The research group analyzed various groups of innovations such as the wheel and wagon, the plow, lead and silver, dagger-axes, large-scale sculpture, copper alloys, scales, lead ingots and glass. This research led to the development of a comprehensive cartographic representation: the Digital Atlas of Innovations, which is both a research tool and a way of […]
Research Topic: "mapping"
The Unequal Armed Balance (D-5-5)
Research projectThe project investigated the emergence and development of balance scales with variable arm-length of which the so-called Roman steelyard is the most well-known.
Pneumatic Technology in Antiquity (D-5-4)
Research projectThis project researched the circulation of pneumatic technologies in antiquity and maps the origins and distribution of technological innovations, as well as the conceptual conditions underlying them – conditions which served as a basis for the formation of new theoretical knowledge. This involves detailed analysis not only of relevant primary sources, but also of archaeological artifacts.
Aristotelization of Antiquity (D-5-3)
Research projectThis project investigated the epistemic networks that served as a background for the transmission and transformation of Aristotelian knowledge in the ancient world.
Multilingualism (D-5-2)
Research projectThis project explores the role played by multilingualism and linguae francae in the historical propagation of concepts and knowledge in antiquity.
Globalization of Knowledge (D-5-1)
Research projectThe cultures of the ancient world – in the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions, on the Eurasian Steppes and in the Near East – were trans-regionally linked. Indeed, the extent to which the ancient world was multicultural, multilingual and interdependent invites discussion of a globalized antiquity. This project investigated the globalization of the ancient world in its various dimensions, from technological and political to linguistic, with particular emphasis on the question what role knowledge played in this globalization process.
Ancient Sundials (D-5-6)
Research projectThe project focused on ancient Greek and Roman stationary sundials. The key objectives were to identify methods of constructions and factors that determined their layouts, and to explore the development and diffusion of the different types in a long time perspective in a changing setting.
Localization of Intellectual Faculties: Stoicism and Pneumatism (D-2-3)
Research projectThe aim of project D-2-3 was to investigate Stoic and Pneumatist conceptions of mental processes and illnesses and of the psychology of mental events (place, bodily factors involved, exact mechanisms), and to assess their relation to relevant philosophical and medical contexts. The study focused on the Pneumatist physician Athenaeus of Attalia (1st c. BC), whose works have only survived in fragments. Athenaeus was frequently quoted, especially for his doctrine of elementary physics, his theory of reproduction and his conceptual distinction between various types of causes. A collection of fragments with translation and commentary was a longstanding desideratum fulfilled by this project.
Localization of Intellectual Faculties: Archigenes and Posidonius (D-2-2)
Research projectThe aim of project D-2-2 was to reconstruct the medical doctrines of the influential Pneumatist physician Archigenes of Apamea (early 2nd c. AD) by preparing a collection of the fragments with translation and commentary, thus laying the foundations for a detailed analysis of the interaction between the Stoics and the Pneumatists. Archigenes was famous particularly for his elaborate classification of various kinds of pain as diagnostic indicators of diseased places within the body; he was also quoted by later authors for his pulse theory.
Philodemus: Diagnostics and Semiotics (D-2-1)
Research projectThe goal of this project is to systematically review the fundamental epistemological principles of a theory of diagnostics and inferences in antiquity – principles which are of equal importance for both philosophy and the history of medicine.