Victor J. Katz and Karen Hunger Parshall
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691149059
- eISBN:
- 9781400850525
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691149059.003.0002
- Subject:
- Mathematics, History of Mathematics
This chapter explores the beginnings of algebra in Egypt and Mesopotamia. They are the earliest civilizations to have left written mathematical records, and they date back thousands of years. From ...
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This chapter explores the beginnings of algebra in Egypt and Mesopotamia. They are the earliest civilizations to have left written mathematical records, and they date back thousands of years. From both, we have original documents detailing mathematical calculations and mathematical problems, mostly designed to further the administration of the countries. Both also fostered scribes of a mathematical bent who carried out mathematical ideas well beyond the immediate necessity of solving a given problem. If mathematics was thus similarly institutionalized in Egypt and Mesopotamia, it nevertheless took on dramatically different forms, being written in entirely distinct ways in the two different regions. This key difference aside, the beginnings of algebra are evident in the solutions of problems that have come down to us from scribes active in both of these ancient civilizations.Less
This chapter explores the beginnings of algebra in Egypt and Mesopotamia. They are the earliest civilizations to have left written mathematical records, and they date back thousands of years. From both, we have original documents detailing mathematical calculations and mathematical problems, mostly designed to further the administration of the countries. Both also fostered scribes of a mathematical bent who carried out mathematical ideas well beyond the immediate necessity of solving a given problem. If mathematics was thus similarly institutionalized in Egypt and Mesopotamia, it nevertheless took on dramatically different forms, being written in entirely distinct ways in the two different regions. This key difference aside, the beginnings of algebra are evident in the solutions of problems that have come down to us from scribes active in both of these ancient civilizations.
Jeffrey Abt
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226001104
- eISBN:
- 9780226001128
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226001128.003.0054
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
From 1895 to 1907, James Henry Breasted produced a voluminous amount of research, much of it conducted in Europe, establishing himself as a rising star in Egyptology worldwide. He wrote numerous ...
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From 1895 to 1907, James Henry Breasted produced a voluminous amount of research, much of it conducted in Europe, establishing himself as a rising star in Egyptology worldwide. He wrote numerous books that were published between 1905 and 1907, and, in 1901, received an invitation from Underwood and Underwood, an American stereograph company, to write the guide for a stereograph “home tour” of Egypt. Breasted accepted the Underwood proposal in July 1901, and the result was a travel book for Egypt entitled Egypt through the Stereoscope. He was also working on a “documentary sources” project while trying to complete zettel for the Egyptian dictionary or teaching at the University of Chicago. After spending almost a decade the project, the University of Chicago Press published Breasted's Ancient Records of Egypt: Historical Documents from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest. It was issued in four volumes between February and July 1906, plus a fifth volume of indexes published separately in 1907.Less
From 1895 to 1907, James Henry Breasted produced a voluminous amount of research, much of it conducted in Europe, establishing himself as a rising star in Egyptology worldwide. He wrote numerous books that were published between 1905 and 1907, and, in 1901, received an invitation from Underwood and Underwood, an American stereograph company, to write the guide for a stereograph “home tour” of Egypt. Breasted accepted the Underwood proposal in July 1901, and the result was a travel book for Egypt entitled Egypt through the Stereoscope. He was also working on a “documentary sources” project while trying to complete zettel for the Egyptian dictionary or teaching at the University of Chicago. After spending almost a decade the project, the University of Chicago Press published Breasted's Ancient Records of Egypt: Historical Documents from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest. It was issued in four volumes between February and July 1906, plus a fifth volume of indexes published separately in 1907.
Richard Bowring
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198795230
- eISBN:
- 9780191836534
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198795230.003.0017
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History, History of Ideas
This chapter traces how Motoori Norinaga built on the base provided by Kamo no Mabuchi, extending the study of the past from poetry to the Record of Ancient Matters (Kojiki). Norinaga devoted his ...
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This chapter traces how Motoori Norinaga built on the base provided by Kamo no Mabuchi, extending the study of the past from poetry to the Record of Ancient Matters (Kojiki). Norinaga devoted his life to deciphering this text, because he believed it contained the essence of a Japan that had been lost after the introduction of things Chinese. Xenophobic to the core, Norinaga thought it was possible via this kind of scholarship not only to discover Japan’s origins but even to generate a return to a ‘prelapsarian’ state of harmony. The anti-Chinese rhetoric was not accepted by all and had no discernible influence on Tokugawa foreign policy, but it certainly led to a flourishing tradition of ‘Japanese studies’ that challenged the high status previously enjoyed by the study of classical Chinese.Less
This chapter traces how Motoori Norinaga built on the base provided by Kamo no Mabuchi, extending the study of the past from poetry to the Record of Ancient Matters (Kojiki). Norinaga devoted his life to deciphering this text, because he believed it contained the essence of a Japan that had been lost after the introduction of things Chinese. Xenophobic to the core, Norinaga thought it was possible via this kind of scholarship not only to discover Japan’s origins but even to generate a return to a ‘prelapsarian’ state of harmony. The anti-Chinese rhetoric was not accepted by all and had no discernible influence on Tokugawa foreign policy, but it certainly led to a flourishing tradition of ‘Japanese studies’ that challenged the high status previously enjoyed by the study of classical Chinese.
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190699093
- eISBN:
- 9780190699123
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190699093.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity, Religious Studies
This book includes key documents, along with annotation, related to the origin of the Book of Mormon, from Joseph Smith’s first mention of the gold plates to the book’s publication in 1830. Smith ...
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This book includes key documents, along with annotation, related to the origin of the Book of Mormon, from Joseph Smith’s first mention of the gold plates to the book’s publication in 1830. Smith claimed that on the night of September 21–22, 1823, an angel, later identified as Moroni, appeared to him and informed him of an ancient record, inscribed on gold plates, buried in the nearby Hill Cumorah. Smith finally obtained the plates in 1827, and, assisted by Martin Harris, began translating in 1828. After Harris lost the first 116 pages of the manuscript, however, translation essentially ceased until 1829, when Oliver Cowdery arrived on the scene. The Book of Mormon, considered scripture by believers, was finally published in Palmyra, New York, in 1830. Key topics discussed in both introductions and endnotes include the question of whether Smith’s story of the angel actually originated as a treasure-seeking yarn, whether the gold plates actually existed, and whether the testimonies of the three witnesses and eight witnesses count as historical evidence.Less
This book includes key documents, along with annotation, related to the origin of the Book of Mormon, from Joseph Smith’s first mention of the gold plates to the book’s publication in 1830. Smith claimed that on the night of September 21–22, 1823, an angel, later identified as Moroni, appeared to him and informed him of an ancient record, inscribed on gold plates, buried in the nearby Hill Cumorah. Smith finally obtained the plates in 1827, and, assisted by Martin Harris, began translating in 1828. After Harris lost the first 116 pages of the manuscript, however, translation essentially ceased until 1829, when Oliver Cowdery arrived on the scene. The Book of Mormon, considered scripture by believers, was finally published in Palmyra, New York, in 1830. Key topics discussed in both introductions and endnotes include the question of whether Smith’s story of the angel actually originated as a treasure-seeking yarn, whether the gold plates actually existed, and whether the testimonies of the three witnesses and eight witnesses count as historical evidence.
