A History of Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry, from Prehistory to the End of the Classical Period

A History of Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry, from Prehistory to the End of the Classical Period
Author: Robert W. Boyle
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 632
Release: 2024-05-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1527576507

Since Mendeleev outlined the modern periodic table in 1869, many new uses have been found for the 92 naturally occurring elements. This book travels back in time to describe the utilization of materials familiar (gold, copper, iron) and arcane (arsenic, boron, red ochre) and their practical history (mining, metallurgy and crafts), with evidence from archaeology and geology. Together with the technological developments, author Robert Boyle portrays the advances in our understanding of materials science which led to modern geological and environmental sciences. It is a source book valuable to students of history and archaeology, mining and metallurgy, as well as to geologists, mineralogists and geochemists everywhere.

Lost Discoveries

Lost Discoveries
Author: Dick Teresi
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 468
Release: 2010-05-11
Genre: Science
ISBN: 143912860X

*A New York Times Notable Book* Boldly challenging conventional wisdom, acclaimed science writer and Omni magazine cofounder Dick Teresi traces the origins of contemporary science back to their ancient roots in this eye-opening and landmark work. This innovative history proves once and for all that the roots of modern science were established centuries, and in some instances millennia, before the births of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. In this enlightening, entertaining, and important book, Teresi describes many discoveries from all over the non-Western world—Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt, India, China, Africa, Arab nations, the Americas, and the Pacific islands—that equaled and often surpassed Greek and European learning in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, cosmology, physics, geology, chemistry, and technology. The first extensive and authoritative multicultural history of science written for a popular audience, Lost Discoveries fills a critical void in our scientific, cultural, and intellectual history and is destined to become a classic in its field.

Sennacherib's "Palace Without Rival" at Nineveh

Sennacherib's
Author: John Malcolm Russell
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 380
Release: 1991
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780226731759

Best known today from biblical accounts of his exploits and ignominious end, the Assyrian king Sennacherib (704-681 B.C.) was once the ruler of all western Asia. In his capital at Nineveh, in what is now northern Iraq, he built what he called the "Palace without Rival." Though only scattered traces of this magnificent structure are visible today, contemporary written descriptions and surviving wall reliefs permit a remarkably detailed reconstruction of the appearance and significance of the palace. An art historian trained in ancient Near East philology, archaeology, and history, John Malcolm Russell marshals these resources to investigate the meaning and political function of the palace of Sennacherib. He contends that the meaning of the monument cannot be found in images or texts alone; nor can these be divorced from architectural context. Thus his study combines discussions of the context of inscriptions in Sennacherib's palace with reconstructions of its physical appearance and analyses of the principles by which the subjects of Sennacherib's reliefs were organized to express meaning. Many of the illustrations are published here for the first time, notably drawings of palace reliefs made by nineteenth-century excavators and photographs taken in the course of the author's own excavations at Nineveh.

The Babylonian Laws

The Babylonian Laws
Author: G. R. Driver
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 551
Release: 2007-04-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1556352298

This brilliant two-volume work combines the expertise of one of the world's leading Semitists (Driver) and a renowned barrister and legal historian (Miles). Together they provide an in-depth historical and legal analysis of the Code of Hammurabi of Babylon. This edition includes an updated bibliography (to 2007). CONTENTS I. Historical and Legal Introduction II. Introduction to the Laws of Hammu-rabi III. Legal Commentary on the Laws of Hammu-rabi 1. Offences and Crimes 2. Land and Houses 3. Commercial Law 4. Marriage 5. Inheritance 6. Women of Religion 7. Adoption and Wet-Nursing 8. Assault and Damage to Person or Property 9. Argicultural Work and Offences 10. Rates of Hire and Wages 11. Slaves 12. Courts and Punishments

Non-Semitic Loanwords in the Hebrew Bible

Non-Semitic Loanwords in the Hebrew Bible
Author: Benjamin J. Noonan
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 549
Release: 2019-10-29
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1646020413

