science PoS(Antikythera & SKA)038, 2012, http://pos.sissa.it/cgi- bin/reader/conf.cgi?confid=170 .
  (with Marco Perale) Greek Astronomical Tables in the Papyrus Carlsberg Collection (with associated fragments from other collections). Archiv für Papyrusforschung 58, 2013, 308-343.
  (with T. Freeth) The Cosmos in the Antikythera Mechanism. ISAW Papers 4, 2012.
  (with Marco Perale) Dai papiri della Società Italiana: 11-12. Two Astronomical Tables.
  Comunicazioni dell'Istituto papirologico "G. Vitelli" 9, 2011, 40-51 and plates 6-8. Theon of Alexandria's Observation of the Solar Eclipse of A.D. 364 June 16. Journal for
  the History of Astronomy 43, 2012, 117-118.
  (with J. M. Steele) A New Discovery of a Component of Greek Astrology in Babylonian
  Tablets: The "Terms." ISAW Papers 1. 2011.
  (with Staso Forenbaher) The Nakovana Zodiac: Fragments of an Astrologer's Board from an Illyrian-Hellenistic Cave Sanctuary. Journal for the History of Astronomy 42, 2011, 425-438.
  Obituary: John P. Britton (1939-2010). Archive for History of Exact Sciences 64, 2010, 613-615.
  The wrong planet. P. Berol. inv. 21226 revisited. Archiv für Papyrusforschung 55, 2009, 303-315.
  (with T. Freeth, J. M. Steele, and Y. Bitsakis) Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera Mechanism. Nature 454, 2008, 614-617.
  An astronomical table from Medinet Madi (Narmuthis). Analecta Papyrologica 18–20, 2006–2008, 79–82.
  Two astronomical tables from Oxyrhynchus based on Babylonian planetary theory. Istituto papirologico "G. Vitelli," Comunicazioni 7, 2007, 1–8.
  (with Friedhelm Hoffmann) Astronomische und astrologische Kleinigkeiten V: Die Mondephemeride des P. Carlsberg 638. Enchoria 30, 2006/2007, 10-20 and plate 4.
  IG XII, 1 913: An Astronomical Inscription from Hellenistic Rhodes. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 158, 2006, 104-110.
  The Astronomical Inscription from Keskintos, Rhodes. Mediterranean Archaeology and
  Archaeometry 6, 2006, 215-222.
  The Keskintos Astronomical Inscription: Text and Interpretations. SCIAMVS 7. 2006, 3-
  41.
  Ptolemy's Ancient Planetary Observations. Annals of Science 63. 2006, 255-290.
  (with D. Duke) Ptolemy's Planetary Mean Motions Revisited. Centaurus 47, 2005, 226- 235.
  Ptolemy's Canobic Inscription and Heliodorus' Observation Reports. SCIAMVS 6, 2005, 53-97.
  A route to the ancient discovery of nonuniform planetary motion. Journal for the History of Astronomy 35, 2004, 375-386.
  A Study of Babylonian Observations of Planets Near Normal Stars. Archive for History of Exact Sciences 58, 2003, 475-536.
  A Posy of Almagest Scholia. Centaurus 45, 2004, 69-78.
  The Legacy of Ancient Near Eastern Astronomy. Bulletin of the Canadian Society for
  Mesopotamian Studies 39, 2004, 15-20.
  Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, and the Obliquity of the Ecliptic. Journal for the History of
  Astronomy 33, 2002, 15-19.
  Pseudo-Ptolemy, De Speculis. SCIAMVS: Sources and Commentaries in Exact Sciences 2
  (2001) 145-186.
  More Astronomical Tables from Tebtunis. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 136 (2001) 211-220.
  Studies in the Astronomy of the Roman Period IV: Solar Tables Based on a Non- Hipparchian Model. Centaurus 42 (2000) 77-88.
  Calendrica I: New Callippic Dates. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 129 (2000) 141-158.
  Calendrica II: Date Equations from the Reign of Augustus. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 129 (2000) 159-166.
  (with John P. Britton) A New Babylonian Model for Jupiter in a Greek Source. Archive for History of Exact Sciences 54 (2000) 349-373.
  A Likely Source of an Observation Report in Ptolemy's Almagest. Archive for History of Exact Sciences 54 (1999) 255-258.
  Geminus and the Isia. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 99 (1999) 255-267. The Horoscope of Proclus. Classical Philology 93 (1999) 81-88.
  Two Astronomical Tables: P. Berol. 21240 and 21359. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 125 (1999) 201-205.
  (with W. Brashear) An Astronomical Table Containing Jupiter's Synodic Phenomena. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 125 (1999) 206-210.
  Notes on Astronomical Papyri. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 121 (1998) 203-210.
  Three Astronomical Papyri from Tebtunis. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 121 (1998) 211-218.
  Studies in the Astronomy of the Roman Period, III. Planetary Epoch Tables. Centaurus 40 (1998) 1-41.
  A Greek Papyrus Concerning Babylonian Lunar Theory. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 119 (1997) 167-172.
  On the Reconstructed Macedonian and Egyptian Lunar Calendars. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 119 (1997) 157-166.
  Babylonian Astronomy and its Legacy. Bulletin of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies 32 (1997) 11-16.
  Studies in the Astronomy of the Roman Period. II. Tables for Solar Longitude. Centaurus 39 (1997) 211-229.
  Studies in the Astronomy of the Roman Period. I. The Standard Lunar Scheme. Centaurus 39, 1997, 1-36.
  Two Astronomical Papyri Revisited. Analecta Papyrologica 6 (1994 [actually 1996]). 15pp.
  On the Planetary Table, Dublin TCD Pap. F. 7. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 107 (1995) 255-258.
  Peripatetic and Euclidean Theories of the Visual Ray. Physis 31 (1994) 47-76.
  An Astronomical Ephemeris for A.D. 140: P. Harris I.60. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und
  Epigraphik 100 (1994) 59-63.
  The Date of the Astronomical Almanac Tab. Amst. inv. no. 1. Chronique d'Égypte68
  (1993) 178-185.
  A Second-Century Greek Ephemeris for Venus. Archives Internationales d’Histoire des
  Sciences 41 (1991) 3-12.
  The Adaptation of Babylonian Methods in Greek Numerical Astronomy. Isis 82 (1991)
  441-453.
  Pliny on the Planetary Cycles. Phoenix 45 (1991) 148-161.
  Babylonian and Greek Astronomy in a Papyrus Concerning Mars. Centaurus 33 (1991) 97-114.
  Hipparchus’s Computations of Solar Longitudes. Journal for the History of Astronomy 22 (1991) 101-125.
  On some borrowed and misunderstood problems in Greek catoptrics. Centaurus 30 (1987) 1-17.
  William of Moerbeke, the Papal Greek Manuscripts, and the Collection of Pappus of Alexandria in Vat. gr. 218. Scriptorium 40 (1986) 16-31.
  A Greek Saturn Table. Centaurus 27 (1984) 311-317.
  The Development and Transmission of 248-day schemes for lunar motion in ancient
  astronomy. Archive for History of Exact Sciences 29 (1983) 1-36. Book Chapters.
  Approximate Results and Recursive Algorithms in Ptolemy's Astronomy. In volume on Mathematical Practices in Relation to the Astral Sciences, ed. K. Chemla and M. Husson (forthcoming).
  (with R. Pintaudi) Bifolio di un codice continente effemeridi astronomiche. In Antinoupolis III, ed. R. Pintaudi et al. Scavi e Materiali dell' Istituto Papirologico Vitelli de Firenze (forthcoming).
  (with J. M. Steele) "Diodorus on the Chaldeans." In Festschrift for Francesca Rochberg (forthcoming).
  Introduction. In A. Jones, ed., Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity, Princeton: ISAW/Princeton U.P., 2016, 19-43.
  Precision of Time Observation in Greco-Roman Astrology and Astronomy. In M.
  Morfouli and E. Nicolaidis, eds., Time Accuracy in Physics and Astronomy (forthcoming).
  Translating Greek Astronomy: Theon of Smyrna on the Apparent Motions of the Planets. In A. Imhausen & T. Pommerening, Translating Writings of Early Scholars in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece, and Rome: Methodological Aspects with Examples, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016, 465-505.
  Limits of Observation and Pseudoempirical Arguments in Ptolemy's Harmonics and Almagest. In C. Carman and A. Jones, eds., Instruments - Observations - Theories: Studies in the History of Early Astronomy in Honor of James Evans (forthcoming).
  The Roofed Spherical Sundial and the Greek Geometry of Curves. In Festschrift for Lis Brack-Bernsen (forthcoming).
  Interpolated Observations and Historical Observation Records in Ptolemy's Astronomy. In J. M. Steele, ed., The Circulation of Astronomical Knowledge in the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill, 2016, 316-349.
  The Astronomical Resources for Ancient Astral Prognostications. In P. Barthel and G. van Kooten, The Star of Bethlehem and the Magi: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Experts on the Ancient Near East, the Greco-Roman World, and Modern Astronomy, Leiden: Brill, 2015, 171-198.
  Theon of Smyrna and Ptolemy on Celestial Modelling. In Mathematizing Space: The Objects of Geometry from Antiquity to the Early Modern Age, ed. V. de Risi, Cham: Birkhäuser, 2015, 75-103.
  Some Greek Sundial Meridians. In From Alexandria, through Baghdad: Surveys and Studies in the Ancient Greek and Medieval Islamic Sciences in Honor of J. L. Berggren, ed. N. Sidoli and G. van Brummelen, New York (Springer), 2013, 175-188.
  P. Cornell inv. 69 revisited: A Collection of Geometrical Problems. In Papyrological Texts in Honor of Roger S. Bagnall, ed. R. Ast, H. Cuvigny, T. Hickey, and J. Lougovaya, American Studies in Papyrology 53, 2012, 159-175.
  Horoscope. (P. Berol. 11831) In BKT 10, 2012, 242-245.
  An Astronomical Almanac. (P.Yale CtYBR inv. 3775) In Inediti offerti a Rosario
  Pintaudi per il suo 65° compleanno, ed. D. Minutoli, Florence, 2012, 56-60 with plate 5. Ptolemy's Geography: A Reform that Failed. In Z. Shalev and C. Burnett, ed., Ptolemy's
  Geography in the Renaissance. Warburg Institute Colloquia 17. London, 2011, 15-30.
  (with Friedhelm Hoffmann) Astronomische und astrologische Kleinigkeiten VI: Neumonddaten aus dem Jahre 184/185 N. Chr. In H. Knuf et al., ed., Honi soit qui mal y pense: Studien zum pharaonischen, griechisch-römischen und spätantiken Ägypten zu Ehren von Heinz-Josef Thissen, Leufen, 2010. 233-236 and plate 68.
  Ancient Rejection and Adoption of Ptolemy's Frame of Reference for Longitudes. Ptolemy in Perspective, ed. A. Jones. Archimedes 23. (2010) 11-44.
  Mathematics, Science, and Medicine in the Papyri. In Oxford Handbook of Papyrology, ed. R. Bagnall. Oxford U. P. 2009. 338-357.
  Ptolemy's Geography: a reform that failed. In Ptolemy's Geography in the Renaissance, ed. Z. Shalev and C. Burnett. Warburg Institute Colloquia 17, 2011. 15-30.
  P.S.I. 1490–1495. (Editions of astronomical and astrological papyri, unsigned.)
  Pubbliazioni della Società Italiana per la ricerca dei Papiri greci e latini in Egitto. Papiri greci e latini 15, ed. V. Bartoletti et al., Firenze: Istituto papirologico "G. Vitelli", 2008, 132–164.
  The Astrologers of Oxyrhynchus and Their Astronomy. Oxyrhynchus: A City and its Texts, ed. A. K. Bowman, R. A. Coles, N. Gonis, D. Obbink, and P. J. Parsons (=Egypt
  Exploration Society, Graeco-Roman Memoirs 93), London, 2007, 307-314.
  On Greek Stellar and Zodiacal Date Reckoning. In J. M. Steele (ed.), Calendars and
  Years: Time and Astronomy in the Ancient World, Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2007. 149-167.
  "In order that we should not ourselves appear to be adjusting our estimates... to make them fit some predetermined amount." In J. Z. Buchwald and A. Franklin, eds., Wrong for the Right Reasons. (= Archimedes 11), 2005, 17-39.
  Ptolemy's mathematical models and their meaning. In M. Kinyon and G. van Brummelen, eds., Mathematics and the Historian's Craft. Springer, 2005, 24-42.
  An Almagest before Ptolemy's? Studies in the History of the Exact Sciences in Honour of David Pingree, ed. C. Burnett. Brill. 2004. 129-136.
  The Stoics and the Astronomical Sciences. The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, ed. B. Inwood. Cambridge, 2003, 328-344.
  L'Astronomia dopo Tolomeo (Astronomy after Ptolemy). Storia della scienza, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana. Vol. 1 (2001, appeared 2003), 979-987.
  Babylonian Lunar Theory in Egypt: Two New Texts. Under One Sky: Astronomy and Mathematics in the Ancient Near East, ed. J. M. Steele and A. Imhausen. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 297. Münster, Ugarit-Verlag, 2002, 167-174.
  Pappus' Notes to Euclid's Optics. Ancient and Medieval Traditions in the Exact Sciences, ed. P. Suppes, J. Moravcsik, and H. Mendell. Stanford, 2001, 49-58.
  Uses and Users of Astronomical Commentaries. Commentaries – Kommentare, ed. G. W. Most (Aporemata 4), Göttingen, 1999, 147-172.
  A Classification of Astronomical Tables on Papyrus. Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination, ed. N. M. Swerdlow, MIT Press, Cambridge (USA), 1999, 299-340.
  Babylonian astronomy and its Greek Metamorphoses. Tradition, Transmission, Transformation, ed. F. J. Ragep and S. Ragep, Leiden, 1996, 139-155.
  Later Greek and Byzantine Astronomy. Astronomy Before the Telescope, ed. C. Walker, London, 1996, 98-109.
  The Place of Astronomy in Roman Egypt. The Sciences in Greco-Roman Society, ed. T. D. Barnes, Edmonton, 1995. (= Apeiron27.4, 1995) 25-51.
  Evidence for Babylonian Arithmetical Schemes in Greek Astronomy. Die Rolle der Astronomie in den Kulturen Mesopotamiens, ed. H. D. Galter (Grazer Morgenländische Studien 3).. Graz, 1993. 77-94.
  Articles in Reference Works.
  Article, 'Antikythera Mechanism', for new digital Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed. S.
  Goldberg, Oxford, 2017.
  Articles, 'Greek Cosmogony and Cosmology', 'Greek Mathematical Astronomy', 'Transmission of Babylonian Astronomy to Other Cultures', for Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy, ed. C. L. N. Ruggles, Springer, 2014.
  Articles, 'Calendar, Greco-Roman Egypt', 'Mathematics, Greece and Rome', 'Papyri, astronomical and astrological', 'Ptolemy (astronomer, mathematician)', 'horoscope', 'Canobic Inscription', 'Diocles', 'Hipparchos', 'Hippias', 'Marinus', 'Mechanics', 'Nicomedes', for Encyclopedia of Ancient History, Wiley, 2012.
  Articles, 'Eratosthenes' (2000 words), 'Ptolemy' (2000 words), and shorter articles 'Abram', 'Anoubion', 'Antigonos', 'Antiochos', 'Astrologer of 379', 'Attalos', 'Campestris', 'Diodoros', 'Dionusios', 'Dionusodoros', 'Dorotheos", 'Hephaistion', 'Hermeias', 'Imbrasios', 'Ioulianos', 'Keskintos', 'Khairemon', 'Krinas', 'Lasos', 'Manethon', 'Manilius', 'Maximus', 'Astrologus Michiganensis', 'Moderatus', 'Nikomakhos', 'Odapsos', 'Paulos',
  'Perseus', 'Philippos', 'Philonides', 'Pitenios', 'Protagoras', 'Rhetorios', 'Salmeskhoiniaka', 'Serapion of Alexandria', 'Serapion, astron.', 'Seuthes', 'Suros', 'Theodosios', 'Theon', 'Tarutius', 'Timaios', 'Vettius Valens', 'Zenodoros' (total 6000 words). In P. T. Keyser and G. L. Irby-Massie, ed., Encyclopaedia of Ancient Natural Scientists, Routledge, 2009.
  Articles, 'Apollinarius' (500 words), 'Hipparchus' (1500 words), 'Leptines' (500 words), 'Marinus of Tyre) (500 words), 'Ptolemy' (4000 words), 'Timocharis' (500 words). In New Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 2008.
  Article, "Ptolemy" (1000 words). In D. Buisseret, ed., Oxford Companion to World Exploration. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2006.
  Articles, ‘Pappus of Alexandria’ (600 words), ‘Hipparchus’ (1800 words), ‘Ptolemy’ (1800 words), ‘Ptolemaic System’ (600 words). Encyclopaedia Britannica.
  Articles, ‘Babylonian Astronomy’, ‘Hipparchus’, ‘Ptolemy’ (2500 words each). Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Institute of Physics. 2001.
  Article, ‘Astronomy’. Late Antiquity. A Guide to the Postclassical World, ed. G. Bowersock, P. Brown, and O. Grabar. Cambridge (U.S.A.), 1999. 1000 words.
  Articles on ‘Greek Mathematics’, ‘Greek Applied Mathematics’, ‘Later Greek and Byzantine Mathematics’, in Encyclopedia of the History and Philosophy of the Mathematical Sciences ed. I. Grattan-Guinness, London (Routledge), 1993, vol. 1, 46-69.
  Articles in Trade Periodicals.
  The Horoscope Casters. Archeology Odyssey 3.6, November/December 2000, 6-7.
  Une tradition astronomique venue de Babylone. Les Cahiers de science et vie 55, February 2000, 28-33
  Reviews.
  R. Talbert, Roman Portable Sundials: The Empire in Your Hand. New York, 2017. •
  Review in Classical Philology (forthcoming)
  A. Tihon and R. Mercier, Πτολεμαίου Πρόχειρου Κανόνες. Les Tables Faciles de Ptolémée, vos. 1a and 1b. Louvain-la-Neuve, 2011. • Review in Journal for the History of Astronomy (forthcoming).
  J.-L. Fournet and A. Tihon, "Conformément aux observations d'Hipparque": le papyrus Fouad inv. 267 A. Louvain-la-neuve, 2014. • Review in Archiv für Papyrusforschung 62, 2016, 203-207.
  K. Plofker, Mathematics in India. Princeton, 2010. • Review in Journal for the History of Astronomy 41, 2010, 416-417.
  E. Robson, Mathematics in Ancient Iraq. Princeton, 2008. • Review in British Journal for the History of Science 43, 2008, 286-288.
  F. Rochberg, The Heavenly Writing. Cambridge, 2004. • Essay review in Journal for the History of Astronomy 37, 2006, 353-356.
  L. Taub, Ancient Meteorology. London, 2003. • Review in Early Science and Medicine 10, 2005, 109-110.
  R. Netz, The Works of Archimedes v. 1. Cambridge, 2004. • Essay review in Notices of the American Mathematical Society 52, 2005, 520-525.
  J. Evans, The Theory and Practice of Ancient Astronomy. New York, 1998. • Review in American Journal of Physics 68, 2000, 296.
  E. Reiner and D. Pingree, Babylonian Planetary Omens Part Three. Groningen, 1998.
  F. Rochberg, Babylonian Horoscopes. Philadelphia, 1998.
  N. M. Swerdlow, The Babylonian Theory of the Planets. Princeton, 1998. • Essay review
  in Early Science and Medicine 5, 2000, 110-113 [printed defectively in 4 (1999) 251- 255].
  L. Brack-Bernsen, Zur Entstehung der babylonischen Mondtheorie. Stuttgart, 1997. • Review in Journal of Near Eastern Studies 60, 2001, 225-226. • Essay review in Centaurus 42, 2000, 150-153.
  A. Tihon and R. Mercier, Georges Gémiste Pléthon: Manuel d'Astronomie. Louvain-la- Neuve, 1997. • Review in Isis 90, 1999, 802-803.
  J. Mansfeld, Prolegomena Mathematica: From Apollonius of Perga to the Late Neoplatonists. Leiden, 1998. •Review in Journal for History of Astronomy 30, 1999, 315- 316.
  M. R. Wright. Cosmology in Antiquity. London, 1995.
  T. Barton. Ancient Astrology. London, 1994. • Review in International Journal of the Classical Tradition 4, 1998, 456-460.
  A. C. Bowen, ed. Science and Philosophy in Classical Greece. New York, 1991. • Review in Ancient Philosophy 15, 1995, 601-603.
  D. Baccani. Oroscopi greci: documentazione papirologica. Messina, 1992. • Review in Journal for the History of Astronomy 28 (1997) 89-90.
  A. Lejeune, L’Optique de Claude Ptolémée. Leiden, 1989. • Review in Annals of Science 50, 192-194.
  R. Leurquin. Théodore Méliténiote: Tribiblos Astronomique. Vol. 1. Amsterdam, 1990. • Review in Journal for the History of Astronomy 23, 218-220.
  A. J. Sachs & H. Hunger. Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia. Vols. 1 and 2. Vienna, 1988-1989. • Essay review in Ancient Philosophy 12, 424-431.
  H. Hunger and D. Pingree, MUL.APIN: An Astronomical Compendium in Cuneiform. Horn, 1989. • Review in Journal for the History of Astronomy 22, 327-329.
  Ibn al-Haytham, The Optics of Ibn al-Haytham: Books I-III: On Direct Vision. Translated and edited by A. I. Sabra. 2 pts. London, 1989. • Review in Isis 82 (1991) 724-726.
  D. J. O’Meara. Pythagoras Revived. Oxford, 1989. • Review in Isis 82 (1991) 364-365.
  B. L. van der Waerden. Die Astronomie der Griechen: Eine Einführung. Darmstadt, 1988. • Review in Isis 81 (1990) 331-32.
  G. E. R. Lloyd. The Revolutions of Wisdom. Berkeley, 1987. • Review in Phoenix 44 (1990) 97-98.
  E. J. Dijksterhuis. Archimedes. Princeton, 1987. • Review in American Scientist 77 (1989) 302.
  D. E. Pingree. The Astronomical Works of Gregory Chioniades. v. 1. Amsterdam, 1985- 86. • Review in Centaurus 31 (1988) 319-20.
  J. Mogenet & A. Tihon. Le ‘Grand Commentaire’ de Théon d’Alexandrie aux Tables Faciles de Ptolémée. Vol. 1. Vatican City, 1985. • Review in Centaurus 29 (1986) 243- 45, and in Isis 78 (1987) 120-21.
  J. Mogenet, A. Tihon, et al. Nicéphore Grégoras: Calcul de l’éclipse de Soleil du 16 juillet 1330. Amsterdam, 1983. • Review in Centaurus 28 (1985) 72-73.
  W. Hübner. Die Eigenschaften der Tierkreiszeichen in der Antike. Wiesbaden, 1982. Zodiacus Christianus. Königstein, 1983. • Review in Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences 35 (1985) 482-83.
  Exhibitions.
  Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity. Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, October 19 - April 23, 2017. Curator.
  Before Pythagoras: The Culture of Old Babylonian Mathematics. Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, November 2010 - January 2011. Co-curator (with Christine Proust). http://isaw.nyu.edu//exhibitions/before-pythagoras/
  Conferences Organized.
  Local, Regional, and Transregional Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Astronomy, 25th International Congress of History of Science and Technology, Rio de Janeiro, July 23-29, 2017. Symposium co-organizer with J. Casulleras.
  Astronomy and its Applications in Ancient and Medieval Societies, 24th International Congress of History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, Manchester, July 21-28, 2013. Symposium co- organizer with J. Casulleras and S. M. R. Ansari.
  Ancient Astronomy and its Later Reception, 5th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science, Athens, November 1-3, 2012. Symposium co-organizer with A. Hadravova.
  A Mathematician's Journeys: Otto Neugebauer Between History and Practice of the Exact Sciences, Courant Institute and ISAW, NYU, November 12-13, 2010. Conference co-organizer with C. Proust, J. M. Steele, and J. P. Britton.
  Reconstructing Ancient Texts: The 37th Annual Conference on Editorial Problems, University College, University of Toronto, November 2-3, 2001. Conference organizer.
  Oral Presentations.
  Papers presented at meetings and symposia.
  Astronomical Resources for Elaborate Greek Horoscopes. International Congress of History of Science and Technology, Rio de Janeiro, July 23-29, 2017.
  Pseudoempirical Arguments in Ptolemy's Almagest. Fourth International Workshop on Epistemology and Astronomy. Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, July 21-22, 2017.
  Greco-Roman Clock Technology. Conference Down to the Hour: Perspectives on Short Time in the Ancient Mediterranean. University of Chicago, Chicago, February 24-25, 2017.
  An Ancient Astronomical Device Explains Itself: The Inscriptions of the Antikythera Mechanism. Second North American Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy, Berkeley, January 4-6, 2016.
