#ancientscience — Public Fediverse posts

Researchers decoded the name of the first known Maya mathematician, revealing a forgotten scholar whose calculations shaped calendars, astronomy, and one of history's greatest civilizations.
#AncientOrigins #Maya #Archaeology #AncientMystery #AncientScience #LostCivilizations
Read more:https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/first-known-maya-mathematician-name-decoded-00102980

Older than the Egyptian pyramids, this 4,000-year-old site in Peru shows advanced astronomy. Ancient people used shadows and celestial cycles to survive—challenging what we think early civilizations knew.
#AncientCivilizations #Archaeology #AncientScience #PeruHistory #HiddenHistory
Read more:https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/caral-astronomical-observatory-00102724

ScienceAlert: Mysterious Frozen Lake Is a Time Capsule From Millions of Years Ago
#Ancientscience
https://www.sciencealert.com/mysterious-frozen-lake-is-a-time-capsule-from-millions-of-years-ago

Hipparchos based his improved model for the Sun on observations of the equinoxes, which explained both changes in the speed of the Sun and differences in the lengths of the seasons. He is credited with the discovery of a phenomenon called precession of the equinoxes. According to Roman astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus, Hipparchos measured the longitude of several bright stars and compared his measurements with data from his predecessors.

@antiquidons
#ancientGreece #ancientScience #astronomy

Aside from the myths, the ancient Greeks were interested in rational explanations for the celestial phenomena they observed. They were influenced by Egyptian & especially Babylonian astronomy: Babylonian astronomers could predict the planets' motions with extraordinary accuracy.
The 2nd century BCE astronomer Hipparchos wanted to achieve the same level of accuracy as the Babylonians.

#ancientGreece #ancientScience #science #astronomy

We finally published a #PleiadesGazetteer place record for the Antikythera shipwreck:

https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/333218450

"The so-called Antikythera #shipwreck dates to the second quarter of the first century BCE. Sponge divers discovered the shipwreck near Point Glyphadia on the Greek island of Antikythera in 1900. The wreck has produced numerous artifacts, including an object known commonly as the Antikythera mechanism."

#archaeology #ancientScience

h/t @serviliusahala

How Eratosthenes measured the earth: part 4 of 4.

The angle of the sun is the last hurdle Eratosthenes had to overcome with his data collection methods.

Here we review the popularly believed story -- measuring shadows of sticks -- before looking at a more likely and methodologically simpler alternative.

Concludes with a bibliography.

(Reading time: 15 minutes)
#ancientscience #eratosthenes #geography #ancientgreece
https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2023/07/eratosthenes-4.html

How Eratosthenes measured the earth, part 3 of 4: distance.

How did Eratosthenes find out the distance from Syene to Meroë? What units did he use, and what do they mean in modern units?

(Reading time: 18 minutes)
#ancientscience #eratosthenes #geography #ancientgreece
http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2023/06/eratosthenes-2b.html

The ongoing story of how Eratosthenes measured the earth, based on ancient evidence. Part 2b: distance.

How did Eratosthenes find out the distance from Syene to Meroë? What units did he use, and what do they mean in modern units? What's the difference between the 'metrological stadion' and the 'itinerary stadion'? (And how do they compare to the kilometre and the 'itinerary kilometre'?)

(Reading time: 18 minutes)
#ancientscience #eratosthenes #geography #ancientgreece
https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2023/06/eratosthenes-2b.html

How Eratosthenes measured the earth: an account grounded in ancient evidence.

Part 2a explains the basic idea underlying the measurement, and begins to look at the hurdles involved in obtaining observational data.

Parts 2b and 2c will look at what we know about measuring overland distances, and 2nd century BCE instrumentation for observing the angle of the sun.

(Reading time: 16 minutes)
http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2023/06/eratosthenes-2a.html
#ancientscience #eratosthenes #geography #astronomy #egypt #ancientgreece

How Eratosthenes measured the earth. Part 2a.

The ongoing story of Eratosthenes' measurement, grounded in ancient evidence.

Part 2a introduces the basic principle of the measurement; the technological hurdles involved; and how he solved the problem of simultaneous measurements.

(This was _not_ a problem to be solved with two sticks!)

(Reading time: 16 minutes)
#ancientscience #eratosthenes #geography #ancientgreece
https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2023/06/eratosthenes-2a.html

How Eratosthenes measured the earth. Part 1: the discovery of the earth's shape.

Before 400 BCE, everyone was a flat-earther. Afterwards, it gets hard to find people who weren't aware that the earth is round.

A look at early Greek thought on the shape of the cosmos, the earth's location, and the angle of the ecliptic, leading up to the first estimate of the earth's size in Aristotle.

(Reading time: 18 minutes)
https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2023/04/eratosthenes-1.html
#ancientscience #eratosthenes #geography #ancientgreece

Newly announced from #ISAWNYU: Daryn Lehoux (Queen’s University) will deliver the 2023, four-part Rostovtzeff Lecture Series on the theme "Epistemic Corruption and Epistemic Progress in Ancient Science". These lectures will take place in person at ISAW (15 E 84th St. in NYC).

The first lecture, "Sources of Corruption" will be delivered at 5pm, US Eastern Time, on 25 April 2023.

More info and RSVP: https://isaw.nyu.edu/events/rostovtzeff-2023-lecture-1

#ancientScience #ancientHistory #classics

I found a truly amazing reading of an English translation of De Rerum Natura, by Titus Lucretius!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wurOQffA6pE&t=5062s

#Philosophy #Epicureanism #AncientScience

The problem with ancient abortifacients wasn't that they were necessarily ineffective, but that they're all poisonous to some degree--especially, it seems, they're neurotoxic.

It's got me wondering about the state of Ophelia's health in the last scene where we see her alive. Are we supposed to understand that she has been dosing herself--that she was, or feared she was, pregnant?

#ancientscience #classics #Shakespeare

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