Ancient Palestine served as a land bridge between the continents of Asia, Africa, and Europe, and as a result, the ancient Israelites frequently interacted with speakers of non-Semitic languages, including Egyptian, Greek, Hittite and Luwian, Hurrian, Old Indic, and Old Iranian. This linguistic contact led the ancient Israelites to adopt non-Semitic words, many of which appear in the Hebrew Bible. Benjamin J. Noonan explores this process in Non-Semitic Loanwords in the Hebrew Bible, which presents a comprehensive, up-to-date, and linguistically informed analysis of the Hebrew Bible’s non-Semitic terminology. In this volume, Noonan identifies all the Hebrew Bible’s foreign loanwords and presents them in the form of an annotated lexicon. An appendix to the book analyzes words commonly proposed to be non-Semitic that are, in fact, Semitic, along with the reason for considering them as such. Noonan’s study enriches our understanding of the lexical semantics of the Hebrew Bible’s non-Semitic terminology, which leads to better translation and exegesis of the biblical text. It also enhances our linguistic understanding of the ancient world, in that the linguistic features it discusses provide significant insight into the phonology, orthography, and morphology of the languages of the ancient Near East. Finally, by tying together linguistic evidence with textual and archaeological data, this work extends our picture of ancient Israel’s interactions with non-Semitic peoples. A valuable resource for biblical scholars, historians, archaeologists, and others interested in linguistic and cultural contact between the ancient Israelites and non-Semitic peoples, this book provides significant insight into foreign contact in ancient Israel.

On Divers Arts

On Divers Arts
Author: Theophilus
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2012-04-30
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0486145417

"I have made it my concern to hunt out this technique for your study as I learned it by looking and listening." On Divers Arts, c. 1122, is the oldest extant manual on artistic crafts to be written by a practicing artist. Before Theophilus, manuscripts on the arts came from scholars and philosophers standing outside the actual profession. On Divers Arts describes actual 12th-century techniques in painting, glass, and metalwork, which the Benedictine author wished to pass on to those gifted by God with a talent for making beautiful things. Theophilus teaches, with rigorous attention to fact but also with great reverence the making of pigments for fresco painting, the manufacture of glue, the technique of gold leaf on parchment (the first recorded European reference to true paper), how to blow glass and design stained glass windows, how to fashion gold and silver chalices, and how to make a pipe organ and church bells. Precise instruction on enameling, chasing, repoussé, niello, and beaded wire work prove Theophilus's first-hand knowledge of his craft. While 90 percent of Theophilus's writing is sound technical knowledge, medieval folk lore occasionally spices his text: "Tools are also made harder by hardening them in the urine of a small red-headed boy than by doing so in plain water." But the magnificent fact of On Divers Art remains its status as the first technical treatise on painting, glass, and metalwork, for which actual specimens still survive. The editors have taken care to ensure both philological and technological accuracy for this authoritative edition of a medieval classic, a manual of great importance to craftsmen, historians of art and science, and all who delight in the making of the beautiful.

Lexicographical Studies in Ancient Egyptian Minerals

Lexicographical Studies in Ancient Egyptian Minerals
Author: J. R. Harris
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 272
Release: 1961-12-31
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3112707052

No detailed description available for "Lexicographical Studies in Ancient Egyptian Minerals".

Compound Remedies

Compound Remedies
Author: Paula S. DeVos
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2020-12-22
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0822987945

Compound Remedies examines the equipment, books, and remedies of colonial Mexico City’s Herrera pharmacy—natural substances with known healing powers that formed part of the basis for modern-day healing traditions and home remedies in Mexico. Paula S. De Vos traces the evolution of the Galenic pharmaceutical tradition from its foundations in ancient Greece to the physician-philosophers of medieval Islamic empires and the Latin West and eventually through the Spanish Empire to Mexico, offering a global history of the transmission of these materials, knowledges, and techniques. Her detailed inventory of the Herrera pharmacy reveals the many layers of this tradition and how it developed over centuries, providing new perspectives and insight into the development of Western science and medicine: its varied origins, its engagement with and inclusion of multiple knowledge traditions, the ways in which these traditions moved and circulated in relation to imperialism, and its long-term continuities and dramatic transformations. De Vos ultimately reveals the great significance of pharmacy, and of artisanal pursuits more generally, as a cornerstone of ancient, medieval, and early modern epistemologies and philosophies of nature.