  Eclipses in Greco-Roman Egypt: Trends in Observation, Prediction, and Interpretation, Société Européenne pour l'astronomie dans la culture (SEAC) Conference on Astronomy in Past and Present Cultures, Rome, November 9-13, 2015.
  The Ancient Ptolemy and the Medieval Ptolemy, Conference on Ptolemy's Science of the Stars in the Middle Ages, Warburg Institute, London, November 5-7, 2015.
  Approximate results and recursive algorithms in Greek astronomy, Conference on Mathematical Practices in relation to the Astral Sciences, ERC SAW project, Université de Paris 7, March 26-31, 2015.
  Uruk and the Greco-Roman World, Conference on Scholars and Scholarship in Late Babylonian Uruk, ERC SAW project, Université de Paris 7, March 23-24, 2015.
  The Greco-Roman Sundial as Virtuoso Greek Mathematics, Society for Classical Studies, 146th annual meeting, New Orleans, January 8-11, 2015.
  Astronomical tables in Greek papyri: medium, layout, and use, Workshop, Images, diagrams, and tables in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ERC Project ‘Calendars in Antiquity and the Middle Ages’, University College, London, November 12-13, 2014.
  Astrology and Exact Sciences: The Astronomical Resources for Ancient Astral Prognostications, Conference, The Star of Bethlehem: Historical and Astronomical Perspectives, University of Groningen, 23-24 October, 2014.
  Precision and accuracy in Greco-Roman scientific and lay time observation, Workshop on the history of time accuracy in Physics and Astronomy, Observatoire de Paris, 6-7 October, 2014.
  Archimedes the Astronomer. Conference, Lost and Found: the Secrets of Archimedes. Huntington Library, May 23, 2014.
  Greek Knowledge of Babylonian Period Relations: An Update. 4th Regensburg Workshop on Mesopotamian Astral Sciences. TOPOI, Berlin, May 14-17, 2014.
  Interpolated Observations and Ancient Observational Records in Ptolemy's Astronomy. Conference on the Circulation of Astronomical Knowledge in the Ancient World, Brown University, April 12-13, 2014.
  Theon of Smyrna on the Apparent Motions of the Planets. Writings of Early Scholars, International Workshop, Frankfurt University, January 3-4, 2014.
  Ptolemy and his Map of the World. Humanities Initiative, New York University, Panel Discussion on Measuring and Mapping Space. December 11, 2013.
  Ptolemy's Style and the Unity of the Corpus. International Congress of History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, Manchester, 21-28 July, 2013.
  The History of the Fragments of the Antikythera Mechanism from 1901 to 2005: Solved and Unsolved Problems. Lorentz Center Workshop: The Antikythera Mechanism: Science and Innovation in the Ancient World, Leiden, June 17-21, 2013.
  Inscriptions of the Antikythera Mechanism. Lorentz Center Workshop: The Antikythera Mechanism: Science and Innovation in the Ancient World, Leiden, June 17-21, 2013.
  Ephemerides and Ephemeris Texts in Late Antiquity. Techniques of Prediction I: Chronomancy, Erlangen, May 7-8, 2013.
  Mathematics and Metrology in a Fourth Century Greek Papyrus Codex. Cultures of Computation and Quantification in the Ancient World, Paris, March 25-29, 2013.
  From Oxyrhynchus to Nürnberg: Ancient and Modern Ephemerides. Symposium Ancient Astronomy and its Later Reception, 5th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science, Athens, November 1-3, 2012. (Delivered in absentia.)
  Theon of Smyrna and Ptolemy on Celestial Modelling in Two and Three Dimensions. Space, Geometry and the Imagination from Antiquity to the Modern Age, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, August 27-29, 2012.
  The Antikythera Mechanism and the Public Face of Hellenistic Science. From Antikythera to the Square Kilometre Array: Lessons from the Ancients. Kerastari (Greece), June 11-16, 2012.
  An Enduring Genre of Deluxe Horoscope. American Philological Association, 143rd Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, January 5-8, 2012.
  Pseudodoxia Anticytheriana. Workshop on the Antikythera Mechanism, Case Western
  Reserve University, November 5, 2011.
  Albert Rehm and the Antikythera Mechanism, History of Science Society Annual Meeting, Cleveland, November 3-6, 2011.
  Babylonian Observations and Greek Science. American Oriental Society Meeting, Chicago, March 11-14, 2011.
  The Dial Inscriptions of the Antikythera Mechanism. Whipple Museum Conference: The Antikythera Mechanism, A Timely Update, Cambridge, February 6, 2009.
  Parapegma Puzzles: reconstructing Greek documents on stellar risings and settings. Center for International Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences (CNRS UMI 3199), New York University, Inaugural Workshop on Early Mathematics, New York, November 25, 2008.
  Recent Research on the Antikythera Mechanism. Third Regensburg Workshop on Babylonian Astronomy, University of Durham, Durham, U.K., May 30, 2008.
  Selection of papyri and related astronomical documents. Seminar de lecture de textes mathématiques, REHSEIS, Université de Paris 7, Paris, May 21, 2008.
  Hipparchus' Polemical Commentaries. Seminar "Le genre des commentaires dans les textes scientifiques anciens," REHSEIS,Université de Paris 7, Paris, May 19, 2008.
  The Antikythera Mechanism and Hellenistic Astronomy. Seminar d'histoire des mathématiques: Les mathématiques grecques anciennes et leur postérité, Centre Louis Gernet, INHA, Salle Benjamin, Paris, May 17, 2008.
  From Tupsar to Astrologos: Babylonian-Greek interactions in the Astral Sciences. Seminar "Circulations de connaissances astronomiques dans les traditions anciennes," REHSEIS, Université de Paris 7, Paris, May 13, 2008.
  Mathematical modelling and the Antikythera Mechanism. Canadian Mathematical Society, Toronto, Dec. 11, 2006.
  The Antikythera Mechanism as an Artifact of Hellenistic Astronomy. Decoding the Antikythera Mechanism, Athens, Nov. 30-Dec. 2, 2006.
  Merely an Aberrant Development? How much did knowledge of Babylonian astronomy affect Greek astronomy? David Pingree Memorial Seminar, Leiden, May 29-30, 2006.
  Problems in Hellenistic Astronomy. Radcliffe Workshop on Hellenistic Science and Scholarship, Cambridge, MA, May 11-13, 2006.
  The Astronomical Inscription from Keskinto, Rhodes: A New Edition and Interpretations. Société Européenne pour l'astronomie dans la culture (SEAC), Rhodes, April 7-10, 2006.
  The Euclid Enigma. Canadian Mathematical Society, Victoria, B.C., Dec. 9-12, 2005.
  Euclid, the Elusive Geometer. Euclid and his Heritage. Clay Mathematics Institute, Oxford, Oct. 7-8, 2005.
  Euclides Analyticus. Conference: Ars Analytica: The Beginnings of a new Geometry. Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa: Centro di Ricerca Matematica Ennio de Giorgi, September 16-17, 2005.
  The Astronomical Inscription from Keskinto (Rhodes). Seventh Biennial History of Astronomy Workshop, Notre Dame University, July 7-10, 2005.
  The Astronomy of the Keskinto Inscription. Special Workshop on Ancient Mathematical Astronomy, Notre Dame University, July 6, 2005.
  Enigmas of the Keskinto Astronomical Inscription. Canadian Mathematical Society, Waterloo, Ontario, June 4-6, 2005.
  Patterns of deduction in Ptolemy's Almagest. Canadian Mathematical Society, winter meeting, Montreal, Dec. 12, 2004.
  Deductive structures in Ptolemy's astronomy. Physics and Mathematics in antiquity, Leiden, June 18, 2004.
  A Study of Babylonian observations of lunar normal-star passages. From Observation to Theory: the 2nd Regensburg workshop on Babylonian astronomy, Amsterdam, May 27, 2004.
  Ptolemy's Mathematical Tones. Canadian Mathematical Society meeting, Vancouver, December 8, 2003.
  Ptolemy's Geography: A User's Guide. Conference on Ptolemy's Geography in the Renaissance, Warburg Institute, 27 June, 2003.
  The Legacy of Ancient Near Eastern Astronomy. Skywatchers of the Ancient Near East: Symposium sponsored by the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies and the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities, 8 February, 2003.
  On Normal Star Passages of Planets. Workshop on the Atypical Astronomical Cuneiform Texts, Univerität Regensburg, 24 October, 2002.
  The Astronomical Papyri of Oxyrhynchus. Babylonische Astronomie (public conference on Babylonian astronomy), Univerität Regensburg, 23 October, 2002.
  Sign Entries and Longitudinal Frame of Reference in Babylonian and Greek Astronomy. Workshop on Babylonian Astronomy, Brown University, 28 June, 2002.
  Ptolemy's Map. Reconstructing Ancient Texts: The 37th Annual Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto, 3 November, 2001.
  How Much of Babylonian Mathematical Lunar Theory was Known in Greek, and in what Form? Under One Sky: Astronomy and Mathematics in the Ancient Near East, British Museum, 27 July, 2001.
  Babylonian Mathematical Astronomy in some Greek Papyri. Conference on the History and Philosophy of Greek Mathematics, Les Treilles (France), 21 July, 1998.
  The Astrologers of Oxyrhynchus. British Academy Symposium, Oxyrhynchus: A city and its texts, O0xford, 18 July, 1998.
  The Frame of Reference of Greek Astronomical Papyri. Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Mathematics, Annual Meeting (Ottawa), May 30, 1998.
  The Horoscope of Proclus. Classical Association of Canada, Annual Meeting (Ottawa), May 29, 1998.
  Astral Omens and Incantations in Ptolemaic and Greco-Roman Egypt. Chicago-Stanford Seminar on Hellenistic Egypt, Third meeting: Priests, Magicians and Incantations in Hellenistic Egypt. University of Chicago, November 8, 1997.
  Uses and Users of Astronomical Commentaries in Antiquity. Heidelberger Kolloquium, Historische und methodologische Aspekte der Kommentierung von Texten, Universität Heidelberg, July 4-61997.
  A Classification of Astronomical Tables on Papyrus. Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Workshop on Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination, M.I.T., May 8, 1994.
  The Place of Astronomy in Roman Egypt. Colloquium onThe Sciences in Greco-Roman Society, Department of Classics, University of Toronto, April 9, 1994.
  Assimilation and Adaptation of Babylonian Astronomy in the Hellenistic World. Science and Cultural Exchange in the Premodern World, University of Oklahoma (Norman), February 26, 1993.
  New Evidence for Babylonian Methods in Greek Astronomy. 3. Grazer morgenländisches Symposion (Graz, Austria), September 23-27, 1991.
  Recovering Astronomical Tables from Greek Papyri. Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Mathematics, Annual Meeting (Kingston), May 28, 1991.
  Papyri as Evidence of the Astronomy of the Roman Period. Classical Association of Canada, Annual Meeting (Kingston), May 26, 1991.
  The Visual Ray in Peripatetic Optics Conference on the History of Optics: The Transmission and Transformation of a Discipline, (North Andover, Massachusetts), May 30 - June 3, 1990.
  Adaptations of Babylonian Methods in Greek Astronomy. History of Science Society, Annual Meeting (Gainesville, Florida), October 27, 1989.
  Eutocius, Preserver of Greek Scientific Texts. CAC, Annual Meeting (Québec), May 27, 1989.
  Arithmetical Methods in Hipparchus’s Astronomy. Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science, Annual Meeting (Québec) May 29, 1989.
  Pappus’s Notes to Euclid’s Optics. CSHPM, Annual Meeting (Québec), May 30, 1989. On Babylonian elements in Greek planetary theory before Ptolemy. Colloquium on
  Mesopotamian Astronomy and Astrology (British Museum, London). July 2, 1987.
  On the Bobbio mathematical fragments. 17th Int. Byzantine Congress (Washington, D.C.). August 7, 1986.
  The paradoxical mirrors of Anthemius. Dumbarton Oaks (Washington, D.C.). December 3, 1985.
  Making sense of Pappus’s Collection. HSS Annual Meeting (Bloomington, Indiana). November 1, 1985.
  The manuscript transmission of Pappus’s Collection. Workshop on the History of Mathematics. History of Science Dept., Harvard University. April 15, 1984.
  Invited Lectures, Colloquia, Seminars.
  A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Secrets of the Antikythera Mechanism. Colloquium, Dept. of Physics, University of Delaware. May 10, 2017.
  A Portable Cosmos: The Antikythera Mechanism. Exhibition lecture, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. April 6, 2017.
  The Antikythera Mechanism. Smithsonian Associates lecture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. March 24, 2017.
  Visualizing Cosmology from Plato to Ptolemy. Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Visiting Fellowship Programme, All Souls College, Oxford, June 24, 2016.
  The Mechanism Inscriptions and Ancient Astronomy. The Inscriptions of the Antikythera Mechanism, Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, Piraeus, June 9, 2016.
  Lessons on forecasting and fate from Greco-Roman astronomical mechanisms. Reading session series, International Consortium for Research in the Humanities "Fate, Freedom, and Prognostication. Strategies for Coping with the Future in East Asia and Europe." University of Erlangan-Nürnberg, April 6, 2016.
  The First Investigations of the Antikythera Mechanism. Public ISAW faculty lecture, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York, December 8, 2015.
  Workshops on Ancient Astral Science in Texts and Artifacts. I: Sun, Moon, Stars, and Calendars. II: Eclipses. III: Planets and Cosmologies. July 2, 7, and 9, 2015.
  The Materiality of Time in Antiquity. I: The Revolutions of the Hours. II: The Synchrony of the Ages. Sonderforschungsbereich "Materiale Textkulturen," University of Heidelberg, June 26 and July 1, 2015.
  The Antikythera Mechanism and Other Wonders of the Ancient Scientific World. Public lecture, Studium Generale, Groningen, October 23, 2014.
  Archimedes: Behind the Legend. Keynote lecture, Archimedes World Conference, Courant Institute, NYU, May 30-June 1, 2014
  The Antikythera Mechanism and Ancient Astronomy. Plenary Lecture. IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, Montana, March 1-8, 2014.
  Ptolemy's Use of Non-Empirical Argumentation. TOPOI, Berlin, December 3, 2013.
  Babylonian-Greek Transmissions in Astronomy and Astrology. Babmed Seminar, TOPOI, Berlin, December 2, 2013.
  The Sundial in Greco-Roman Science, Life, and Art. Program in History and Philosophy of Science and SIMILE, Stanford University, October 17, 2013.
  Antikythera: The Wreck and the Mechanism. SIMILE, Stanford University, October 16, 2013.
  Ptolemy's Map of the World. ISAW Exhibition lecture. October 10, 2013.
  Tracking Time for Science and Civil Life in the Greco-Roman World. Department of Classics, Cornell University, September 12, 2013.
  (with Mike Edmunds) Stars, Gears, and the Ancient Greeks. Museum Boerhaave, Leiden, June 18, 2013.
  Gears for the Greeks. Edmund G. Berry Lecture, University of Manitoba, March 4, 2012.
  An Ancient Greek Analog Computer: The Antikythera Mechanism. Frederick V. Pohle Colloquium in the History of Mathematics, Adelphi University, February 1, 2012.
  The Antikythera Mechanism. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Symposium, Harvard University, January 26, 2012.
  Women of Ancient Mathematics. Institute for Advanced Study Women and Mathematics Program, Princeton, May 20, 2011.
  The Antikythera Mechanism. Lecture, Colgate University, March 29, 2011.
  Greek astronomers and the ancient public. Webster Memorial Lecture, Archeological Institute of America. Adler Planetarium, Chicago, September 23, 2009. SUNY Albany, February 10, 2010. University of Oklahoma, March 11, 2010.
  The Antikythera Mechanism. A Century of Research, and Beyond. Brookhaven National Laboratory. April 28, 2009.
  Gears For the Greeks. New York Academy of Sciences, History and Philosophy of Science Section. October 22, 2008.
  Many Transmissions. Mesopotamian Astronomy in Greek Science and Society. Centre for the Study of the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East, Durham University, Durham U.K., May 29, 2008.
  Eternal Tables and Cosmic Cycles: A Lost Tradition in Greek Astronomy. Department of Greek and Roman Studies, University of Calgary. March 9, 2007.
  Late Hellenistic Astronomy: Public Faces and Interior Mechanisms. Department of Classics, Brown University. February 22, 2007.
  Locus Theorems in Ancient Greek Geometry. Adelphi University: Mathematics Dept., Pohle Seminar in the History of Mathematics. March 1, 2006.
  Locus Theorems in Ancient Greek Geometry. University of British Columbia, Dept. of Mathematics, Colloquium. December 14, 2005.
  Publishing Science on Stone: An astronomical inscription from Hellenistic Rhodes. Columbia University, Center for the Ancient Mediterranean. December 2, 2005.
  Publishing Science on Stone. Bryn Mawr, Dept. of Physics and Classics Program, Class of 1902 Lecture. November 4, 2005.
  Pappus' Collection and the European Rediscovery and Reconstruction of Greek Mathematics. Series of four lectures. Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa: Centro di Ricerca Matematica Ennio de Giorgi, September 12-15, 2005.
  Ptolemy's Great Deduction. New York Academy of Sciences, History and Philosophy of Science Section. May 25, 2005.
  The Keskinto Inscription and Late Hellenistic Astronomy. Seminar, Dept. of Classics, University of Toronto, March 11, 2005.
  Ptolemy on the interplay of observation and reasoning. Brown Bag research seminar, Science and Technology Studies, York University, Jan. 18, 2005.
  Planetary Science in the Greco-Roman World. University of Toronto Astronomy and Space Exploration Society, Nov. 25, 2004.
  Ptolemy's Great Deduction. Committee on the History and Philosophy of Science, University of Colorado, Nov. 15, 2004.
  From Babylon to Alexandria. Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Toronto, 2 April, 2003.
  Themes and Methods in Greek Geometrical Optics. Visual Literacies series, Dept. of Classics, Stanford University. May 24, 2001.
  Ptolemy: Lover of Truth? Colloquium, History of Science and Technology, University of Minnesota. February 25, 2000.
  Astrology in Roman Egypt: Untangling the Threads. Seminar (series: Experts and Expertise in the Ancient World), Institute of Classical Studies, University of London, October 21, 1999. Seminar (series: Space), Classics Faculty, University of Cambridge, October 22, 1999.
  Planetary Observations from Babylon, Egypt, and (maybe) Rome. I.H.P.S.T. Colloquium, University of Toronto, October 13, 1999.
  Mathematical Models and Phenomena in Ancient Astronomy. Invited plenary speaker. Joint Meeting, Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Mathematics/British Society for the History of Mathematics, Toronto, July 15, 1999.
  Predicting by Numbers: Babylonian Astronomy among the Greek Astrologers. Seminar on Science, Ethics, and Public Policy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, March 4, 1999.
  Superstitious flotsam of the Near East: astronomical texts from the astrologers of Egypt. Very Early Science Working Group, Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Cambridge, USA, November 30, 1998.
  Ptolemy's Geography in the Manuscripts, and Before Them. Colloquium, Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Cambridge, USA, September 15, 1998.
  Ancient mathematics: lost and found. University of Toronto Mathematics Association, June 6, 1998.
  Astral omens in Greco-Roman Egypt. Classics seminar, University of Toronto, October 31, 1997.
  Babylonian astronomy in Greek: the new evidence. I.H.P.S.T. colloquium, University of Toronto, January 22, 1997.
  Greek mathematics, emulated and applied. Invited lecture, Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Mathematics, Brock University, May 30, 1996.
  Astronomical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus: A Sampler. All Souls Visiting Fellows’
  Colloquium, All Souls College (Oxford), February 27, 1996.
  Astronomical Papyri of the Roman Period. Late Roman Seminar, Wolfson College (Oxford), January 30, 1996.
  A new astronomical text from the reign of Trajan. Classics seminar, University of Toronto, December 8, 1995.
  New light on the astronomy of the Roman period. I.H.P.S.T. colloquium, University of Toronto, November 15, 1995.
  Astronomy in the Service of Astrology: the Sciences of the Heavens in Roman Egypt. Chauncey Leake Lecture, Department of History of Science, University of Wisconsin (Madison), September 20, 1995.
  Callippic Periods and Egyptian Calendar Reform. Classics seminar, University of Toronto, February 24, 1995.
  Ptolemy and Marinus: Geographers of the Roman Empire. Ontario Classical Association meeting, Toronto, Nov. 5, 1994.
  Babylonian Astronomy and its Legacy. Lecture, Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies, Toronto, February 9, 1994.
  Planetary Phenomena and Planetary Theories in Ancient Astronomy. Colloquium, History of Science Department, Harvard University, November 16, 1993.
  From Omens to Orbits: Astronomy and Astrology in the Ancient World. Professional development day lecture, Toronto Board of Education, November 5, 1993.
  Greek World Maps and Exploration. Gifted programme, Western Technical and Commercial Secondary School (Toronto), February 13, 1993.
  Peripatetic and Euclidean Ways of Seeing. Classics seminar, University of Toronto, November 20, 1992.
  From Omens to Orbits. Gresham School, Holt, Norfolk, England. February 21, 1992.
  Astrological Practice and its Relation to Astronomy in Antiquity. Program in History of Science, Princeton University. December 3, 1991. University of Chicago, May 7, 1992. Minnesota Seminar in the History of Science and Technology, University of Minnesota. May 8, 1992.
  Greek Horoscopes. Seminar in History and Philosophy of Mathematics and Mathematics Education, York University. November 22, 1991. Seminar, Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics, Acadia University. January 31, 1992.
  The Planetary Phases in Early Astronomy: Observation, Prediction, and Theory. I.H.P.S.T. Colloquium, University of Toronto. October 2, 1991.
  The Origins of Greek Numerical Astronomy. Program in Classics, Philosophy, and Ancient Science, University of Pittsburgh, March 22, 1991.
  The Mathematical Collection of Pappus of Alexandria. Landelijke colloquia geschiedenis en maatschappelijke functie van de wiskunde (Mathematisch instituut, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht). May 26, 1987.
  The editing of scientific texts in late antiquity. Classics Seminar, University of Toronto. March 20, 1987.
  The astronomy of the Greek astrologers. I.H.P.S.T. Colloquium, University of Toronto. February 26, 1987

