Science Archive
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A glimpse into the early origins of medieval anatomy through the oldest conserved human dissection (Western Europe, 13th c. A.D.)
Posted on March 6, 2013 | No CommentsLittle is known about medieval anatomical preparations, as only theoretical treatises signed by surgeons and physicians have survived. In 2003, a mummified human torso was sold by a medical antiquities art dealer from Paris, and is now conserved in a Canadian private collection; its recent multidisciplinary analysis was the occasion of a whole description of such an anatomical preparation, and to improve our knowledge about early occidental autopsy/dissection techniques and body preservation -
Myths and mandrakes
Posted on March 4, 2013 | No CommentsOthers, however, began to wonder whether the possession of roots might not bring them success in other areas as well—wealth, popularity, or the power to control their own and other people's destinies, and took to wearing them as good luck charms. -
The Scientific World of the Crown of Aragon under James I
Posted on March 3, 2013 | No CommentsThis article seeks to provide a general overview of the cultural landscape during the reign of James I, with a particular focus on science. -
“Morus per se?”: Pain and its Treatment in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-century Europe
Posted on March 3, 2013 | No CommentsYet of the many medical conditions that face human beings, pain is one of the most valuable to study from a sociocultural perspective. Pain can be methodologically difficult to study. At once reactions to pain are universal and yet the experience is fundamentally solitary and isolating. -
The teaching of astronomy in medieval universities, principally at Paris in the fourteenth century
Posted on February 10, 2013 | No CommentsObviously, however, learned men of antiquity and the Middle Ages showed the greatest interest in such genuinely astronomical activities as the observation of the skies, of the heavenly bodies and of their movements, positions, orbits, and anomalies. -
The Rise of Alchemy in Fourteenth-Century England
Posted on February 6, 2013 | No CommentsHowever the alchemical source of the early fourteenth century also explicitly maintained that knowledge of the secret of secrets involved an understanding of the hidden forces within the earth, and this in turn would bring earthly power. The most obvious manifestation of this interest in alchemical secrets lay in the belief that controlled experimentation with mercury and sulphur could effect transmutation of base metals into gold. -
Reconstruction of the diet in a mediaeval monastic community from the coast of Belgium
Posted on January 31, 2013 | No CommentsThe aim of the present article is to report the results of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis on skeletons from a Belgian mediaeval population, and to look at variations in diet that may relate to age and social status. -
The Eternity of the World and Renaissance Historical Thought
Posted on January 27, 2013 | No CommentsMedieval and Renaissance controversies over the Aristotelian doctrine of “the eternity of the world” have hitherto been treated as disputes restricted to natural philosophers and theologians. -
Body Mass and Body Mass Index estimation in medieval Switzerland
Posted on January 27, 2013 | No CommentsThe aim of the present study is to test the available BM estimation formulae based on the femoral head breadth (Auerbach and Ruff 2004, Grine et al. 1995, McHenry 1992, Ruff et al. 1991) on skeletal populations from medieval Switzerland and to reconstruct the BM and the BMI within a specific temporal and geographical setting. -
The Trebuchet
Posted on January 13, 2013 | No CommentsRecent reconstructions and computer simulations reveal the operating principles of the most powerful weapon of its time -
The Use of Gunpowder Weapons in the Wars of the Roses
Posted on January 7, 2013 | No CommentsDuring the fourteenth century, while continental gunpowder holdings were largely in local control England's gunpowder weaponry never fell under a similar local control, but was always exclusively a royal possession. -
Observational Archaeoastronomy at Stonehenge: Winter and Summer Solstice Sun Rise and Set Alignments Accurate to 0.2 o in 4000 BP
Posted on December 21, 2012 | No CommentsOur studies since 1980 of Solstice and Equalnight Sun Rise and Set alignments at an ancient site in southern Alberta, the Majorville Medicine Wheel Complex (MMWC), have drawn our attention to Stonehenge (Atkinson 1979; Burl 1976, 1993). While there might have been no ideological or religious similarities between societies in North America and Britain 5000 years ago, we know of no evidence that there was not. Indeed, Sun worship was world-wide at that time. -
An Ecoritical Approach to Chaucer. Representations of the Natural World in the English Literature of the Middle Ages
Posted on December 15, 2012 | No CommentsThe choice to write and present a study of nature in medieval English literature from an ecological perspective has been originated by a personal interest in the urgency of the deep environmental crisis we are faced with and by the drive to expand the eco- oriented study of representations of nature in literature to chronological and spatial areas well beyond those originally typical of ecological criticism. -
Tycho Brahe was not killed by mercury poisoning, tests reveal
Posted on November 20, 2012 | No CommentsOne of the most persistent theories has been that he died of mercury poisoning, either because he voluntarily ingested large quantities of mercury for medicinal purposes, or because mercury was used to poison him. -
Why the Scientific Revolution Did Not Take Place in China – or Didn’t It?
Posted on November 11, 2012 | No CommentsWhy, between the first century BC and the fifteenth century AD, Chinese civilization was much more efficient than occidental in applying human natural knowledge to practical human needs -
Science and Religion in the Middle Ages
Posted on November 6, 2012 | No CommentsWhy did science and natural philosophy suffer such disparate fates in the two great civilizations of Christendom and Islam? -
Jewish Lightning Rod: Between Magic and Science
Posted on October 21, 2012 | No CommentsPeople learned how to “tie up a portion of lightning” only recently. We have no information aboutany experiments of medieval scientists with lightnings, and even the fundamental dictionary of thehistory of science by Mayerhöfer is silent about it. -
Coptic Dress In Egypt: The Social Life Of Medieval Cloth
Posted on October 21, 2012 | No CommentsCoptic textiles in most collections present a very rich iconography, somewhat derived from classical traditions, which has also attracted the attention of art historians. Very little of their work, however, has made any headway in our understanding of the contemporaneous meanings of Coptic textile images and other decorations. -
You Are What You Eat: Hildegard of Bingen’s Viriditas
Posted on October 21, 2012 | No CommentsHildegard argues in the beginning of Physica that humans become what they eat. -
Building a Model Astrolabe
Posted on October 15, 2012 | No CommentsThis paper presents a hands-on introduction to the medieval astrolabe, based around a working model which can be constructed from photocopies of the supplied figures. -
Organa doctorum: Gerbert of Aurillac, organbuilder?
Posted on October 11, 2012 | No CommentsHe was born a peasant. Yet, through intelligence, political skill and uncommon good luck he came to be one of the most influential people in the Europe of his time...Pope Sylvester II. -
Solar Eclipses in Medieval Islamic Civilization
Posted on October 8, 2012 | No CommentsIn ancient times, the births and deaths of leaders or dignitaries were often supposed to be associated with celestial omens. However, Islamic theology does not accept that eclipses are indications of events on earth. -
Understanding the Language of Alchemy
Posted on September 30, 2012 | No CommentsThe editing of medieval alchemical texts poses a number of challenges to the modern scholar. -
The Reference Corpus of Late Middle English Scientific Prose
Posted on September 25, 2012 | No CommentsThis paper presents the current status of the project Reference Corpus of Late Middle English Scientific Prose, which pursues the digital editing of hitherto unedited scientific, particularly medical, manuscripts in late Middle English, as well as the compilation of an annotated corpus -
Jewish Collaborators in Alfonso’s Scientific Work
Posted on September 16, 2012 | No CommentsWhat is remarkable about the Jewish translators whose work was sponsored by Alfonso, following an already old tradition of Jewish translation activity, was their concentration almost exclusively on scientific literature and their significant contribution to the development of the Spanish language.
