Intellectual Scavenger Hunt: Ancient Mathematics and Astronomy

Intellectual Scavenger Hunt: Using the materials below, conduct a ‘Scavenger Hunt’ for scholarly readings to replace, challenge, or support the ones chosen. Here are the instructions: Part I – The Preparation: Please attend Lecture on Wednesday, and read: – Lindberg, Chapter 1. – Otto Neugebauer, “ The Survival of Babylonian Methods in the Exact Sciences of Antiquity and Middle Ages,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 107, No. 6, Dec. 20, 1963, pp. 528-535. – Otto Neugebauer, “The History of Ancient Astronomy Problems and Methods,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1, Jan., 1945, pp. 1-38. – Enuma Elish at https://www.ancient.eu/article/225/enuma-elish—the-babylonian-epic-of-creation—fu/ Part II – The Search: 1) Select three keywords from the above materials to search for your new scholarly source. To select the key words to search you might use topics such as “Mathematical Astronomy” (Neugebauer) or Ecliptic (Babylonian lecture); Zodiac (Enuma Elish, Fifth Tablet). Place quotation marks around multiple words search for them as a unit to help narrow your results. In other words, put keyword phrases such as “symbolic language” in quotes or you are searching for each term separately. 2) Search for three of these keywords or keyword phrases using the ‘Summon’ Drexel Library database: Summon: https://www.library.drexel.edu/ You are looking for a scholarly source–one written by a professional historian, so be careful what you choose. [You can determine if a scholar wrote it by doing a Google search on the person, or finding their institutional affiliation in the book or essay you have located.] ***I searched on the keywords: “Mathematical Astronomy” Ecliptic Zodiac and found a great source that points out a weakness in Neugebauer’s analysis: Ossendrijver, Mathieu. “Bisecting the Trapezoid: Tracing the Origins of a Babylonian Computation of Jupiter’s Motion.” Archive for History of Exact Sciences 72, no. 2 (2018): 145-189. Part III – The Report: a) Write your name and the date at the top of the essay, b) List the three keywords or keyword phrases and where you found them (Lindberg, Rochberg, Lecture) c) List the new source you found doing the intellectual scavenger hunt. d) Once you have a good scholarly essay or book, or a primary source (you can limit your reading to a chapter in this book), then address the question/prompts below. In a 300-500 word essay discuss: 1) How does your new source help understand why the Ancient Babylonians spent so much effort in tracking the movement of the stars and planets. In other words, what place did astronomy hold in Babylonian society? Did it serve their religious, political, social needs? 2) What does this tell us about the nature of ‘science’ in their society? In-text citations: Cite your sources using in-text citations using footnotes in Chicago Manual Style (See below). Part IV – Bibliography: Include a Bibliography listing all the sources you have used.