• Oxford University Press - https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-portable-cosmos-9780199739349?cc=us&lang=en&

  A Portable Cosmos

  Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World

  Alexander Jones

  A new account of the discovery and early study of the Mechanism, based on archival sources
  A well-researched discussion of the most important open questions, including where and when was it made, what was its purpose, and how accurate was it
  Explores the Mechanism's connections to ancient Greek and Babylonian astronomy, astrology, and physical thought and to ancient society

  === author===
  Cover
  A Portable Cosmos

  Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World

  Alexander Jones

  Author Information

  Alexander Jones is Professor of the History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.

  ===description===

  $34.95

  Hardcover

  Published: 01 February 2017

  312 Pages | 41 black-and-white illus. & 41 black-and-white line drawings

  6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches

  ISBN: 9780199739349

  Also Available As:

  Ebook

  Bookseller Code (1A)

  Connect with OUP
  FacebookTwitterTumblrBlog
  Overview
  Description
  Table of Contents
  Author Information
  Reviews and Awards
  Cover
  A Portable Cosmos

  Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World

  Alexander Jones

  Description

  From the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Terracotta Army, ancient artifacts have long fascinated the modern world. However, the importance of some discoveries is not always immediately understood. This was the case in 1901 when sponge divers retrieved a lump of corroded bronze from a shipwreck at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea near the Greek island of Antikythera. Little did the divers know they had found the oldest known analog computer in the world, an astonishing device that once simulated the motions of the stars and planets as they were understood by ancient Greek astronomers. Its remains now consist of 82 fragments, many of them containing gears and plates engraved with Greek words, that scientists and scholars have pieced back together through painstaking inspection and deduction, aided by radiographic tools and surface imaging. More than a century after its discovery, many of the secrets locked in this mysterious device can now be revealed.

  In addition to chronicling the unlikely discovery of the Antikythera Mechanism, author Alexander Jones takes readers through a discussion of how the device worked, how and for what purpose it was created, and why it was on a ship that wrecked off the Greek coast around 60 BC. What the Mechanism has uncovered about Greco-Roman astronomy and scientific technology, and their place in Greek society, is truly amazing. The mechanical know-how that it embodied was more advanced than anything the Greeks were previously thought capable of, but the most recent research has revealed that its displays were designed so that an educated layman could understand the behavior of astronomical phenomena, and how intertwined they were with one's natural and social environment. It was at once a masterpiece of machinery as well as one of the first portable teaching devices. Written by a world-renowned expert on the Mechanism, A Portable Cosmos will fascinate all readers interested in ancient history, archaeology, and the history of science.

  Show less
  Share:

  ===reviews and awards===

  Reviews and Awards
  Cover
  A Portable Cosmos

  Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World

  Alexander Jones

  Reviews and Awards

  "Jones' book is written in such a way that makes it profitable reading for a wide range of readers, from the specialists on the Mechanism to those who have never heard of it. It presents in detail and explains clearly and in a pleasant way the Mechanism and its context by using all the existing specialised literature: this is really the Bible of the Antikythera Mechanism. The only recommendation to the unprepared reader is to use the book with moderation. One can easily become addicted to the Antikythera Mechanism, this absolute technical marvel of Antiquity, and dedicate oneself to the endless search for its lost planetary gear trains." --Efthymios Nicolaidis, Almagest

  "Jones's text, too, is precise but calm, elegant and with a certain charm. His learning is broad: here's Ptolemy, here are gear ratios, here's Cicero and Galen, Babylonians, planets, lunar months, Glauco, epicyclics and the 'Spindle of Necessity'. And it is not just the cosmos that is demonstrated, but the vast difference, and astonishing similarity, between us and our ancestors. So out of the history of science comes a sense of our humanity and the ancient desire to comprehend. God knows, it's timely, in the shrivelled cosmos we are building. We need more books like this. And probably more sponge-divers, too." --Michael Bywater, The Spectator

  "A historian of science and technology, Mr. Jones played a role in this endeavor. His job was to link the complexities of the Antikythera Mechanism to what the ancient Greeks believed about the astronomy of a geocentric universe. His virtue as an author is an exhaustive knowledge of his subject, such as how Greek calendars varied from city to city and how pre-Copernican astral calculations accounted for the mystery of the planets' retrograde motion...Mr. Jones can be refreshingly candid, avoiding scholarly habits of overcaution." --John J. Miller, Wall Street Journal

  "A Portable Cosmos is a fine account of everything that pertains to the Antikythera mechanism-the story of its discovery and decipherment, the scholarly debates about its date and provenance, and the meanings it would have held for an ancient viewer. The book is notable for its sweep, and the ease with which it moves back and forth among ancient literature, the phenomena of astronomy, and the mechanical details of the surviving artifact. This is a gem of a book."-James Evans, University of Puget Sound

  "My major contribution to this amazing lost-and-found story occurred when I was asked to referee a paper on the remarkable Antikythera Mechanism, which had been recovered from an ancient ship wreck. I told them, 'You should really ask Alexander Jones.' They did, and the unexpected result was that Jones, an outstanding scholar and an expert in both ancient Greek and antique astronomy, was invited to join the team. Here Jones describes the long and fascinating path to decipherment in the decades since the device was found by divers in 1900." -Owen Gingerich, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

  "Alexander Jones has done a huge service with A Portable Cosmos, dispelling many of the myths associated with this fascinating artifact... he has provided an engagingly written and detailed history of the Mechanism, covering the discovery itself, research undertaken to date, the ancient scientific and technological expertise underpinning the object and the cultural contexts of the Greco-Roman world in which it was made and meant to be used. Jones persuasively argues that the Mechanism was intended as an educational tool, rather than a specialist bit of kit...its intended audience may have been the ancient counterpart to those readers who will be drawn to Jones' authoritative and insightful account. A Portable Cosmos is set to become the definitive history of the Antikythera Mechanism, and will be of great value to specialists, as well as students and those interested in ancient Greco-Roman science and technology."-Liba Taub, University of Cambridge

  "Alexander Jones' comprehensive look at the Antikythera mechanism and its context will suit readers interested in the mechanism or the history of science in general." - Publishers Weekly

• University of Delaware - https://www.che.udel.edu/pdf/WeeklyAnnouncements/2017/05082017_CASPhyAstroColloq_Jones.pdf

  Physics and Astronomy Colloquium
  Professor Alexander Jones, New York University
  A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Secrets of the Antikythera Mechanism 4-5 PM Wednesday, May 10, 2017
  Gore Hall 104
  Alexander Jones is currently the Interim Director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, where he has been Professor of the History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity since 2008. His work centers on the history of astro- nomy in the Greco-Roman world. During the last decade the Antikythera Mechanism has been a particular focus of his research. Together with members of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, he is a coauthor of the series of new editions of the inscriptions of the Antikythera Mechanism, published in 2016 in the journal Almagest, and his just-published book A Portable Cosmos (Oxford, 2017) is a broad presentation of what we now know about the Mechanism and its relation to ancient Greek science and society.
  The Antikythera Mechanism, a fragmentarily preserved ancient Greek device involving numerous gears and dials, was recovered in 1901 from a shipwreck dating to about 60 BC. After a half century of research, the functions and inner workings of the Mechanism are now well under- stood: it simulated the apparent motions of the Sun, Moon, and planets through the zodiac while also displaying cycles of time related to lunar and solar eclipses and to Greek luni-solar calendars and the Panhellenic Games. In this colloquium Professor Jones will describe how the device's internal gearing drove the exterior dials showing planetary positions and eclipse possibilities and the months of a Greek lunisolar calendar, and summarize the astronomical information preserved in the recently deciphered texts on its front and back.

QUOTED: "The chase, which dominates the book, is as riveting as any thriller or criminal investigation."
"It is not just the cosmos that is demonstrated, but the vast difference, and astonishing similarity, between us and our ancestors. So out of the history of science comes a sense of our humanity and the ancient desire to comprehend. God knows, it's timely, in the shrivelled cosmos we are building. We need more books like this."

8/9/17, 11(22 AM
Print Marked Items
Deeply mysterious
Michael Bywater
Spectator.
333.9846 (May 13, 2017): p36. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 The Spectator Ltd. (UK) http://www.spectator.co.uk
Full Text:
A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World by Alexander Jones
OUP, 22.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 288
The human urge for personal hygiene has had many improbable side-effects, and I can confidently assert that through the ages, sponge-divers have punched consistently above their weight. Bronze-age tools, 10thcentury Islamic glassware, a Byzantine ship whose plunge to the bottom was cushioned by the fourth-century Roman wreck it alighted upon, anchors, amphorae, sculpture: if it's down there, they'll bring it up.
And so, around Easter 1900, there they were, waiting out the bad weather in the shelter of Potamos on Antikythera, a small island northwest of Crete.
They decided to use their time profitably, took an exploratory plunge, and one of them, Ilias Lykopantis, discovered a life-size bronze arm, subsequently fetched up by the ship-owner's brother-in-law Dimitrios Kontos.
The authorities were informed, by optical telegraph (set up three years earlier, to foil the dastardly Turks; plus qa change), that a great treasure had been found; but the authorities declared that it was Eastertime, and so the telegraph operator was clearly drunk.
The months went by. The authorities obstructed. The press fussed and hurled accusations. And bit by bit, the finds grew smaller, until up came a 'slab' with hard to read inscriptions, and fragments of an ancient gearwork mechanism.
Or, rather, Mechanism.
And so, standing upon the shoulders of 117 years of meticulous giants, comes Alexander Jones, who is Professor of the History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World--a job title worth citing in full, not only because of its own flawless exactitude, but because, in a world slowly becoming blacker than a shipworm, it is a cause for joy that such a post, at such an institute, exists. And Jones sets out to synthesise their work, and to attend to the great question: what the hell were they doing?
The question is, naturally, a near-universal when dealing with ancient history. Sometimes we have to work out the question, first, or at least try to work out the rough domain in which the question can be asked.
about:blank Page 1 of 4
8/9/17, 11(22 AM
Cultural matters are, in a sense, less pressing. When we read (or, less often, see) an Athenian tragedy, it's obviously a play. Only later do we ask ourselves what on earth it was about, and why it was sort of compulsory, and whether women went, and if it had some civic or religious function. Similarly, we might wonder how a session at the Baths of Caracalla would have gone, or whether togas itched, or what garam sauce tasted like, or why the Greeks were so prone to what the classicist James Davidson called 'ancient fish-madness'.
But when it comes to machineries, the question forces itself on our attention. There's no halfway house to understanding. Trying to gauge what a contemporary machine is or does is just as opaque; but now it's likely as to be a sealed black box, and we can simply shrug. Survivals from antiquity are few, and not so easily set aside. The Antikythera Mechanism, like Stonehenge at the other end of the spectrum, demands that we at least try to work out its function.
And try we did. It was (asserted an early attempt at identification) an astrolabe.
Except that it wasn't because one fragment had gears, which drove rings, which represented planets, which means it wasn't an observational instrument but a sort of planetarium. A row, of course, broke out in, of course, the Archaeological Society of Athens. Subsequent attempts, before less invasive methods of imaging, elucidate some hints but at the cost of some destruction of evidence.
The chase, which dominates the book, is as riveting as any thriller or criminal investigation. 'A tiny rectangular notch on one of the gears of Fragment A' turned out, a century later, to be 'a key element of one of the Mechanism's most sophisticated functions', which is not only thrilling, in a miniaturist sort of way, but also points up the central question- begging of such an investigation: unless we know how it works, we can't understand what it is; but if we have no idea (or a mistaken one) of what it does, we can't understand how it works. So investigators resorted to a sort of engineering simile, a mechanymy if you like: because the Mechanism was complex, and the only comparably complex artefact of its period was an astrolabe, then the Mechanism was some sort of astrolabe, and we were getting somewhere.
That where we were getting was in the wrong direction (like one of those elderly gentlemen found tootling cheerfully the wrong way up the M1) didn't matter too much. The quest was the thing. And there is a strange gentle savagery in many of Jones's remarks; on the work of the naval officer Periklis Rediadis (the leading astrolabe theorist) he writes that he
did not try to show how a system of gears could
convert an altitude angle into, say, time of day
... one is struck by how little his interpretation
of the Mechanism's purpose depended on
his . erroneous attempt to fit the fragments
together.
But, wrong as he was, Rediadis did come up with the
more general idea that the gears functioned
as a device for calculating quantitative data
by means of moving parts--that is, an analog
computer.
What did it compute? And why did it compute it? I am reluctant to give it away, but--spoiler alert--it was a sort of teaching device. Also a boasting device, like the ludicrous watches rich men wear, always perhaps hoping someone will stop them in the street and ask if by any chance they have the correct phase of the moon. You could demonstrate the positions of the planets (the 'Wanderers') and calculate horoscopes As Jones's subtitle puts it: a portable cosmos.
But it was one whose elucidation was as wondrously wrought as the Mechanism itself. Jones's text, too, is precise but calm, elegant and with a certain charm. His learning is broad: here's Ptolemy, here are gear ratios, here's Cicero and
about:blank Page 2 of 4
8/9/17, 11(22 AM
Galen, Babylonians, planets, lunar months, Glauco, epicyclics and the 'Spindle of Necessity'. And it is not just the cosmos that is demonstrated, but the vast difference, and astonishing similarity, between us and our ancestors. So out of the history of science comes a sense of our humanity and the ancient desire to comprehend. God knows, it's timely, in the shrivelled cosmos we are building. We need more books like this. And probably more spongedivers, too.
Caption: A piece of the Antikythera Mechanism, on display at the Archaeological Museum, Athens GETTY IMAGES
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Bywater, Michael. "Deeply mysterious." Spectator, 13 May 2017, p. 36+. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA498477957&it=r&asid=39a9bc7856b9f76eea9c4f2432fb8d20. Accessed 9 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A498477957

