Posted on 11/20/2010 6:43:57 AM PST by SunkenCiv
An illuminating exhibition of thirteen ancient Babylonian tablets, along with supplemental documentary material, opens at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) on November 12, 2010. Before Pythagoras: The Culture of Old Babylonian Mathematics reveals the highly sophisticated mathematical practice and education that flourished in Babylonia -- present-day Iraq -- more than 1,000 years before the time of the Greek sages Thales and Pythagoras, with whom mathematics is traditionally said to have begun.
The tablets in the exhibition, at once beautiful and enlightening, date from the Old Babylonian Period (ca. 1900-1700 BCE). They have been assembled from three important collections: the Columbia Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University; the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; and the Yale Babylonian Collection, Yale University.
Before Pythagoras has been curated by Alexander Jones, ISAW Professor of the History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity, and ISAW visiting scholar Christine Proust, historian of mathematics and ancient sciences at the Institut Méditerranéen de Recherches Avancées, in Marseille. The exhibition remains on view at ISAW through December 17, 2010.
(Excerpt) Read more at artdaily.org ...
The trick is finding a court that still uses cuneiform.
OMG! We have a winner!!! :’D :’)
I’m just glad they didn’t find this in Egypt, where the only proper fractions (but one) have a “1” numerator.
No narcotics or alcohol, that probably explains why they’re out of business. OTOH, the inventor of the graham cracker (who died in debtors prison) claimed that eating those cured alcoholism, and we still have graham crackers.
You’re only saying that because of their extrajudicial beheadings, desertification from the clear-cutting of all vegetation, internecine warfare against the world and each other, and starkly cartoonish benighted treatment of women. I mean, really, other than those things, what have they done that’s so bad?
Wonder if it can be applied in a singles bar?
Probably was invented there.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.