Decoding ancient eclipse records
21 July 2011
Translating the texts of five dead languages has helped a University of Canterbury mathematician shed new light on how ancient and medieval cultures used mathematics to predict eclipses of the sun and moon.
Dr Clemency Montelle with her new book and a replica tablet featuring the ancient written language known as cuneiform.
Translating the texts of five dead languages has helped a University of Canterbury mathematician shed new light on how ancient and medieval cultures used mathematics to predict eclipses of the sun and moon.
In a new book called Chasing Shadows: Mathematics, Astronomy and the Early History of Eclipse Reckoning, Dr Clemency Montelle (Mathematics and Statistics) explores the ways in which four major cultures of the ancient world — the ancient Near East, ancient Greece, India and the Islamic Near East — used mathematics to model and predict eclipses.
Dr Montelle said the book, which is her first and is published as part of the Johns Hopkins University Press’ Studies in the History of Mathematics series, also looks at the scientific discoveries these societies made and how their ideas spread between cultures.
“All these civilisations had flourishing and vibrant cultures of mathematical and scientific inquiry so I was particularly interested in finding out about the transmission of ideas.”
Eclipses, both solar and lunar, were major events that ancient cultures around the world observed and recorded, providing Dr Montelle with a common subject on which to base her research.
“The idea was to find a theme that ancient mathematicians concentrated on and this fitted perfectly,” she said.
“Eclipses are not only wonderfully theatrical events, they’re also regular and these ancient mathematicians used almost every element of astronomy and mathematics they knew to model and predict them. By studying the observations and computations in ancient texts, I can see what ideas were shared between these cultures; the ideas they borrowed and the ideas that were distinctly their own.”
She said that unlike the transmission of ideas in arts subjects, if one number popped up in one culture and then in another, “you know there must have been some transmission or sharing of knowledge”.
Dr Montelle’s research drew on her reading of primary sources written in Sanskrit and Akkadian (spoken in ancient Mesopotamia), as well as ancient Greek, Latin and Arabic, much of which had not been translated before.
She found there had been a significant amount of knowledge exchange between the cultures facilitated through such events as diplomatic missions, invasion and cultural migration.
“The transmission of ideas can be fascinating – the inheritor culture doesn’t always understand the theory properly, or maybe only one part of the idea goes through, or the inheritor culture may develop on it, or take an idea and put their own spin on it. They may also change suppositions or reject ideas because they don’t fit into their religious traditions. In this way studying the history of maths can reveal some really interesting trends within the history of science more generally.”
- Chasing Shadows: Mathematics, Astronomy and the Early History of Eclipse Reckoning by Clemency Montelle, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, April 2011, RRP US$75, ISBN 978 080189 6910.
For more information please contact:
Dr Clemency Montelle
Mathematics and Statistics
University of Canterbury
clemency.montelle@canterbury.ac.nz
Or:
Stacey Doornenbal
Communications Officer
University of Canterbury
stacey.doornenbal@canterbury.ac.nz
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