QUOTED: "His comprehensive look at the Antikythera mechanism and its context will suit readers interested in the mechanism or the history of science."

about:blank Page 3 of 4
8/9/17, 11(22 AM
A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera
Mechanism, a Scientific Wonder of the Ancient
World
Publishers Weekly.
263.50 (Dec. 5, 2016): p62. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, a Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World Alexander Jones. Oxford Univ., $34.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-19-973934-9
Jones, professor of the history of exact sciences in antiquity at NYU, exhaustively analyzes the famed Antikythera mechanism, a mysterious bronze astronomical device of ancient Greek origins that many modern commentators thought exceeded the technological capabilities of its time. After recounting how it was found in 1901, Jones discusses the investigations and initial theories about the mechanism's nature and origins. With this foundation set, he delves into its historical context, addressing culture, religion, astronomy, technology, and more. These chapters, which make up the book's bulk, provide a surprisingly vivid picture of Mediterranean and Mesopotamian cultures at the time of the mechanism's likely creation, around 200 B.C.E., and dispel the myth that the mechanism was somehow ahead of its time by explaining the apparent reasons for its multiple functions, which include a zodiac scale, an Egyptian calendar scale, a Moon phase display, and means to track planetary motion. Moreover, Jones includes painstaking technical descriptions and diagrams of the materials, construction, and probable inner workings of the mechanism, making clear that the scientific knowledge and craftsmanship of the day was sufficient for its design and manufacture. Though Jones's dense and straightforward prose makes this closer to a textbook than a popular science book, his comprehensive look at the Antikythera mechanism and its context will suit readers interested in the mechanism or the history of science in general. Illus. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, a Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World." Publishers
Weekly, 5 Dec. 2016, p. 62. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475224897&it=r&asid=1a3d6ac4082830677e9637edd47801e5. Accessed 9 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A475224897
about:blank Page 4 of 4

Bywater, Michael. "Deeply mysterious." Spectator, 13 May 2017, p. 36+. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA498477957&it=r. Accessed 9 Aug. 2017. "A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, a Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World." Publishers Weekly, 5 Dec. 2016, p. 62. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475224897&it=r. Accessed 9 Aug. 2017.

• Engineering and Technology
  https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2017/05/book-review-a-portable-cosmos-by-alexander-jones/
  Word count: 1408

  QUOTED: "Jones takes the reader on a journey through the various years of research into the mechanism’s background, as well as into the device itself, affording a glimpse beneath the corroded surface and into the interior gears and cogs."

  Advertisement

  Info Message
  Our sites use cookies to support some functionality, and to collect anonymous user data.
  Learn more about IET cookies and how to control them
  Close
  IET sites

  Welcome
  Your IET account
  Toggle navigation
  Menu
  E&T logo

  Review
  Book review: ‘A Portable Cosmos’ by Alexander Jones
  By Jade Fell

  Published Wednesday, May 17, 2017

  More than 100 years after it was first discovered, and following on from decades of research by scientists and theologians alike, author Alexander Jones reveals a new and unknown approach to understanding the mysterious Antikythera mechanism.

  Since the dawn of society, mankind has striven to understand the forces that dictate history. Ancient Greeks found answers in fate, with shrouded white beings, known as the Moirai, depicted alongside the gods as the bringers of destiny.

  It would be easy to suggest that fate was at play in 1901, when sponge divers off the coast of a small Greek island stumbled upon the ruins of an ancient shipwreck, which just happened to be one of the most important archaeological discoveries of all time.

  The contents of the wreck, dating back as far as 60 AD, revealed untold wonders of the lives of the privileged in Ancient Greece. The vessel was laden with artistic masterpieces in the form of bronze and marble statues and intricate glassware and ceramics. Most important of all, though, was the unique Antikythera mechanism – the crumbling remains of an ancient gear-driven device, since dubbed the first analogue computer.

  ‘A Portable Cosmos’, written and researched by Professor Alexander Jones, from New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, attempts to unpick the murky history of the Antikythera mechanism. The book presents the device as a gateway to the understanding of scientific thought in Ancient Greece, where the divine and the methodical were inextricably entwined.

  Jones takes the reader on a journey through the various years of research into the mechanism’s background, as well as into the device itself, affording a glimpse beneath the corroded surface and into the interior gears and cogs.

  Since its discovery more than 100 years ago, scholars and scientists have dedicated years of research to uncovering the secrets hidden beneath the mechanism’s corroded exterior. The symbols, writings, gears and cogs uncovered by years of investigation have revealed that the mechanism is some kind of advanced astronomical calculator, with dials given over to tracing cycles of time and the movements of the sun, moon and planets.

  Various theories have arisen as to the machine’s true function, with it being labelled as both an astrolabe and a planetarium at various stages throughout the 20th century. It was not until Derek de Solla Price began researching the object in the 1950s that the word ‘computer’ arose and with it the idea that the device could have been used to determine certain predictions and calculations.

  For Jones it seems unlikely that the mechanism was created to compute data in any practical way, but rather, was more likely created as a reflection of certain beliefs and aspirations in Ancient Greece. Navigational and other purposes would have been much more easily supplied by other, cheaper means, whereas the range and breadth of information expressed by the mechanism is far and beyond the realms required by any merchant ship.

  Instead, Jones poses the idea that the device may have served as vessel for teaching the ‘educated layman’ how astronomical phenomena were interwoven with the natural and social environment. Take a glimpse at Ancient Greek texts and one can see the presence of mechanical thought within the understanding of astrological forces. Vitruvius described the heavens themselves as spun about mechanically – viewing astrological revolutions as driven by a system of invisible, interlocking parts. For some, this theory went further, into the very nature of fate itself.

  Within the Antikythera mechanism, each astrological and chronological function had a rich context in Ancient Greek life and as such serves as the perfect gateway to understanding astronomy and scientific technology within society at the time. Just as fate and serendipity fascinated and guided the hands of ancient scholars, so too has it dictated the journey of the Antikythera mechanism, from a corroded piece of rubble to one of the most important discoveries of modern times.

  ‘A Portable Cosmos’ is published by Oxford University Press (Hardback £22.99, ISBN 9780199739349)

  BOOKS REVIEW REVIEWS ANTIKYTHERA MECHANISM
  Related stories
  Review
  Hands-on test: Kanex MultiSync Foldable Travel Keyboard
  Review
  Hands-on test: Smarter iKettle 3.0
  Review
  Book review: ‘London’s Hidden Rivers’ by David Fathers
  Review
  Book review: ‘Apollo: The Panoramas’ by Mike Constantine
  Review
  Book review: ‘A History of the World in 500 Railway Journeys’ by Sarah Baxter

  Book interview: Danny Goldberg, ‘In Search of the Lost Chord’
  Review
  Software reviews: Summer holiday apps

  Firmware Engineer (Data Acquisition)

  Switzerland
  £6685.26 - £8021.84 per month

  ICT Engineer

  Antarctica and Cambridge

  Review
  Book review: ‘Machine, Platform, Crowd’ by Andrew MacAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson
  Review
  Book reviews: ‘Totality’ and ‘Eclipse’
  Review
  Book review: ‘What to do when machines do everything’ by Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig and Ben Pring
  Recent articles

  Google warns major online publishers to remove annoying ads

  Elon Musk commits to building US hyperloop

  £10bn Malaysian rail project breaks ground with Chinese support

  National Grid underplays concern that electric vehicle popularity will overload power networks
  Exclusive
  Museums plead with government to exempt them from strict new privacy rules

  Homeless young encouraged to seek HIV tests via social algorithms

  Spit-powered microbial fuel cell developed to power biosensors in remote regions

  Disney to be brought to court for spying on children using apps

  New Mazda combustion engine could fill the gap before electric vehicle ubiquity

  Miniature satellites could be propelled using water vapour

  Increased automation could mean trouble for developing countries, think-tank warns
  Follow E&T magazine
  Facebook icon Twitter icon YouTube icon Instagram icon Flickr icon Wordpress icon RSS icon Engineering Communities icon Back to top
  Magazine
  Latest issue
  Tablet editions
  Webinars
  White papers
  About E&T
  About us
  Contact us
  Advertise with us
  Sign up for news e-mails

  Related sites
  E&T Jobs
  E&T Reference
  Follow The IET
  Facebook icon Twitter icon LinkedIn icon YouTube icon Pinterest icon Engineering Communities icon Back to top
  Membership
  Join now
  MyIET
  Your career
  Professional registration
  Career manager
  Training courses
  Awards and scholarships
  Electrical
  Wiring Regulations
  Electrical Standards Plus
  Building Regulations
  Forum
  Sectors
  Built environment
  Design and production
  Energy
  Information and communications
  Transport
  IET.tv
  E&T Magazine
  Shop
  Books
  Journals
  Standards
  Training courses
  Events
  Inspec
  Policy
  Government policy
  IET position statements
  Media centre
  Publishing
  Writing for us
  Advertising with us
  Education
  Teaching resources
  Events
  Awards and grants
  IET Venues
  Birmingham - Austin Court
  Glasgow - Teacher Building
  London - Savoy Place
  Communities and networks
  Contact us
  Help Cookies Privacy Statement Accessibility Legal notices
  © 2017 The Institution of Engineering and Technology.IET Services Limited is registered in England Registered Office Savoy Place, London, WC2R 0BL Registration Number 909719IET Services Limited is trading as a subsidiary of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, which is registered as a Charity in England & Wales (no 211014) and Scotland (no SC038698)
  Share to Google Bookmark
  Share to Facebook
  , Number of shares
  Share to Twitter
  Share to Print
  More AddThis Share options
  , Number of shares

• Spectator UK
  https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/05/what-exactly-did-the-greek-sponge-divers-drag-in/
  Word count: 1931

  Skip to Content

  THE SPECTATOR

  CULTURE HOUSE

  EVENTS

  HEALTH

  LIFE

  MONEY

  SHOP

  WINE CLUB
  REGISTER

  LOGIN
  Spectator
  The Spectator from £1 per week
  SUBSCRIBE

  COFFEE HOUSE MAGAZINE WRITERS BOOKS & ARTS PODCASTS SUBSCRIBE
  BOOKS
  What exactly did the Greek sponge-divers drag in?
  A mysterious ancient mechanism was hauled from the Mediterranean in 1900 — but it’s taken over a century to figure it out
  Michael Bywater
  A piece of the Antikythera Mechanism, on display at the Archaeological Museum, Athens. (Getty Images)
  A piece of the Antikythera Mechanism, on display at the Archaeological Museum, Athens. (Getty Images)
  Michael Bywater
  13 May 2017
  9:00 AM
  A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World
  Alexander Jones
  OUP, pp.288, £22.99
  The human urge for personal hygiene has had many improbable side-effects, and I can confidently assert that through the ages, sponge-divers have punched consistently above their weight. Bronze-age tools, 10th-century Islamic glassware, a Byzantine ship whose plunge to the bottom was cushioned by the fourth-century Roman wreck it alighted upon, anchors, amphorae, sculpture: if it’s down there, they’ll bring it up.

  And so, around Easter 1900, there they were, waiting out the bad weather in the shelter of Potamós on Antikythera, a small island northwest of Crete.

  They decided to use their time profitably, took an exploratory plunge, and one of them, Ilias Lykopantis, discovered a life-size bronze arm, subsequently fetched up by the ship-owner’s brother-in-law Dimitrios Kontos.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life, legacy and lastings greatness – Listen and subscribe to the Spectator Books podcast, hosted by Sam Leith:

  The authorities were informed, by optical telegraph (set up three years earlier, to foil the dastardly Turks; plus ça change), that a great treasure had been found; but the authorities declared that it was Eastertime, and so the telegraph operator was clearly drunk.

  The months went by. The authorities obstructed. The press fussed and hurled accusations. And bit by bit, the finds grew smaller, until up came a ‘slab’ with hard to read inscriptions, and fragments of an ancient gearwork mechanism.

  Or, rather, Mechanism.

  And so, standing upon the shoulders of 117 years of meticulous giants, comes Alexander Jones, who is Professor of the History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity at New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World — a job title worth citing in full, not only because of its own flawless exactitude, but because, in a world slowly becoming blacker than a shipworm, it is a cause for joy that such a post, at such an institute, exists. And Jones sets out to synthesise their work, and to attend to the great question: what the hell were they doing?

  The question is, naturally, a near-universal when dealing with ancient history. Sometimes we have to work out the question, first, or at least try to work out the rough domain in which the question can be asked. Cultural matters are, in a sense, less pressing. When we read (or, less often, see) an Athenian tragedy, it’s obviously a play. Only later do we ask ourselves what on earth it was about, and why it was sort of compulsory, and whether women went, and if it had some civic or religious function. Similarly, we might wonder how a session at the Baths of Caracalla would have gone, or whether togas itched, or what garam sauce tasted like, or why the Greeks were so prone to what the classicist James Davidson called ‘ancient fish-madness’.

  But when it comes to machineries, the question forces itself on our attention. There’s no halfway house to understanding. Trying to gauge what a contemporary machine is or does is just as opaque; but now it’s likely as to be a sealed black box, and we can simply shrug. Survivals from antiquity are few, and not so easily set aside. The Antikythera Mechanism, like Stonehenge at the other end of the spectrum, demands that we at least try to work out its function.

  And try we did. It was (asserted an early attempt at identification) an astrolabe. Except that it wasn’t because one fragment had gears, which drove rings, which represented planets, which means it wasn’t an observational instrument but a sort of planetarium. A row, of course, broke out in, of course, the Archaeological Society of Athens. Subsequent attempts, before less invasive methods of imaging, elucidate some hints but at the cost of some destruction of evidence.

  The chase, which dominates the book, is as riveting as any thriller or criminal investigation. ‘A tiny rectangular notch on one of the gears of Fragment A’ turned out, a century later, to be ‘a key element of one of the Mechanism’s most sophisticated functions’, which is not only thrilling, in a miniaturist sort of way, but also points up the central question-begging of such an investigation: unless we know how it works, we can’t understand what it is; but if we have no idea (or a mistaken one) of what it does, we can’t understand how it works. So investigators resorted to a sort of engineering simile, a mechanymy if you like: because the Mechanism was complex, and the only comparably complex artefact of its period was an astrolabe, then the Mechanism was some sort of astrolabe, and we were getting somewhere.

  That where we were getting was in the wrong direction (like one of those elderly gentlemen found tootling cheerfully the wrong way up the M1) didn’t matter too much. The quest was the thing. And there is a strange gentle savagery in many of Jones’s remarks; on the work of the naval officer Periklis Rediadis (the leading astrolabe theorist) he writes that he

  did not try to show how a system of gears could convert an altitude angle into, say, time of day … one is struck by how little his interpretation of the Mechanism’s purpose depended on his … erroneous attempt to fit the fragments together.
  But, wrong as he was, Rediadis did come up with the

  more general idea that the gears functioned as a device for calculating quantitative data by means of moving parts—that is, an analog computer.
  What did it compute? And why did it compute it? I am reluctant to give it away, but — spoiler alert — it was a sort of teaching device. Also a boasting device, like the ludicrous watches rich men wear, always perhaps hoping someone will stop them in the street and ask if by any chance they have the correct phase of the moon. You could demonstrate the positions of the planets (the ‘Wanderers’) and calculate horoscopes As Jones’s subtitle puts it: a portable cosmos.

  But it was one whose elucidation was as wondrously wrought as the Mechanism itself. Jones’s text, too, is precise but calm, elegant and with a certain charm. His learning is broad: here’s Ptolemy, here are gear ratios, here’s Cicero and Galen, Babylonians, planets, lunar months, Glauco, epicyclics and the ‘Spindle of Necessity’. And it is not just the cosmos that is demonstrated, but the vast difference, and astonishing similarity, between us and our ancestors. So out of the history of science comes a sense of our humanity and the ancient desire to comprehend. God knows, it’s timely, in the shrivelled cosmos we are building. We need more books like this. And probably more sponge-divers, too.

  Sign up to the Weekly Highlights email
  The best of the current issue – delivered straight to your inbox, every Thursday

  Sign up
  Michael Bywater, once identified as a young fogey, is a certified pilot and harpsichordist.

  Subscribe to The Spectator today for a quality of argument not found in any other publication. Get more Spectator for less – just £12 for 12 issues.
  SEE ALSO
  archaeologyastrolabeBook review - ancient historycomputerGalenMediterranean findPtolemyteaching mechanism
  WHAT TO READ NEXT

  Latrines dating from the second century at Ostia Antica, outside Rome
  How the Romans went about their business
  Peter Stothard
  The dreadful prospect of taking up agriculture in old age
  Ancients on oldies: tips on ageing from the Romans are all Greek to Richard Ingrams
  Richard Ingrams
  Palmyra was one of the ancient world’s great entrepots, trading in myrrh, incense, ivory, pearls and silk
  The lovely ruins of Palmyra were destroyed out of spite
  Jonathan Mirsky

  She-devils on horseback: in search of the fabled Amazons
  David Butterfield

  Management consultancy! Sculpture park! Sports stadium! The many faces of the Delphic Oracle
  Sam Leith

  Colm Tóibín makes the most pitiless Greek myths seem poignant
  Suzi Feay

  Sponsored stories
  Why the Internet is Going Crazy Over This Mattress
  Why the Internet is Going Crazy Over This Mattress
  (Casper)
  The New Health Supplement Your Doctor Is Taking
  The New Health Supplement Your Doctor Is Taking
  (Observer)
  Congress Is Finally Helping Out American Homeowners. Apply and Receive $4,264 Just For Owning Your Home.
  Congress Is Finally Helping Out American Homeowners. Apply and Receive $4,264 Just For Owning Your Home.
  (The Better Finance)
  Recommended by

  AdTech Ad
  BOOKS PODCAST

  Books Podcast: Harry Potter’s 20th anniversary
  Sam Leith

  Books Podcast: Is monogamy dead?
  Sam Leith

  Books Podcast: Summer reads
  Sam Leith

  Books Podcast: Naomi Klein
  Sam Leith

  Books Podcast: The wisdom of the zombie apocalypse
  Sam Leith

  Books Podcast: Jonathan Meades
  Sam Leith
  AdTech Ad
  CULTURE HOUSE DAILY

  Nick Hilton
  Game of Thrones has its first winner: Bronn
  7 August 2017 17:39

  Lucy Vickery
  Spectator competition winners: Ode on a potato peeler
  5 August 2017 9:45
  Lucy Vickery
  Sam Leith
  Books Podcast: Harry Potter’s 20th anniversary
  3 August 2017 16:29
  Sam Leith
  Nick Hilton
  Game of Thrones? More like a game of Risk
  31 July 2017 17:19

  Lucy Vickery
  Spectator competition winners: starting over with Hemingway, Joyce, Hardy – and Dan Brown
  30 July 2017 9:45
  Lucy Vickery
  Sam Leith
  Books Podcast: Is monogamy dead?
  27 July 2017 16:35
  Sam Leith
  AdTech Ad
  EDITOR’S CHOICE

  Why I avoid Edinburgh Festival

  The Shard: a vast, unnecessary financial speculation

  Full of visual delights: NPG's The Encounter reviewed

  Whatever became of the summer of love?

  AdTech Ad

  The Spectator

  ABOUT
  Contact Us
  FAQs
  Privacy Policy
  Terms and Conditions
  Jobs and Vacancies
  MORE FROM THE SPECTATOR
  The Spectator Australia
  Apollo Magazine
  The Spectator Shop
  ADVERTISING
  Classifieds
  SUBSCRIBE
  Club
  Email Newsletters
  The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP
  Site designed and built by interconnect/it
  ×

  HAVE BETTER ARGUMENTS
  You only have 2 free articles left this month
  Subscribe now from £1 for unlimited access online and in print
  VIEW SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS
  Already a subscriber? Log in here

• Wall Street Journal
  https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-ancient-greek-computer-1486150306
  Word count: 1174

  DOW JONES, A NEWS CORP COMPANY
  DJIA▼22032.95 -0.24% Nasdaq▼6352.60 -0.28% U.S. 10 Yr▲8/32 Yield2.236% Crude Oil▲49.33 0.33% Euro▼1.1741 -0.09%
  Subscribe NowSign In

  The Wall Street Journal
  Home
  World
  U.S.
  Politics
  Economy
  Business
  Tech
  Markets
  Opinion
  Arts
  Life
  Real Estate
  The Race Across the Water
  BOOKSHELF
  The Race Across the Water
  Life Among India’s Lowly
  BOOKSHELF
  Life Among India’s Lowly
  Newton the Faithful
  Newton the Faithful
  The House That Jack Built
  The House That Jack Built
  Lincoln’s Enforcer
  Lincoln’s Enforcer
  Glen Campbell (1936-2017): Farewell to the Rhinestone Cowboy
  Glen Campbell (1936-2017): Farewell to the Rhinestone Cowboy
  Undiscovered Acts Show That Pop and Rock Talent Runs Deep
  Undiscovered Acts Show That Pop and Rock Talent Runs Deep
  ‘Ragtime’ Review: Music to Rile the Troubled Pol
  ‘Ragtime’ Review: Music to Rile the Troubled Pol
  Dancing in the Public Square
  Dancing in the Public Square
  What Makes an Actor Look Like a Bad Guy?
  What Makes an Actor Look Like a Bad Guy?
  Yo-Yo Ma’s Plea to Rescue a Symphony Barge
  Yo-Yo Ma’s Plea to Rescue a Symphony Barge
  Comedian’s Martha Stewart Musical Looks at Perfectionism in a Rachael Ray World
  Comedian’s Martha Stewart Musical Looks at Perfectionism ...
  The Men Who Trade ISIS Loot
  The Men Who Trade ISIS Loot
  A British Collector Puts the Art in Department Store
  A British Collector Puts the Art in Department Store
  Austen, Anonymous Writers and History
  Austen, Anonymous Writers and History
  The Least Dangerous Branch
  BOOKSHELF
  The Least Dangerous Branch
  The Race Across the Water
  BOOKSHELF
  The Race Across the Water
  Life Among India’s Lowly
  BOOKSHELF
  Life Among India’s Lowly
  Newton the Faithful
  Newton the Faithful
  The House That Jack Built
  The House That Jack Built
  Lincoln’s Enforcer
  Lincoln’s Enforcer
  Glen Campbell (1936-2017): Farewell to the Rhinestone Cowboy
  Glen Campbell (1936-2017): Farewell to the Rhinestone Cowboy
  Undiscovered Acts Show That Pop and Rock Talent Runs Deep
  Undiscovered Acts Show That Pop and Rock Talent Runs Deep
  ‘Ragtime’ Review: Music to Rile the Troubled Pol
  ‘Ragtime’ Review: Music to Rile the Troubled Pol
  Dancing in the Public Square
  Dancing in the Public Square
  What Makes an Actor Look Like a Bad Guy?
  What Makes an Actor Look Like a Bad Guy?
  PreviousNext

  Link copied…
  ARTS BOOKS BOOKSHELF
  An Ancient Greek Computer
  The Antikythera Mechanism kept a calendar, tracked the motions of heavenly bodies and even predicted eclipses. John J. Miller reviews “A Portable Cosmos” by Alexander Jones.
  By John J. Miller
  Updated Feb. 3, 2017 3:48 p.m. ET
  Near an island about halfway between the Peloponnese and Crete, two boats of Greek divers sought shelter from a storm. The year was 1900, and the men were either on their way to the sponge banks near Libya or heading home from them. One diver took a plunge, hoping to add to his harvest. He came up with a bronze arm. In the depths below, he had located a 2,000-year-old shipwreck—and the biggest hoard of ancient Greek sculptures ever found.

  A rescue operation eventually hauled up a treasure trove. The most noteworthy items,...

  TO READ THE FULL STORY
  SUBSCRIBE
  SIGN IN

  What to Read Next...

  POLITICS AND POLICY
  North Korea Threat Comes After Trump Vows ‘Fire and Fury’

  FILM REVIEW
  ‘Wind River’ Review: Grief on the Reservation

  NEW YORK
  New York Police to Expand ShotSpotter Technology

  PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY: GEOFFREY FOWLER
  Want to Get Tech Savvy? Don’t Ask Your Children

  POLITICS AND POLICY
  FBI Raided Home of Paul Manafort in Russia Probe

  Independent of The Wall Street Journal newsroom
  MARKETS
  Why a 1929-style crash isn’t “unimaginable” (it has nothing to do with North Korea)

  Independent of The Wall Street Journal newsroom
  Jeff Bezos Drops $12.9 Million on Neighbor’s House in Beverly Hills

  Recommended Videos
  https://m.wsj.net/video/20170809/080917kondo2/080917kondo2_115x65.jpg
  Marie Kondo vs. Four Sentimental Parents
  https://m.wsj.net/video/20170807/080717seib/080717seib_115x65.jpg
  Will Latest Round of North Korea Sanctions Work?
  https://m.wsj.net/video/20170522/051817amznbanana/051817amznbanana_115x65.jpg
  Amazon Offers Up Free Bananas at Community Stands
  https://m.wsj.net/video/20170807/080317nextweb/080317nextweb_115x65.jpg
  The Internet's Next Big User Group
  https://m.wsj.net/video/20170808/080817seibv3/080817seibv3_115x65.jpg
  Is North Korea Close to Being a Nuclear Weapons State?
  Most Popular Articles
  North Korea Threat Comes After Trump Vows ‘Fire and Fury’
  North Korea Threat Comes After Trump Vows ‘Fire and Fury’
  The Man Who Wrote Those Password Rules Has a New Tip: N3v$r M1^d!
  The Man Who Wrote Those Password Rules Has a New Tip: N3v$r M1^d!
  North Korean Attack on Guam Would Be an Attack on America, Says Island’s Governor
  North Korean Attack on Guam Would Be an Attack on America, Says Island’s Governor
  McMaster and the Commander
  Opinion: McMaster and the Commander
  Apple’s Expensive Game of Catch-Up
  Apple’s Expensive Game of Catch-Up
  Wall Street Journal
  U.S. Edition
  Subscribe Sign In
  TOP«
  WSJ Membership

  WSJ+ Membership Benefits
  Digital Subscription
  Print Subscription
  Print and Digital Subscription
  Why Subscribe?
  Download WSJ Apps for iOS and Android
  Corporate Subscriptions
  Professor Journal
  Student Journal
  Customer Service

  Customer Center
  Contact Us
  Live Help
  Redesign Guided Tour
  Notice to Subscribers
  Tools & Features

  Emails & Alerts
  Guides
  My News
  RSS Feeds
  Video Center
  Watchlist
  Podcasts
  Ads

  Advertise
  Advertise Locally
  Commercial Real Estate Ads
  Place a Classified Ad
  Sell Your Business
  Sell Your Home
  Recruitment & Career Ads
  More

  Content Partnerships
  Corrections
  Jobs at WSJ
  News Archive
  Register for Free
  Reprints
  Facebook
  Twitter
  Google+
  YouTube
  Podcasts
  Snapchat
  GooglePlay
  AppStore
  Windows10
  Dow Jones Products Barron's BigCharts DJX Dow Jones Newswires Factiva Financial News Mansion Global MarketWatch Private Markets realtor.com Risk & Compliance WSJ Conference WSJ Pro Central Banking WSJ Video WSJ Wine
  Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Copyright Policy Data Policy Subscriber Agreement & Terms of Use Your Ad Choices
  Copyright ©2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

• Nature
  http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v542/n7639/full/542029a.html
  Word count: 883

  QUOTED: "a nimble, comprehensive survey of a wondrous machine."

  Jump to main content
  Jump to navigation
  We use cookies to improve your experience with our site. Accept and close | More info.

  nature.com homepagePublications A-Z index Browse by subject CartLoginRegister

  Nature
  International weekly journal of scienceGo
  Advanced search
  HomeNews & CommentResearchCareers & JobsCurrent IssueArchiveAudio & VideoFor Authors
  Archive
  Volume 542
  Issue 7639
  Books and Arts
  Article
  NATURE | BOOKS AND ARTS
  Print
  Share/bookmark
  Books in brief

  Barbara Kiser
  Nature 542, 29 (02 February 2017) doi:10.1038/542029a
  Published online 01 February 2017
  Article tools
  PDF
  Citation
  Rights & permissions
  Article metrics
  Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week's best science picks.

  A Portable Cosmos
  Alexander Jones Oxford University Press (2017)
  ISBN: 9780199739349
  Buy this book: US UK Japan

  It was once a conundrum in corroded bronze. Now, the Antikythera mechanism has emerged a complex teaching tool for parsing astronomical phenomena. In this scholarly treatise, science historian Alexander Jones argues that its parts plausibly extend functions of known inventions. Touring decades of study using ever more sophisticated imaging technologies (see T. Freeth et al. Nature 444, 587–591; 2006), he pieces together its structure and scientific and cultural context. A nimble, comprehensive survey of a wondrous machine that “brought the stars down to the Greco-Roman world”.

  Age of Anger: A History of the Present
  Pankaj Mishra Allen Lane (2017)
  ISBN: 9780374274788
  Buy this book: US UK Japan

  In an era shaping up to be one of the most politically tumultuous in memory, political thinker Pankaj Mishra traces the roots of the crisis to patterns of cognitive behaviour born with the Enlightenment. “Ressentiment” looms large: an existential envy arising where high-flown theories of freedom, equality and rationality mask grim realities, from racism to socio-economic inequity stoked by neoliberal economics. What is urgently needed, Mishra argues, are grounded governance and public policies that embrace cooperation, reciprocity and a nuanced understanding of human psychology.

  Homo Sovieticus: Brain Waves, Mind Control, and Telepathic Destiny
  Wladimir Velminski (translated by Erik Butler) MIT Press (2017)
  ISBN: 9780262035699
  Buy this book: US UK Japan

  This slim treatise by media scholar Wladimir Velminski wafts us to the wilder shores of Soviet experimentation: cybernetics and telepathy research aimed at controlling society by 'implanting' thoughts. The pseudoscience is extreme, not least in the work of electrical engineer Bernard Kazhinsky, who posited that humans are radio stations, and thoughts electromagnetic waves. Perhaps oddest were the 1989 mass-hypnosis sessions on Moscow television, in which clinical psychotherapist Anatoly Mikhailovich Kashpirovsky attempted to shape public response to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

  Can't Just Stop: An Investigation of Compulsions
  Sharon Begley Simon & Schuster (2017)
  ISBN: 9781476725826
  Buy this book: US UK Japan

  We live in an era of “dreads both existential and trivial, societal and personal”, notes science writer Sharon Begley — anxieties that drive compulsive behaviours affecting millions. In this accessible treatment, Begley distinguishes between compulsion (hinging on the avoidance of negative consequences) and addiction (characterized by a hedonic hit, tolerance and withdrawal). In her explication of conditions from hoarding to trichotillomania (hair-pulling), she interweaves compelling historical case studies with the long march of medical and neuroscientific understanding.

  Fragile Lives
  Stephen Westaby HarperCollins (2017)
  ISBN: 9780465094837
  Buy this book: US UK Japan

  Cardiac surgeon Stephen Westaby's memoir is a window on the gore-spattered drama of the surgical theatre and the lives of people driven to the operating table by heart disease, medical anomalies or devastating accidents. As the narrative ricochets from diagnosis to the visceral details of surgery and aftercare, we meet a handful of patients — including Peter Houghton, who survived for 7.5 years with a Jarvik 2000 artificial heart. As for Westaby, he has finally hung up the rib retractors and moved on to stem-cell research.

  Author information
  Affiliations
  Barbara Kiser is Nature's books and arts editor.
  Additional data

  Editors' pick

  Editors' pick image
  Image credit: Maximilien Brice/CERN
  The race to reveal antimatter’s secrets
  Science jobs
  NatureJobs.com
  Multiple Postdoctoral Fellowships in Cardiac Signal Processing and Instrumentation : Boston, MA, United States
  Massachusetts General Hospital
  Associate Editor / Senior Editor roles, Nature Research - Talent Pool 2017
  Springer Nature
  Editorial Assistants, Nature Research - Talent Pool 2017
  Springer Nature
  Post a jobMore science jobs
  Science events
  Most read
  Correction of a pathogenic gene mutation in human embryos
  Nature 02 August 2017
  Lab etiquette: The perils of pet peeves
  Nature 26 July 2017
  Hypothalamic stem cells control ageing speed partly through exosomal miRNAs
  Nature 26 July 2017

  NatureISSN: 0028-0836EISSN: 1476-4687
  About us
  Contact us
  Accessibility statement
  Help
  Privacy policy
  Use of cookies
  Legal notice
  Terms
  Naturejobs
  Nature Asia
  Nature Education
  RSS web feeds
  About Nature
  Contact Nature
  About the Editors
  Nature awards
  Search:go
  Springer Nature
  © 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.
  partner of AGORA, HINARI, OARE, INASP, ORCID, CrossRef, COUNTER and COPE

• The Epoch Times
  http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/2194882-time-to-contemplate-time-among-the-ancients/
  Word count: 1712

  SECTIONS OUR BRANDS SUBSCRIBE EPOCH TIMES ON TWITTEREPOCH TIMES ON FACEBOOK

  archaeology, Fine Arts, NYC City Life, World Culture Time to Contemplate Time Among the Ancients Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity exhibition at NYU's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World By Milene Fernandez, Epoch Times | December 7, 2016 AT 3:13 PM Last Updated: December 11, 2016 7:19 pm
  Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity exhibit at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), an affiliate of New York University, in the Upper East Side, New York, on view until April 23, 2017. (Andrea Brizzi)
  Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity exhibit at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), an affiliate of New York University, in the Upper East Side, New York, on view until April 23, 2017. (Andrea Brizzi)

  NEW YORK—Our most memorable experiences, the most blissful to the most tragic, seem to exist outside of time. “Time stood still,” we may say, recalling those moments. We may wonder, like astrophysicists from today back to the days of Aristotle 2,300 years ago, whether time exists at all. And if it does exist, how should we conceptualize it, or measure its passage? Today, we divide days into 24 hours, each of equal length. That was not always the case.

  An exhibit of about 100 timeless objects, Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW, a New York University affiliate), gives us an opportunity to contemplate our understanding of time by comparing it to that of the founders of Western civilization. It continues until April 23, 2017.

  roman-mosaic-depicting-the-seven-sages-platos-academy
  Roman mosaic depicting the seven sages (“Plato’s Academy”), first century B.C. to first century A.D., Villa of Titus Siminius Stephanus, Pompeii. Stone, 34 inches high by 33 inches wide. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. (Guido Petruccioli/Institute for the Study of the Ancient World)
  Today, time is measured by an atomic clock with an accuracy of a few billionths of a second, pulsing out to the world via the internet and GPS. If we did not have a watch, a clock, or any of our electronic devices with us, would we be able to tell if we were running late for an appointment?

  If we were accustomed to discerning the time of day based on the length of our shadow, perhaps we would be on time—give or take 15 minutes. Yet a 15-minute delay is probably tolerated less today than it was 2,000 years ago, when it was possibly a moot issue, or at least perceived differently.

  The ancient time-telling devices, such as sundials, water clocks, calendars, and surveying instruments, shown in the exhibit are fascinating because they give clues to a way of life in which the natural, spiritual, and personal worlds seemed to be seamlessly integrated.

  statuette-of-atlas-bearing-ornamental-spherical-sundial
  Statuette of Atlas bearing ornamental spherical sundial, possibly second century A.D., Tor Paterno, near Ostia. Marble, 20 inches high. Sir John Soane’s Museum, London. (Sir John Soane’s Museum, London)
  In Greco-Roman antiquity, sundials were everywhere. They could trace the sun’s daily course from rising to setting. Although they were not accurate enough to show quarter hours, they were accurate enough at the time, explains Alexander Jones, curator and interim director of ISAW, in the exhibition catalog.

  As the ancients depended on sunlight and spent most of their time outdoors, the sun dictated the rhythm of their days. “The Greeks and Romans counted twelve hours from sunrise to sunset and twelve from sunset to sunrise. This meant that, except on the equinoxes, daytime hours were a different length from nighttime hours, and daytime hours were longer in the summer and shorter in the winter,” Jones explained.

  portable-universal-sundial
  Portable universal sundial, first to fourth century A.D., possibly near Bratislava. Bronze, 2 and 1/2 inches high and wide by 1 inch deep. Museum of the History of Science, Oxford. (Museum of the History of Science, Oxford)
  The exhibit features over a dozen sundials. A typical Greek design consisted of a concave spherical surface sculpted in a block of stone, with the tip of a shadow-casting metal rod located at the sphere’s center. The surface acted as an inverted but otherwise exact copy of the celestial sphere, on which the shadow point marked the sun’s current location. In the exhibit, some sundials are accompanied by iPads showing time-lapse animations of how they indicated the sun’s passage.

  Other objects in the exhibit, including pocket-sized sundials, calendars, jewelry, coins, mosaics, and elaborate instruments, highlight the divine forces the ancients believed governed their lives.

  Marble calendars with peg holes, like parapegmata, list the days in the solar year. Moving a peg from one hole to the next would indicate the current date and the appearance of constellations, solstices, and equinoxes, as well as auspicious days. Other, more complete calendars indicated astrology signs that we are still familiar with today.

  Whether time exists or not and in however many dimensions—however you may want to think of it—we still need time to live, to eat, to sleep, to work, to love. Everyone has perceived time differently, and at different times, throughout the ages. Today, it seems to be running faster than ever before. Let’s remind ourselves of the ancient expression: “Carpe diem,” seize the day!

  The Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity exhibition will continue at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World through April 23, 2017. It is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 p.m. to 6 p.m., with a late closing at 8 p.m. on Fridays. A free guided tour is offered each Friday starting at 6 p.m.

  Horizontal sundial with Greek inscriptions, before 79 CE, Pompeii. Marble, H. 21 inches by W. 13 and 1/2 inches by D. 1 inch. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. (Guido Petruccioli/Institute for the Study of the Ancient World)
  Horizontal sundial with Greek inscriptions, before A.D. 79, Pompeii. Marble, 21 inches by 13 and 1/2 inches by 1 inch. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. (Guido Petruccioli/Institute for the Study of the Ancient World)
  Exhibition Lectures
  Jan. 26, 2017: Geographical Portable Sundials: Reliable Instruments or Roman Fashion Statements? by Richard Talbert, University of North Carolina

  Feb. 27, 2017: Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Astrology by Stephan Heilen, University of Osnabrück

  April 6, 2017: A Portable Cosmos: The Antikythera Mechanism by Alexander Jones, ISAW

  All at 6 p.m. in the ISAW Lecture Hall.

  Autel des douze dieux dit "autel de Gabies" Paris, musÈe du Louvre
  Altar with zodiac frieze and heads of the 12 gods, circa 117–138 CE, Gabii, Latium. Marble, 33 inches in diameter by 10 inches deep. Musée du Louvre, Paris. (RMN-Grand Palais /Hervé Lewandowski/Art Resource, NY)

  More in archaeology

  Cosmic particles reveal hidden rooms in the Great Pyramid of GizaTwo Egyptian Tourist Police Officers guard the area of the Great Pyramids Chephren and Mycerinus seen on the background in Giza, Cairo, Egypt. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images)
  Ancient Egpytian Ruler May Be World’s Oldest Known ‘Giant,’ Study SuggestsSarcophagus are pictured in the Statuary room of the Egyptian Museum in Turin on November 7, 2013. (GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP/Getty Images)
  13,000-Year-Old Teeth Reveal Dental Fillings Were Torture Back Then (Video)If you think going to the dentist is painful now, imagine what it'd have been like 13,000 years ago. (AOL Screenshot)
  Researchers Find 400,000-Year-Old Human Cranium in Portugal (Video)An international team of researchers made a record-breaking discovery. While digging in Portugal, they found a 400,000-year-old human cranium. (AOL Screenshot)
  Editor’s Picks
  Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors Inc., talks about the Model X car at the company's headquarters, in Fremont, CA., in this file photo. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File) Hitching a Ride on the Electric Vehicle Revolution
  People walk by Ralph Lauren's Fifth Avenue Polo store in New York City on April 4, 2017. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Luxury Fashion Industry Scrambling to Adjust to Millennial World
  Workers continue the decontamination and reconstruction process at the Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s embattled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan on Feb. 25, 2016. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images) Fukushima Nuclear Waste Could Be Dumped in Pacific Ocean

  Receive Our Epoch 10 Newsletter
  Important stories from around the world,
  in your inbox daily.

  Latest in Science
  Two Egyptian Tourist Police Officers guard the area of the Great Pyramids Chephren and Mycerinus seen on the background in Giza, Cairo, Egypt. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images)
  archaeology
  Cosmic particles reveal hidden rooms in the Great Pyramid of Giza
  Sarcophagus are pictured in the Statuary room of the Egyptian Museum in Turin on November 7, 2013. (GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP/Getty Images)
  archaeology
  Ancient Egpytian Ruler May Be World’s Oldest Known ‘Giant,’ Study Suggests
  A ship sails in the Mediterranean Sea as lightning strikes, seen from the settlement of Mikhmoret, Israel, on Nov. 24, 2014. (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images)
  Environment
  Rising Temperature and Acidity Threatens Mediterranean Sea Life
  A grizzly bear and her cub are seen near Trout Creek at the Yellowstone national park, July 1964. (Bryan Harry/Yellowstone National Park).
  Environment
  Yellowstone Grizzlies to Lose Federal Protection
  Honeybees are seen at the J & P Apiary and Gentzel's Bees, Honey and Pollination Company on May 19, 2015 in Homestead, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
  Environment
  Refugee Bees Rescued and Given Help by United Nations Program
  (video Screenshot)
  Space
  NASA Launches Rocket Loaded With 667 Pounds of Student Experiments
  (Jenny Huang/Wikimedia
  Science News
  These 6 Videos of Bobbit Worms Will Surely Give You Anxiety
  Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska. (Copyright© 2016 USPS)
  Environment
  Bolivians collect pieces of melting glacier for posterity
  View the Crested Pool hot spring in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, on May 14, 2016. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)
  Environment
  464 Earthquakes Hit Yellowstone Supervolcano in One Week

  SUBSCRIBE ADVERTISE ABOUT US CONTACT US PRINT EDITIONS RSS FEEDS TERMS OF SERVICE PRIVACY POLICY COPYRIGHT POLICY
  COPYRIGHT © 2000-2017

• Smithsonian Magazine
  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/early-tech-adopters-ancient-rome-had-portable-sundials-180962225/
  Word count: 2443

  Accessibility Navigation

  Primary Navigation Content
  SEARCH
  SUBSCRIBE RENEW GIVE A GIFT

  SEARCH
  SMARTNEWS HISTORY SCIENCE INNOVATION ARTS & CULTURE TRAVEL AT THE SMITHSONIAN PHOTOS VIDEOS & PODCASTS GAMES SUBSCRIBE SHOP
  Smithsonian SUBSCRIBE SMARTNEWS HISTORY SCIENCE INNOVATION ARTS & CULTURE TRAVEL AT THE SMITHSONIAN SHOP
  THE INNOVATIVE SPIRIT EDUCATION ENERGY HEALTH & MEDICINE TECHNOLOGY VIDEO NEWSLETTER

  Early Tech Adopters in Ancient Rome Had Portable Sundials
  A little gadget could make you look smart, rich, and tech-savvy—all without necessarily fulfilling its real function

  image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/y0ouotp6fN4RsPQ28dE3okCYNK0=/800x600/filters:no_upscale()/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/65/16/6516be76-e641-402a-afd9-f924cf7e9a29/mos-sundial.jpg

  MoS-sundial.jpg
  The back of an ancient sundial reveals a cheat sheet of locations and latitude coordinates. (© Science Museum / Science & Society Picture Library)
  By Meghan Bartels
  SMITHSONIAN.COM
  FEBRUARY 20, 2017
  2.5K2916272.9K
  It’s the four or fifth century and you’re a wealthy, cosmopolitan Roman sightseeing across the empire, or perhaps an armchair traveler entertaining other well-educated friends for dinner. What could you pull out to impress your companions? One good option would be a geographical portable sundial, the closest Romans got to an iPhone.

  These sundials were designed to tell time on the go—but it turns out they really excelled at being a snazzy gadget. Many were made of shiny bronze, they sat comfortably in a hand, and it took real technical knowledge to use them properly. There are about a dozen examples known today, each with a cheat sheet of coordinates for using the device in specific places.

  It’s a powerful tool more than a millennium before GPS, atomic clocks, or even a practical way to determine longitude. “If the sun is shining, you are carrying with you one portable gadget or instrument that is your own, a very personal thing, and you can supposedly rely on it to tell you what the time is,” says Richard Talbert, a historian at the University of North Carolina who has written a new book about the devices, called Roman Portable Sundials.

  image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/j9N_TXZtwEnMERUb3mvgAZd4-Sw=/fit-in/300x0/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/embedly/embedly_image_e9d78508f52f1b9fb3a00ab1827211b5c9be9e51.jpg

  Preview thumbnail for video 'Roman Portable Sundials: The Empire in your Hand
  Roman Portable Sundials: The Empire in your Hand
  BUY
  Ancient Romans didn’t measure time in our 60-minute hours; instead, they divided daylight and darkness into 12 increments each, a system they adopted from the Egyptians. In Rome, that meant an hour was about 45 minutes in winter and 75 in summer. Hours would have governed meetings, courts and dinners, but not in the carefully structured way so many of us experience today.

  “They don’t make appointments and get impatient when you’re 15 minutes late,” says Alexander Jones, curator of an exhibition called “Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity” at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in New York that explores the ancient relationship with time. Most sundials weren’t detailed beyond hours anyway, notes Denis Savoie, an astronomer who specializes in sundials.

  image: https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/81/ff/81ff2d81-aa84-43af-b49b-26c8e68f7bea/oxford-sundial.jpg

  Oxford-sundial.jpg
  The working side of an adjustable sundial, with two nested disks and a pointer to measure the time. (Vertical Disc Dial © Museum of the History of Science, University of Oxford)
  But time was key to the Romans’ obsession with astrology, which made certain days or hours promising or foreboding for certain activities. Hundreds of funerary inscriptions marked the deceased’s time of or age at death to the hour. Time mattered, even if it wasn’t for trains or timesheets.

  That helps explain the popularity of sundials—more than 500 have been discovered, 36 in Pompeii alone, Talbert says. Most of these were stone and installed where they were meant to be used, since sundials need to be calibrated by latitude.

  Portable, pocketwatch-like models offered more freedom, allowing owners to travel and still have some semblance of the time, but came with more constraints—and not just the price tag. They worked in half-day increments, so you had to know if the sun was rising or setting, which could be difficult to determine around midday. They were inscribed with latitudes for popular destinations and exotic locales, but there was no guarantee the list actually matched contemporary measurements. (On the other hand, you could manually set the dial to whatever latitude you chose.) They became less accurate in summer and winter and when carried farther north. And of course you had to know how to use the fiddly adjustable bits. “That's a lot of ifs in the real world,” Jones says. One perk: they didn’t require knowing which direction was north.

  image: https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/1d/48/1d4860d1-d6eb-4d91-a6d0-fc9e7067c9bc/sep14_web_cover-246.png

  Smithsonian magazine cover
  Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $12
  Get more stories like this

  SUBSCRIBE
  There were multiple models. In one type, the user turned a smaller disk within a larger disk to account for the latitude, turned a pointer on the smaller disk to account for the month, then dangled the device facing the sun to cast a shadow across hour markers on the pointer. For another design of three nested rings, the user tilted the innermost horizontal ring based on latitude, then spun the assembly so a beam of sunlight could pass through a pinhole to reach hour markers. (This model was also collapsible for additional portability.) Four examples are on display in the “Time and Cosmos” exhibition through April 23.

  image: https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/9e/11/9e1125da-38de-4e13-8b50-01d514de671d/philippi-sundial.jpg

  Philippi-sundial.jpg
  An ancient sundial that could be adjusted based on where it was being used. (© Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports—Archaeological Receipts Fund. Courtesy of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Kavala-Thasos / Orestis Kourakis, photographer)
  The adjustable sundials are complicated objects to study because many are archaeological orphans, found randomly or rediscovered in storage. They are universally hard to date—they use centuries of mathematical and astronomical work, but cannot be carbon-dated or dated based on objects found near them. They must be younger than the concise method of writing latitude used in the location keys, which was developed during the second century. About half the lists include Constantinople, so these must have been inscribed after 330.

  For Talbert, these latitude listings are the most intriguing parts of the devices. They clearly signal the freedom offered by Roman peace and infrastructure. The lack of a fixed set of places or listing order is also a reminder that Romans didn’t grow up with schoolroom maps and satellite images to build a picture of the world around them.

  But for owners of these devices, they at least knew that if they made it as far as Ethiopia, Spain or Palestine, they would know what time it was—or close enough, at least. “You can show people, ‘Oh look, I’ve got this clock, it even works in Britain,’” Jones says. “They’re the way that people could carry time around with them, so to speak.”

  Whether you prefer an heirloom luxury watch that doesn’t miss a beat or the flaws of Google Glass, the sentiment is still the same. “Just like today, people get a taste for this kind of thing and they want to have their own and they want to have it just as they like it,” Talbert says. “It’s very human really.”

  Like this article? SIGN UP for our newsletter
  TAGSAncient Rome European History Gadgets
  2.5K2916272.9K
  Around The WebSponsored By ZergNet
  image: http://img1.zergnet.com/1822828_300.jpg

  Things People Believed 50 Years Ago That Were Completely Wrong
  image: http://img1.zergnet.com/1606672_300.jpg

  The Hidden Meanings Behind 14 Famous Logos
  image: http://img2.zergnet.com/1474829_300.jpg

  Mannequin Head In A Museum Turns Out To Be Real
  image: http://img1.zergnet.com/1946008_300.jpg

  Nintendo Releasing Limited Edition Metroid 3DS XL
  image: http://img2.zergnet.com/1814377_300.jpg

  Titanic Artifacts Reveal Gruesome Discovery
  image: http://img2.zergnet.com/1901873_300.jpg

  Scientists Find Possible Clue to 'Ghost Species' of Humans
  image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/W3bm9qZXiADG9dYrBNjpJ7f8Cv8=/220x130/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/63/84/63849806-ac6e-4fe6-a1a6-bfcbc6e4b37b/goji-powered-oven-utilizes-rf-solid-state-cooking-technology.jpg

  PREVIOUS ARTICLE
  This Oven Could Change How We Cook
  image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/WM5gHOhIcij0KJVbo09XuGsZJZY=/220x130/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/32/82/32823446-1c6d-40e4-82f4-9643ce61cdbe/cottonwood.jpg

  NEXT ARTICLE
  Are Artificial Trees the Future of Renewable Energy?
  We Recommend

  Ask Smithsonian: How Long Can a Person Hold Their Breath?
  Gasp! The answer will amaze you.

  Ask Smithsonian: How Long Can a Person Hold Their Breath? (1:32)
  Gasp! The answer will amaze you.
  image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/mUMz4vDKxLo5M84J8UdTYItxCF0=/580x340/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/video/preview_image_oQ0rIFP0_67527b81353f01b7b8ed9a0bebe20d78.jpeg

  Preview thumbnail for video'Unlocking the Spear of Destiny's True Power
  Unlocking the Spear of Destiny's True Power (3:56)
  image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/Bz-sG9US2DhIjniOKBj1g_0IWYs=/580x340/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/video/preview_image_ZZmxIlm6_8ebaf04193662036e551f73aedea5ecb.jpeg

  Preview thumbnail for video'Ask Smithsonian: Why Do We Kiss?
  Ask Smithsonian: Why Do We Kiss? (1:11)
  image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/_YtY_zb0QxNT206ihH0PCG1Ea84=/580x340/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/video/preview_image_anjUO2pC_16f0552aa75120ac99e3b35deae21db3.jpeg

  Preview thumbnail for video'Ask Smithsonian: Why Don’t People Smile in Old Photographs?
  Ask Smithsonian: Why Don’t People Smile in Old Photographs? (1:12)
  image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/J_IEES0z2JmmryQZ6Yqeyedv-WM=/580x340/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/video/preview_image_beda7DR0_697d844583a100fc2b63d71e72baae9e.jpeg

  Preview thumbnail for video'Timelapse Footage of a Giant Caterpillar Weaving Its Cocoon
  Timelapse Footage of a Giant Caterpillar Weaving Its Cocoon (2:34)
  COMMENT ON THIS STORY

  PHOTO OF THE DAY

  image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/9OATRUGwzvH30KQrpHydXBczu0s=/800x600/filters:no_upscale()/https://contest-public-media.smithsonianmag.com/f3951bee-84bb-45d7-88a4-82b45b9dbb6d.jpg

  GAJAN is a HINDU ritual of Eastern India. This is very famous mostly in State of West Bengal. Making up like HINDU GOD & GODDESS is one of major activities.Two little kids are being painted like Hindu GOD & GODDESS (Krishna & Radha) during the ceremony.
  Making of a God
  PHOTO OF THE DAY»
  MOST POPULAR

  Did Scientists Just Unveil the Biggest Dinosaur of All Time?
  How One Man Accidentally Killed the Oldest Tree Ever
  Send a Birthday Message to Voyager 1, Humanity's Most Distant Traveler
  This Obscure Fishing Book is One of the Most Reprinted English Books Ever
  Camel Spiders Are Fast, Furious and Horrifically Fascinating
  How Journalists Covered the Rise of Mussolini and Hitler
  Beautiful Photos from America’s Six Least-Visited National Parks
  Where to See Five of the Planet's Most Mysterious Geoglyphs
  Cavemen Used Some of the Same Words We Do
  Find Your 2,000-Year-Old Doppelgänger
  Where to Hunt for the World’s Smallest Monuments
  This 1814 Beer Flood Killed Eight People
  Hollywood Loved Sammy Davis Jr Until He Dated a White Movie Star
  Two Pierogi Festivals Face Off Over Trademark
  Newly Released Documents Reveal Churchill’s Efforts to Suppress Details of Nazi Plot
  image: http://public.media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/4b/b8/4bb865ac-38cb-4921-b95d-116cedd00b36/subscribe-circulation-promo-july15.png

  Circulation Subscribe
  image: http://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/4a/e5/4ae5eeb1-ae1c-4ce7-88dc-149b0005c6a7/brand_airfare-inclusive_rightrail-center.jpg

  “Smithsonian
  CURRENT ISSUE | JULY/AUGUST 2017
  image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/Ub1sW3Imq3PS-ZWe8alKhXayEzs=/fit-in/192x256/filters:no_upscale()/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/83/02/8302ae7f-0b45-4ec3-9c85-08049d67dc2d/julaug17_covermini.jpg

  July/August 2017 magazine cover
  Step Right Up! See the Reinvention of the Great American Circus!
  Will the Public Ever Get to See the "Dueling Dinosaurs"?
  Racing the Storm: The Story of the Mobile Bay Sailing Disaster
  View Table of Contents
  SUBSCRIBE
  Save 84% off the newsstand price!

  First NameLast Name
  Address 1
  Address 2
  CityStateAL Zip
  Enter your email address
  SUBSCRIBE or Give a Gift
  NEWSLETTERS
  Get the best of Smithsonian.com by email. Keep up-to-date on:

  History
  Science & Innovation
  Art
  Travel
  Special Offers
  SIGN-UP NOW

  Enter your email address
  SIGN UP
  SMARTNEWS HISTORY SCIENCE INNOVATION ARTS & CULTURE TRAVEL AT THE SMITHSONIAN PHOTOS VIDEOS & PODCASTS GAMES
  ABOUT CONTACT ADVERTISING SUSTAINABILITY SUBSCRIBE RSS MEMBER SERVICES TERMS OF USE PRIVACY POLICY AD CHOICES GEICO DISCOUNT
  image: https://static-media.smithsonianmag.com/img/smithsonian-institute-logo.png

  Smithsonian Institution
  image: https://static-media.smithsonianmag.com/img/airspace-logo-small.png

  Air & Space Magazine
  image: https://static-media.smithsonianmag.com/img/smithsonian-store-logo.png

  Smithsonian Store
  image: https://static-media.smithsonianmag.com/img/smithsonian-journeys-logo.png

  Smithsonian Journeys
  image: https://static-media.smithsonianmag.com/img/smithsonian-channel-logo.png

  Smithsonian Channel
  image: https://static-media.smithsonianmag.com/img/smithsonian-books-logo.png

  Smithsonian Books

  image: http://rp.gwallet.com/r1/cm/p50

  image: http://rp.gwallet.com/r1/cm/p46

  image: http://rp.gwallet.com/r1/cm/p16

  image: http://rp.gwallet.com/r1/cm/p61

  image: http://rp.gwallet.com/r1/cm/t0p23

  Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/early-tech-adopters-ancient-rome-had-portable-sundials-180962225/#VXhb0Gv32hJGZeB1.99
  Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
  Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

• HMAT
  http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0315086001923055/1-s2.0-S0315086001923055-main.pdf?_tid=3e9331c4-7d22-11e7-a651-00000aab0f01&acdnat=1502297350_9903f0ef33f4d064efa2daca386f3897
  Word count: 2527

  QUOTED: "Alexander Jones has identified about 200 astronomical and astrological texts ... and has taken on the great task of publishing these as completely as possible. The papyri are all fragmentary, some very small fragments, most containing little more than numbers, fragmentary columns of often fragmentary numbers, giving little more than dates and celestial longitudes, and often less than that."
  "To most scholars of classical antiquity, of ancient science, even mathematical science, to most papyrologists, these texts are entirely unintelligible, they mean nothing at all, which is why such texts were sent to Neugebauer, just as the astronomical cuneiform texts meant nothing at all to Assyriologists until the Jesuit Fathers Strassmaier, Epping, and Kugler deciphered their contents and discovered an entire lost world of ancient science. Jones has accomplished something similar in publishing the Oxyrhynchus astronomical papyri."
  "What Jones has done with this great mass of material is everywhere exemplary. The texts are edited according to standard papyrological conventions and translated clearly and accurately. That the texts are mathematical allows a great deal of secure reconstruction of fragmentary numbers and precise dating, something that should be the envy of papyrologists working on literary or commercial texts. It should be noted that the amount of computation Jones has done to date and restore these texts is simply staggering."

  HMAT 28 REVIEWS 129
  historiens des mathe ́matiques, mais e ́galement tous ceux qui s’inte ́ressent a` l’histoire de l’architecture ou du graphisme technique.
  doi:10.1006/hmat.2001.2304
  Astronomical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus. By Alexander Jones. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society 233, Philadelphia, 1999, 2 volumes (in 1): xiv + 368 + 471 pp., tables, figures, plates. $50.
  Reviewed by N. M. Swerdlow
  The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637
  . . . I withdrew and went to sleep, and I sent the one-eyed astrologer to call you and he said he could not find you. At lamp-lighting I returned and when I heard from Serenilla what you had done to her, I was upset that you behaved in a way unworthy of you. So receive her kindly up there before the festival. And I would have been there already had I not been dog-devoured (bitten) by a mad dog on the very day of the rising of the Dog Star, the 25th (of Epiphi) . . . . —P. Oxy. 4126.
  In the summer of 1988, O. Neugebauer received a photograph of a scrap of papyrus con- taining a column of fragmentary numbers. This was not unusual as he had been publishing Greek astronomical papyri for many years, and papyrologists often sent him anything with unidentifiable numbers on it. As was his custom when something entirely new turned up, he set aside what he was working on to analyze the numbers and see just what this might be, which he accomplished the very afternoon the photograph arrived. What he found was remarkable and turned out to be prophetic. Each of the 32 lines contained the excess of the length of the synodic month over 29 days in degrees of time (1 day=360◦), and was computed by exactly the method and with exactly the parameters of Column G, the excess as a function of lunar anomaly, of Babylonian System B lunar theory. It was known from Ptolemy that parameters of System B had been known since the time of Hipparchus, and Geminus gives the parameters of the function for daily lunar velocity (Column F∗), but this was the first evidence for the direct use of a Babylonian lunar function in Greek sources. Since the column by itself is useless, the papyrus must originally have contained additional columns, presumably for computing the dates of new or full moons, as in Babylonian lunar texts. And just as interesting, the papyrus appeared to date from the first century A.D. or later, at least a century after the latest original cuneiform source. Here indeed was important evidence for the actual practice of Greek astronomy, and that practice was Babylonian. How Neugebauer’s discovery was also prophetic becomes clear from the volume under review, the largest collection of astronomical and astrological papyri that has ever been published.
  The three most important sources of ancient astronomy are (1) original cuneiform tablets, in particular the computational texts published by Neugebauer in Astronomical Cuneiform Texts (1955) and the observations recorded in the “Astronomical Diaries” and other classes of texts published by A. Sachs and H. Hunger in Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia (1988–); (2) later manuscript copies of classical Greek treatises, above all those of Ptolemy, which have always been known and have been treated in the greatest
  130 REVIEWS HMAT 28
  detail in Neugebauer’s A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy (1975), which also considers Babylonian and Greek astronomy in general; and (3) papyri, most of them in Greek, some in demotic Egyptian. There has never been a comprehensive publication of astronomical papyri, although many have been published individually, most notably by Neugebauer, often with the collaboration of papyrologists. The single largest collection of astronomical papyri, however, those from Oxyrhynchus, has remained almost entirely unpublished. Oxyrhynchus was a Greco-Roman city in Egypt presently occupied by the village of El-Bahnasa on the Bahr Yusef, about 15 km west of the Nile and 160 km south of Cairo. Little of the ancient city remains, but between 1896 and 1907 Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt, from Queen’s College, Oxford, discovered in its rubbish mounds the largest number of papyri ever found at any one site, upwards of 50,000 pieces. The importance of these papyri in the recovery of ancient texts vastly exceeds that of the Qumran Scrolls, which, for obvious if regrettable reasons, have received vastly more public attention, and is exceeded only by the cuneiform tablets recovered at the largest sites in Mesopotamia. The publication of this enormous mass of material has been in progress for the better part of a century, but this is the first time that more than a very few of the astronomical and astrological texts have been published.
  Alexander Jones has identified about 200 astronomical and astrological texts (P. Oxy. 4133–4300a) and has taken on the great task of publishing these as completely as possible. The papyri are all fragmentary, some very small fragments, most containing little more than numbers, fragmentary columns of often fragmentary numbers, giving little more than dates and celestial longitudes, and often less than that. To most scholars of classical antiquity, of ancient science, even mathematical science, to most papyrologists, these texts are entirely unintelligible, they mean nothing at all, which is why such texts were sent to Neugebauer, just as the astronomical cuneiform texts meant nothing at all to Assyriologists until the Jesuit Fathers Strassmaier, Epping, and Kugler deciphered their contents and discovered an entire lost world of ancient science. Jones has accomplished something similar in publishing the Oxyrhynchus astronomical papyri.
  Prior to the recovery and study of papyri, modern knowledge of Greek astronomy was limited to Ptolemy and a few other treatises, representing respectively the highest develop- ment of ancient mathematical astronomy—some would say, with good reason, the highest development of ancient science—and elementary texts, surviving by the accident of their retaining some kind of instructional use or sheer luck, and stray remarks by various authors who often barely understood what they were reporting. What one knew next to nothing about was the kind of mathematical astronomy developed for its one application in an- tiquity, divination, mostly in the form of horoscopic and catarchic astrology, the latter for the determination of auspicious and inauspicious days for various activities, for even the surviving astrological treatises provided little information on the underlying astronomy. As papyri were published in the course of this century, it became clear that here indeed was the sort of astronomy used for astrology, and, with the exception of some fragments of Ptolemy’s Handy Tables, it had nothing to do with Ptolemy. If anything, in so far as it could be understood, it looked more Babylonian than Greek, if by Greek one means the astronomy of Ptolemy and the surviving treatises. But until Jones assembled these exten- sive materials, there was not enough evidence to make any generalizations about the sort of astronomy in common use; all one could say is that it was not Ptolemy. The Oxyrhynchus
  HMAT 28 REVIEWS 131
  papyri published here exceed in number all astronomical papyri from all collections that have previously been published or even known. And now at last one can say something about the Greek astronomy that was in use for over 500 years, from the second or first century B.C. to the fourth or fifth century A.D., and perhaps even longer.
  What one can say is this: it is fundamentally Babylonian and then toward the end of this period Ptolemaic, with a considerable overlap, and little indication of anything else. Following Neugebauer’s identification of the lunar text, Jones has found fragments of what are essentially Babylonian tables using Babylonian parameters for the computation of plan- etary phenomena, as heliacal phases and stations—here he calls them “epoch tables”—for Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, modified only in that they are adapted to the Egyptian or Alexandrian calendar. He has found “template” tables for the daily motion of the sun and moon and of planets between phenomena that are likewise adapted from Babylonian proce- dures, and has reconstructed and provides complete tables for the lunar motion in longitude and argument of latitude from the northern limit. He has found ephemerides, that is, daily longitudes, and almanacs giving the dates of entries of planets into zodiacal signs or posi- tions of planets at monthly or five-day intervals that are computed using either arithmetic methods, in principle adapted from Babylonian procedures, or the Handy Tables. Remark- ably, the use of Babylonian methods and the Handy Tables coincides during the third and fourth centuries, something that appeared possible from the lunar fragment and is now definitively confirmed. These discoveries, quite simply, change everything in our under- standing of the practice of astronomy in antiquity. In addition, he has found fragments of treatises, here called “procedure texts,” explaining methods of calculation, for the planets, the moon, and lunar eclipses, and these too either use arithmetic methods, ultimately of Babylonian origin, or are instructions for the Handy Tables.
  There are only a few texts that do not appear to fit either of these categories. A remarkable exception, what appears to be a scientific text in the sense of Ptolemy, is a fragment of a treatise, perhaps by Menelaus, reporting an observation of the distance in lunar diameters of Jupiter from δ Cnc and θ Cnc in the eighth year of Trajan, the day before the Calends of January, that is, the night of 31 Dec/1 Jan 104/105. Since the observation uses the Julian calendar, it was probably made in Rome, as were the observations of Menelaus cited by Ptolemy. Even this report contains a known Babylonian period, as it refers to an observation 344 years earlier, 30 Dec –240, and may have been intended to test or confirm the period of Jupiter, 344 years contain 315 anomalistic periods and 29 zodiacal revolutions. The earlier observation was presumably made in Alexandria, perhaps by the same observer who made an observation of Jupiter four months earlier cited by Ptolemy and dated in the calendar of Dionysius.
  Besides the astronomical texts, there are nearly 80 horoscopes, a significant addition to the total of about 200 known Greek horoscopes. Most are little more than lists of zodiacal signs occupied by the planets for a given date and the sign of the ascendant, which allows the time of day to be estimated within a couple of hours, and some are too fragmentary to be dated. But some, called here “deluxe horoscopes,” give locations of planets to degrees and minutes of each sign, the astrological characteristics of the signs, locations of the midheaven, lower midheaven, and descendant in addition to the ascendant, and the “lots” of fortune, daimon, etc. Unfortunately, only one of these provides enough information for dating. Nor do any of the horoscopes give astrological interpretations although a fair number wish the
  132 REVIEWS HMAT 28
  native “good fortune” at the beginning or “good luck” at the end. One wonders if any of these texts, astronomical or astrological, was the work of the one-eyed astrologer.
  What Jones has done with this great mass of material is everywhere exemplary. The texts are edited according to standard papyrological conventions and translated clearly and accurately. That the texts are mathematical allows a great deal of secure reconstruction of fragmentary numbers and precise dating, something that should be the envy of papyrologists working on literary or commercial texts. It should be noted that the amount of computation Jones has done to date and restore these texts is simply staggering, but the results are presented, in tabular form and in figures, with a clarity that spares the reader the gigantic, and redundant, labor that went in to the original analyses. The Introduction, commentary to each text, and Appendixes provide complete technical analyses based upon the editor’s comprehensive knowledge of Babylonian and Greek as well as Indian astronomy, itself a descendent of Babylonian and Greek astronomy. And as already mentioned, the contents of this work transform our understanding of ancient astronomy. This is, in short, one of the most important works of scholarship on the history of astronomy ever done. As a publication of sources Astronomical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus will join Neugebauer’s Astronomical Cuneiform Texts, Neugebauer’s and Parker’s Egyptian Astronomical Texts, and Sach’s and Hunger’s Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia as the foundation upon which our modern, scientific knowledge of ancient astronomy is built. It marks, not an end, but a beginning to further research, and I note that already Jones and John Britton have published a further analysis of the Jupiter text, P. Oxy. 4160 joined with P. Berol. 16511, showing that it is best computed by a Babylonian System A method, a step function of six zones, and is probably originally Babylonian although unknown in any cuneiform source (Archive for History of Exact Science 54 (2000), 349–373). We may hope that many more discoveries will follow.
  doi:10.1006/hmat.2001.2305
  Squaring the Circle. The War between Hobbes and Wallis. By Douglas M. Jesseph. Chicago and London (The University of Chicago Press). 1999. xiv+419 pp.
  Reviewed by Niccolo` Guicciardini
  Dipartimento di Filosofia, Universita` di Bologna, via Zamboni 38, 40126 Bologna, Italy
  This book is devoted to the long quarrel between Thomas Hobbes and John Wallis con- cerning Hobbes’s supposed quadrature of the circle and duplication of the cube. Even though there are a number of studies devoted to Hobbes’s mathematics (one can think of the penetrating study by Helena M. Pycior, Symbols, Impossible Numbers, and Geometric Entanglements: British Algebra through the Commentaries on Newton’s Universal Arithmetick, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997), nobody had tried yet the arduous task of chart- ing the complex story of the mathematical war which was fought for several decades by the “Monster of Malmesbury” and the Savilian Professor of Geometry. In order to accom- plish such a task one has to read an endless series of books, papers, pamphlets, letters, and manuscripts written from 1655, the year of publication of Hobbes’s De corpore, until

• NY Times
  https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/science/time-ancient-rome-greece.html?_r=0
  Word count: 2060

  SECTIONS HOME SEARCHSKIP TO CONTENTSKIP TO NAVIGATIONVIEW MOBILE VERSION
  The New York Times
  GIFT THE TIMES
  rcarte SETTINGS

  Chasing Shadows for a Glimpse of a Tiny World Beyond Pluto
  Why Do Bees Buzz?

  ESSAY
  With Snowflakes and Unicorns, Marina Ratner and Maryam Mirzakhani...

  The Serial Killer Test: Biases Against Atheists Emerge in Study

  Let Forest Fires Burn? What the Black-Backed Woodpecker Knows

  NEWS ANALYSIS
  Gene Editing for ‘Designer Babies’? Highly Unlikely, Scientists Say

  TRILOBITES
  Cleaning a Dirty Sponge Only Helps Its Worst Bacteria, Study Says

  TRILOBITES
  It’s Better to Swim Alone, Yet Together, if You’re a Salp

  The Sea Level Did, in Fact, Rise Faster in the Southeast U.S.

  Impossible Burger’s ‘Secret Sauce’ Highlights Challenges of Food Tech

  Scientists Fear Trump Will Dismiss Blunt Climate Report

  Researchers Track an Unlikely Culprit in Weight Gain

  Q&A
  No Need to Smell Fear: Dogs Have Other Reasons to Bite

  For Parents of Children Like Charlie Gard, Learning to ‘Redefine Hope’

  Weaning Itself From Elephant Ivory, China Turns to Mammoths

  Europe Swelters Under a Heat Wave Called ‘Lucifer’
  A Ride for the Red Planet

  Yellow Fever Outbreak That Threatened Brazil’s Megacities Ends

  Ted Stanley, Whose Fentanyl Lollipop Treated Chronic Pain, Dies at 77

  TRILOBITES
  Scorpions Are Ancient, but Some Species Are New to Science
  Loading...
  Advertisement

  SCIENCE

  A Manhattan Exhibit With Antiquity on the Clock
  By JOHN NOBLE WILFORDOCT. 24, 2016
  Continue reading the main storyShare This Page
  Share
  Tweet
  Email
  More
  Save
  Photo

  A mosaic depicting a man looking at sundial, from ancient Daphne, Roman civilization, 4th century A.D. Credit Hatay Arkeoloji Müzesi/De Agostini Picture Library, via Bridgeman Images
  In a Roman mosaic from antiquity, a man on a street studies the sundial atop a tall column. The sun alerts him to hurry if he does not want to be late for a dinner invitation.

  Sundials were ubiquitous in Mediterranean cultures more than 2,000 years ago. They were the clocks of their day, early tools essential to reckoning the passage of time and its relationship to the larger universe.

  The mosaic image is an arresting way station in a new exhibition, ”Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity,” that opened last week in Manhattan at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, an affiliate of New York University. It will continue until April.

  The image’s message, the curator Alexander Jones explains in the exhibition catalog, is clearly delivered in a Greek inscription, which reads, “The ninth hour has caught up.” Or further translated by him into roughly modern terms, “It’s 3 p.m. already.” That was the regular dinnertime in those days.

  Continue reading the main story
  RELATED COVERAGE

  MUSEUM REVIEW
  National Watch & Clock Museum, Columbia, Pa. - Review SEPT. 8, 2011
  ADVERTISEMENT

  Continue reading the main story

  Dr. Jones, the institute’s interim director, is a scholar of the history of exact science in antiquity. He further imagined how some foot-dragging skeptics then probably lamented so many sundials everywhere and the loss of simpler ways, when “days were divided just into morning and afternoon and one guessed how much daylight remained by the length of one’s own shadow without giving much thought to punctuality.”

  An even more up-to-date version of the scene, he suggested, would show a man or a woman staring at a wristwatch or, even better, a smartphone, while complaining that our culture “has allowed technology and science to impose a rigid framework of time on our lives.”

  Jennifer Y. Chi, the institute’s exhibition director, said: “The recurring sight of people checking the time on their cellphones or responding to a beep alerting them to an upcoming event are only a few modern-day reminders of time’s sway over public and private life. Yet while rapidly changing technology gives timekeeping a contemporary cast, its role in organizing our lives owes a great deal to the ancient Greeks and Romans.”

  Photo

  Portable Universal Sundial Bronze, from near Bratislava, possibly the 1st–4th century.

  The exhibition features more than 100 objects on loan from international collections, including a dozen or so sundials. One is a rare Greek specimen from the early 3rd century B.C. The large stone instruments typically belonged to public institutions or wealthy landowners.

  A few centuries later, portable sundials were introduced. Think of pocket watches coming in as movable timekeepers in place of the grandfather clock in the hall or on the mantel. They were first mentioned in ancient literature as the pendant for traveling. The earliest surviving one is from the first century A.D.

  Six of these small sundials are displayed in the exhibition. These were owned and used mostly as prestige objects by those at the upper echelons of society and by the few people who traveled to faraway latitudes.

  Photo

  Horizontal Sundial with Greek Inscriptions from Pompeii, Before 79 CE.

  Credit Guido Petruccioli/Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
  A bronze sundial in the center of one gallery is marked for use in 30 localities at latitudes ranging from Egypt to Britain. Few people in antiquity were ever likely to travel that widely.

  A small sundial found in the tomb of a Roman physician suggested that it was more than a prestige object. The doctor happened to be accompanied with his medical instruments and pills for eye ailment, as seen in a display. Presumably he needed a timekeeper in dispensing doses. He may have also practiced some ancient medical theories in which astrology prescribed certain hours as good or bad for administering meals and medicine.

  Apparent time cycles fascinated people at this time. One means of keeping track of these cycles was the parapegma, a stone slab provided with holes to represent the days along with inscriptions or images to interpret them. Each day, a peg was moved from one hole to the next. The appearances and disappearances of constellations in the night sky yielded patterns that served as signs of predictable weather changes in the solar year of 365 or 366 days. Not to mention when conditions are favorable for planting and reaping. Not to mention good or bad luck would follow.

  MORE REPORTING ON ARCHAEOLOGY

  A Jewel in Syria Where ‘Ruins Have Been Ruined’ by ISISAPRIL 05, 2016

  Stonehenge Begins to Yield Its SecretsNOV. 10, 2015

  NASA Adds to Evidence of Mysterious Ancient EarthworksNOV. 03, 2015

  The Roanoke Island Colony: Lost, and Found?AUG. 11, 2015
  For many people, astrology was probably the most popular outgrowth of advances in ancient timekeeping. Astrology — not to be confused with modern astronomy — emerged out of elements from Babylonian, Egyptian and Greek science and philosophy in the last two centuries B.C. Because the heavens and the earth were thought to be connected in so many ways, the destinies of nations as well as individuals presumably could be read by someone with expertise in the arrangements of the sun, the moon, the known planets and constellations in the zodiac.

  Wealthy people often had their complete horoscopes in writing and zodiacal signs portrayed in ornamental gems, especially if they deemed the cosmic configuration at their conception or birth to be auspicious.

  It is said that the young Octavian, the later emperor Augustus, visited an astrologer to have his fortune told. He hesitated at first to disclose the time and date of his birth, lest the prediction turn out to be inauspicious. He finally relented.

  Newsletter Sign UpContinue reading the main story
  Sign Up for the Science Times Newsletter
  Every week, we’ll bring you stories that capture the wonders of the human body, nature and the cosmos.

  Sign Up

  You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services.

  SEE SAMPLE MANAGE EMAIL PREFERENCES PRIVACY POLICY OPT OUT OR CONTACT US ANYTIME
  When the astrologer read Octavian’s horoscope, he threw himself at the feet of Rome’s emperor destined to be. With confidence that a great future was written in his stars, Augustus made his horoscope public. He exploited the Goat-Fish constellation, Capricorn, as his personal zodiacal sign and a symbol of power in the first century A.D.

  For a long time afterward, emperors often used the imagery of Capricorn, a hybrid land and marine animal, to symbolize their power on land and sea and to illustrate their lineage as Augustus’s successor.

  The Time and Cosmos exhibition will run through April 23 at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 15 East 84th St. The galleries are open free Wednesday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and until 8 p.m. on Fridays. Put it on your desk calendar and also on other timekeeping devices, post Greco-Roman.

  Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.

  A version of this article appears in print on October 25, 2016, on Page D3 of the New York edition with the headline: Antiquity on the Clock. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

  Continue reading the main story
  FROM OUR ADVERTISERS

  We’re interested in your feedback on this page. Tell us what you think.
  RELATED COVERAGE
  MUSEUM REVIEW
  National Watch & Clock Museum, Columbia, Pa. - Review SEPT. 8, 2011

  TRENDING

  Trump’s Threat to North Korea Was Improvised

  Manafort’s Home Searched as Part of Mueller Inquiry

  Feature: What a Fraternity Hazing Death Revealed About the Painful Search for an Asian-American Identity

  Trump’s ‘Fire and Fury’ Threat Raises Alarm in Asia

  Answers to 4 Crucial Questions About North Korea

  Op-Ed Columnist: Google’s War Over the Sexes

  Op-Ed Columnist: Sorry, Mike Pence, You’re Doomed

  Op-Ed Columnist: Democrats, Start Aiming for the Gut

  Op-Ed Contributor: The Danger of an Incurious President

  What Is Your Opposite Job?
  View More Trending Stories »

  What's Next
  Loading...
  Go to Home Page »
  SITE INDEX THE NEW YORK TIMES

  Site Index Navigation
  NEWS

  World
  U.S.
  Politics
  N.Y.
  Business
  Tech
  Science
  Health
  Sports
  Education
  Obituaries
  Today's Paper
  Corrections
  OPINION

  Today's Opinion
  Op-Ed Columnists
  Editorials
  Contributing Writers
  Op-Ed Contributors
  Opinionator
  Letters
  Sunday Review
  Taking Note
  Room for Debate
  Video: Opinion
  ARTS

  Today's Arts
  Art & Design
  Books
  Dance
  Movies
  Music
  N.Y.C. Events Guide
  Television
  Theater
  Video: Arts
  LIVING

  Automobiles
  Crossword
  Food
  Education
  Fashion & Style
  Health
  Jobs
  Magazine
  N.Y.C. Events Guide
  Real Estate
  T Magazine
  Travel
  Weddings & Celebrations
  LISTINGS & MORE

  Reader Center
  Classifieds
  Tools & Services
  Times Topics
  N.Y.C. Events Guide
  Blogs
  Multimedia
  Photography
  Video
  NYT Store
  Times Journeys
  Subscribe
  Manage My Account
  NYTCo
  SUBSCRIBE

  Home Delivery
  Gift Subscriptions
  Crossword
  Email Newsletters
  Alerts
  Corporate Subscriptions
  Education Rate
  Mobile Applications
  Replica Edition
  Site Information Navigation
  © 2017 The New York Times Company HomeSearchAccessibility concerns? Email us at accessibility@nytimes.com. We would love to hear from you.Contact UsWork With UsAdvertiseYour Ad ChoicesPrivacyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite Information Navigation
  Site MapHelpSite FeedbackSubscriptions Go to the next story
  Inspire a young mind. Sponsor a student subscription. Triple your impact for a limited time.LEARN MORE

• WSJ
  https://www.wsj.com/articles/time-and-cosmos-in-greco-roman-antiquity-review-sundials-and-stargazing-1483474769
  Word count: 1107

  DOW JONES, A NEWS CORP COMPANY
  DJIA▼22020.54 -0.29% Nasdaq▼6345.02 -0.40% U.S. 10 Yr▲9/32 Yield2.230% Crude Oil▲49.33 0.33% Euro▼1.1742 -0.09%
  Subscribe NowSign In

  The Wall Street Journal
  Home
  World
  U.S.
  Politics
  Economy
  Business
  Tech
  Markets
  Opinion
  Arts
  Life
  Real Estate
  The Race Across the Water
  BOOKSHELF
  The Race Across the Water
  Life Among India’s Lowly
  BOOKSHELF
  Life Among India’s Lowly
  Newton the Faithful
  Newton the Faithful
  The House That Jack Built
  The House That Jack Built
  Lincoln’s Enforcer
  Lincoln’s Enforcer
  Glen Campbell (1936-2017): Farewell to the Rhinestone Cowboy
  Glen Campbell (1936-2017): Farewell to the Rhinestone Cowboy
  Undiscovered Acts Show That Pop and Rock Talent Runs Deep
  Undiscovered Acts Show That Pop and Rock Talent Runs Deep
  ‘Ragtime’ Review: Music to Rile the Troubled Pol
  ‘Ragtime’ Review: Music to Rile the Troubled Pol
  Dancing in the Public Square
  Dancing in the Public Square
  What Makes an Actor Look Like a Bad Guy?
  What Makes an Actor Look Like a Bad Guy?
  Yo-Yo Ma’s Plea to Rescue a Symphony Barge
  Yo-Yo Ma’s Plea to Rescue a Symphony Barge
  Comedian’s Martha Stewart Musical Looks at Perfectionism in a Rachael Ray World
  Comedian’s Martha Stewart Musical Looks at Perfectionism ...
  The Men Who Trade ISIS Loot
  The Men Who Trade ISIS Loot
  A British Collector Puts the Art in Department Store
  A British Collector Puts the Art in Department Store
  Austen, Anonymous Writers and History
  Austen, Anonymous Writers and History
  The Least Dangerous Branch
  BOOKSHELF
  The Least Dangerous Branch
  The Race Across the Water
  BOOKSHELF
  The Race Across the Water
  Life Among India’s Lowly
  BOOKSHELF
  Life Among India’s Lowly
  Newton the Faithful
  Newton the Faithful
  The House That Jack Built
  The House That Jack Built
  Lincoln’s Enforcer
  Lincoln’s Enforcer
  Glen Campbell (1936-2017): Farewell to the Rhinestone Cowboy
  Glen Campbell (1936-2017): Farewell to the Rhinestone Cowboy
  Undiscovered Acts Show That Pop and Rock Talent Runs Deep
  Undiscovered Acts Show That Pop and Rock Talent Runs Deep
  ‘Ragtime’ Review: Music to Rile the Troubled Pol
  ‘Ragtime’ Review: Music to Rile the Troubled Pol
  Dancing in the Public Square
  Dancing in the Public Square
  What Makes an Actor Look Like a Bad Guy?
  What Makes an Actor Look Like a Bad Guy?
  PreviousNext

  Link copied…
  ARTS EXHIBITION REVIEW
  ‘Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity’ Review: Sundials and Stargazing
  The story of timekeeping’s evolution—from disparate calendars to more standardized waterclocks—in the ancient world.
  By Edward Rothstein
  Jan. 3, 2017 3:19 p.m. ET
  New York

  Isn’t measuring time a fairly simple matter? It seems complicated only because of the mechanical clock’s intricate assemblage of clicking gears or the atomic clock’s reliance on oscillating atomic energy states. But imagine a world...

  TO READ THE FULL STORY
  SUBSCRIBE
  SIGN IN

  What to Read Next...

  POLITICS AND POLICY
  North Korea Threat Comes After Trump Vows ‘Fire and Fury’

  BEST OF THE WEB TODAY
  Lenin and the New York Times

  PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY: GEOFFREY FOWLER
  Want to Get Tech Savvy? Don’t Ask Your Children

  LIFE & STYLE
  Who Wears Short-Shorts? Not My Daughter

  MARKETS MAIN
  This Market Can’t Go on Much Longer

  Independent of The Wall Street Journal newsroom
  INVESTING
  These 7 billionaires are worried about a stock-market correction

  Independent of The Wall Street Journal newsroom
  Barack and Michelle Obama Buy Their Kalorama Rental for $8.1 Million

  Recommended Videos
  https://m.wsj.net/video/20170809/080917kondo2/080917kondo2_115x65.jpg
  Marie Kondo vs. Four Sentimental Parents
  https://m.wsj.net/video/20170807/080717seib/080717seib_115x65.jpg
  Will Latest Round of North Korea Sanctions Work?
  https://m.wsj.net/video/20170522/051817amznbanana/051817amznbanana_115x65.jpg
  Amazon Offers Up Free Bananas at Community Stands
  https://m.wsj.net/video/20170807/080317nextweb/080317nextweb_115x65.jpg
  The Internet's Next Big User Group
  https://m.wsj.net/video/20170808/080817seibv3/080817seibv3_115x65.jpg
  Is North Korea Close to Being a Nuclear Weapons State?
  Most Popular Articles
  North Korea Threat Comes After Trump Vows ‘Fire and Fury’
  North Korea Threat Comes After Trump Vows ‘Fire and Fury’
  The Man Who Wrote Those Password Rules Has a New Tip: N3v$r M1^d!
  The Man Who Wrote Those Password Rules Has a New Tip: N3v$r M1^d!
  McMaster and the Commander
  Opinion: McMaster and the Commander
  North Korean Attack on Guam Would Be an Attack on America, Says Island’s Governor
  North Korean Attack on Guam Would Be an Attack on America, Says Island’s Governor
  Apple’s Expensive Game of Catch-Up
  Apple’s Expensive Game of Catch-Up
  Wall Street Journal
  U.S. Edition
  Subscribe Sign In
  TOP«
  WSJ Membership

  WSJ+ Membership Benefits
  Digital Subscription
  Print Subscription
  Print and Digital Subscription
  Why Subscribe?
  Download WSJ Apps for iOS and Android
  Corporate Subscriptions
  Professor Journal
  Student Journal
  Customer Service

  Customer Center
  Contact Us
  Live Help
  Redesign Guided Tour
  Notice to Subscribers
  Tools & Features

  Emails & Alerts
  Guides
  My News
  RSS Feeds
  Video Center
  Watchlist
  Podcasts
  Ads

  Advertise
  Advertise Locally
  Commercial Real Estate Ads
  Place a Classified Ad
  Sell Your Business
  Sell Your Home
  Recruitment & Career Ads
  More

  Content Partnerships
  Corrections
  Jobs at WSJ
  News Archive
  Register for Free
  Reprints
  Facebook
  Twitter
  Google+
  YouTube
  Podcasts
  Snapchat
  GooglePlay
  AppStore
  Windows10
  Dow Jones Products Barron's BigCharts DJX Dow Jones Newswires Factiva Financial News Mansion Global MarketWatch Private Markets realtor.com Risk & Compliance WSJ Conference WSJ Pro Central Banking WSJ Video WSJ Wine
  Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Copyright Policy Data Policy Subscriber Agreement & Terms of Use Your Ad Choices
  Copyright ©2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

• Hyperallergic
  https://hyperallergic.com/331494/time-and-cosmos-institute-study-ancient-world/
  Word count: 2348

  Home
  Weekend
  News
  Events
  Reviews
  Art
  Books
  Film
  Performance
  Music
  Features
  History
  Interviews
  Opinion
  Essays
  Photo Essays
  Articles
  Comics
  Poetry
  Podcast
  Home
  About
  Newsletter
  Shop
  Contribute
  Jobs
  Internships
  Advertise
  Contact
  Hyperallergic

  ART

  Measuring Life by the Stars in Greco-Roman Antiquity
  The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World explores widespread modes of timekeeping in the Greco-Roman world and their continued influence today.
  Allison MeierDecember 8, 2016
  Share
  Tweet
  Email

  Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads
  POPULAR
  Why I "Like" but Don't Love Cindy Sherman's Instagram Photos
  All of Audubon's 'Birds of America' in One High-Resolution Flock
  Why Edvard Munch Began Painting Portraits of the Soul
  The Black American Women Who Made Their Own Art World
  Goodbye to All That: Why Do Artists Reject the Art World?
  SPONSORED

  Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity
  Frieze from Roman sarcophagus representing Putti with sundial (140–160 CE), marble (courtesy Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Antiquités grecques, étrusques et romaines, © RMN-Grand Palais / Hervé Lewandowski Art Resource, NY)
  The oldest known example of a portable sundial is in the shape of a ham. The Ham of Herculaneum, which dates to the end of the 1st century, was discovered in 1755 in the Villa dei Papiri, a site destroyed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The tiny bronze device shaped like a hunk of meat on a hook is one of the more curious survivors of the widespread culture of timekeeping in the Greek and Roman world.

  Despite its enduring influence on our contemporary calendar and our general perception of time, ancient timekeeping hasn’t been widely explored in exhibitions. Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity, now at New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), brings together over 100 artifacts from museums around the world, many of them infrequently on public view. Like previous ISAW exhibitions about textiles in late antiquity, Greco-Roman cartography, and the Mesopotamian influence on Modernism, Time and Cosmos highlights an overlooked view of the ancient world and emphasizes its relation to the present.

  Installation view of 'Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity' at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Installation view of Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, with the Ham of Herculaneum (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  You could spend hours in the two-room Time and Cosmos learning how old sundials and calendars worked, ideas that are fleshed out in the accompanying catalogue. Many of these principles are still familiar thanks to their endurance in Christian Europe, such as the division of day and night into 12 hours each, something the Greeks adapted from the Egyptians. Meanwhile, the Roman calendar system that was instituted by Julius Caesar in 45 BCE informed the Gregorian calendar that’s still in use. Yet beyond the technical details — from shadows cast on carved lines to the complicated Antikythera mechanism (not on view but explored in video) — the exhibition excels at demonstrating the importance of time in everyday life.

  Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity
  Portable universal sundial (Near Bratislava, 1st–4th century CE), bronze (courtesy Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, © Museum of the History of Science, University of Oxford)
  “It became part of the everyday visual vocabulary,” curator Alexander Jones, who’s also a professor of history of the exact sciences in antiquity and interim director of the ISAW, explained at the preview. He pointed out a 140–160 CE marble frieze from a Roman sarcophagus with two putti (cherubs) attempting to interfere with a sundial, perhaps to reverse the chronology that has taken a life. Another wall features a display of coins from various eras, with astrological symbols like celestial spheres — which placed Earth at the center of the cosmos — used to indicate the emperor’s authority. And a Greek paragpegma calendar from 100 BCE aligns stellar phenomena with weather predictions; it is pocked with holes for pegs to mark the date.

  Jones pointed out that every ancient civilization had some form of time management, but the Greeks and Romans were much more conscious of regulating it in both private and public life. The exhibition text states that more than 500 Greco-Roman sundials have been discovered, with 30 sundials at Pompeii alone.The oldest known Italian sundial, unearthed at Pompeii and dating to 100 BCE, is on view in Time and Cosmos, its conical shape delicately sculpted from marble. A 363–362 BCE stele that tracked both the date and cult activities shows another public system of timekeeping.

  Installation view of 'Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity' at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Conical sundial (Pergamon, Roman), marble (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Installation view of 'Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity' at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Greek parapegma with stellar phenomena and weather predictions (Theater, Miletus, 100 BCE), marble (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Then there were the water clocks and pre-wristwatch portable sundials owned by the elite. A case of objects from a 1st-century CE Roman physician’s tomb includes a cylindrical portable sundial made of deer bone, alongside forceps, scalp handles, and other medical instruments. Mass-produced calendar boards could be found in more common households. Time and Cosmos stresses how this ubiquity of timekeeping influenced everything in Greek and Roman life, down to people’s perceptions of self.

  Installation view of 'Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity' at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Ivory astrologer’s boards (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Among the most transfixing objects are two sets of rare zodiacal boards likely used by a traveling astrologer in the 2nd century CE. Made of ivory, wood, and gilding, the small boards were found in the 1960s at the bottom of a well in France, seemingly destroyed on purpose, perhaps because of their pagan imagery in the Late Antique era. The boards were used almost as maps of life, charted based on the exact day and hour at which a person was born. Just as the universe was believed to be impacted by the orientation of the moon and stars, so was a person’s body, along with its fortune and misfortunes. Near the boards are two papyri horoscopes written in Greek, both for the same man born early in the first hour of December 4, 137 CE, but made by different astrologers.

  The cross between the spiritual and the scientific seen in Time and Cosmos reflects an ancient belief in how the heavens influenced human life on Earth. In the names of our months and the perception of our lives as marked by the passage of the hours, or guided by our zodiac signs, is a continuation of that understanding of the universe.

  Installation view of 'Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity' at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Installation view of Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Installation view of 'Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity' at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Roman parapegma with lunar days, market days, and planetary weekdays (Latium, 8 BCE), marble (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity
  Horizontal sundial with Greek inscriptions(Pompeii, before 79 CE), marble (courtesy Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, © Institute for the Study of the Ancient World/Guido Petruccioli, photographer)
  Installation view of 'Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity' at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Roman calendar inscription with zodiac, festivals, and agricultural activities (near the Palatine, Rome, 1st century CE), marble (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Installation view of 'Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity' at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Installation view of Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity
  Roman mosaic depicting the Seven Sages (Villa of Titus Siminius Stephanus, Pompeii, 1st century BCE–1st century CE) (courtesy Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, © Institute for the Study of the Ancient World/Guido Petruccioli, photographer)
  Installation view of 'Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity' at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Roman calendar inscription with zodiac, festivals, and agricultural activities (near the Palatine, Rome, 1st century CE), marble (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity
  Astrologer’s zodiacal doard (Tabula Bianchini) (Rome, 2nd century CE), marble (courtesy Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Antiquités grecques, étrusques et romaines, © RMN-Grand Palais / Hervé Lewandowski Art Resource, NY)
  Installation view of 'Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity' at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Roundel with bust of Atargatis-Tyche and Zodiac (Petra, Jordan, 50-150 CE), micaceous quartz limestone (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Installation view of 'Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity' at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Statuette of Atlas bearing ornamental spherical sundial (Tor Paterno, near Ostia, possibly 2nd century CE), marble (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Installation view of 'Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity' at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Roman mosaic depicting Anaximander with sundial (Johannisstrasse, Trier, early 3rd century CE), stone in metal frame (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Installation view of 'Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity' at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Installation view of Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Installation view of 'Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity' at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  “Altar” with zodiacal frieze and heads of twelve gods (Gabii, Latium, 117–138 CE), marble (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Installation view of 'Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity' at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Mithraic relief with zodiac (Mithraeum, Sidon, 2nd–4th century CE), marble (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Installation view of 'Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity' at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Roman inscription concerning festivals (Campanian Ampitheater, Capua, 387 CE), marble (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
  Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity continues at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (15 East 84th Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan) through April 23, 2017.

  SHARE

  Share
  Tweet
  Email
  TAGS

  Ancient Greeceancient RomearchaeologyInstitute for the Study of the Ancient WorldNew York Universitytime
  RELATED

  Afterlives of Mesopotamian Artifacts, from Flapper Fashion to de Kooning
  Garments from the Graves of Late Antiquity
  How Ancient Cartographers Mapped the World We See Today
  comments (1)

  POPULAR
  Why I "Like" but Don't Love Cindy Sherman's Instagram Photos
  All of Audubon's 'Birds of America' in One High-Resolution Flock
  Why Edvard Munch Began Painting Portraits of the Soul
  The Black American Women Who Made Their Own Art World
  Goodbye to All That: Why Do Artists Reject the Art World?
  Humans Prefer Computer-Generated Paintings to Those at Art Basel
  How to Destroy a Brutalist Masterpiece Without Demolishing It
  An Itinerant Museum Picks Apart the Language of Dehumanization
  Walking Japanese Enema Is the Latest in Shitty Mascot Design
  Vigilantes Posing as City Workers Steal Street Art in Paris

  Why I “Like” but Don’t Love Cindy Sherman’s Instagram Photos
  Paddy Johnson2 days ago
  Other critics responded rapturously after the art star made her Instagram account public, but their nearly unanimous praise is misplaced.
  Installation view of We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85 at the Brooklyn Museum (© Jonathan Dorado)
  The Black American Women Who Made Their Own Art World
  Jessica Bell Brown3 days ago

  A Vision of US Immigration Beyond the Melting Pot
  Seph Rodney3 days ago

  SPONSORED
  The Road Less Traveled, a Three-Day Conference on Artist-Built Environments

  Fruits Reborn as Sculpture
  Sarah Rose Sharp2 hours ago

  The Continuing Saga of the Architect Made into a Diamond
  Devon Van Houten Maldonado2 hours ago
  Screen capture of a VR work by Justin Berry (courtesy Essex Flowers)
  A VR Exhibition Pays Tribute to a Long-Gone Vegas Casino
  Benjamin Sutton3 hours ago
  Hyperallergic is a forum for serious, playful, and radical thinking about art in the world today. Founded in 2009, Hyperallergic is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York.
  Home
  About
  Newsletter
  Shop
  Contribute
  Jobs
  Internships
  Advertise
  Contact
  News
  Features
  Reviews
  Podcast
  Events
  Weekend

  ©2017 Hyperallergic Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.Privacy PolicyTerms of UseComment Policy

Word Count