June 30 - July 1, 2025

                             Ancient Practical Expertise and Knowledge Practices:

Pragmatic texts, handbooks and compendia – cultural dynamics, developments and epistemic functions of practical knowledge.

RFE-network “Between Encyclopaedia and Epitome – Talmudic strategies of knowledge-making in the context of ancient medicine and sciences” (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, University College London, Freie Universität Berlin)

Convenors:

Lennart Lehmhaus (Tübingen), Markham J. Geller (London), Cale Johnson (Berlin)

Venue:

Freie Universität Berlin

Fabeckstr. 23-25 (Holzlaube), room 2.2051

14195 Berlin

ALL PANELS ARE HYBRID, for in-person or virtual attendance, please RSVP before 26 June by writing to wissensgeschichte@geschkult.fu-berlin.de  

This conference, explores practical expertise and pragmatic texts that convey medical and other (scientific) knowledge with a specific focus on its applicability and socio-cultural utility in Jewish, Christian, Muslim/Islamicate and other ancient or premodern traditions (Graeco-Roman, ancient Babylonian, Egyptian, Arabic, Irano-Persian, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Indian, Carolingian-medieval Latin etc.).

The ancient, late antique and medieval periods across the Mediterranean, the Middle East and beyond witnessed an agglomeration of knowledge in various fields. Alongside some broader “encyclopaedic” impulses – and at times opposed to them – one may notice a surge of (technical) handbooks (e.g. in agriculture, astronomy, medicine, pharmacology, astrology/astronomy, alchemy, animal husbandry, architecture, geography, mechanics, warfare, dream interpretation etc.) and compilations which aimed at both practitioners and interested lay people. Those included among others euporista; recipe collections (medicine, cooking, magic/incantations etc.), texts about astrology, calendars, divination and other matters.

The primarily non-theoretical compilations constitute important sources that still await further research and also cross-cultural comparison. Presentations will address the discursive structures, epistemic creativity of specific texts, their socio-cultural embeddedness and their value for comparative study. Another focus area will be various transfers of knowledge in and between ancient cultures or branches of expertise. On another level, contributions will focus on the materiality and the social dimensions of these pragmatic texts as well as on the practitioners and the usability of specific texts and items.
     

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program

poster

Day 1: Monday, June 30

8:45-9:15 Welcome/Registration

9:15       Opening Remarks (Lennart Lehmhaus/Markham J. Geller)

 

Panel 1, 9:30 – 11:00      

Chair: J. Cale Johnson, Director of the Institute for the History of Knowledge in the Ancient World, Freie Universität Berlin

Alessia Pilloni, Freie Universität Berlin, in-person

Planetary Combinations in Babylonian Astronomical Tables and Astrology 

Angelo Gargiulo, Ghent University, in-person

From Hesiod to Byzantium: the Unbroken Continuity of Parapegmata

11:00     Break

 

Panel 2, 11:45 – 13:15

Chair: Jacqueline Vayntrub, Yale University, New Haven

Gideon Bohak, Tel Aviv University (ERC project “Jewish Library in Late Antiquity”), Würzburg University (MagEIA-Centre), ZOOM

The Pishra de-Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa: A Babylonian Jewish Anti-Witchcraft Spell in Medieval and Modern Manuscripts

Elyze Zomer, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, in-person

Dreaming Without Borders. Dreams and Dreambooks from a Cross-cultural Perspective in Early Antiquity

13:15    LUNCH (by invitation)

 

Panel 3, 15:00 – 16:30  

Chair: Katja Krause, Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte/Technische Universität Berlin

Silke Diederich, Universität zu Köln (Cologne), ZOOM

The Tabula Peutingeriana – An Ancient Route Map for Travel Planning?

Marco Formisano, Ghent University, in-person

What is a Sustainable Text? Some Late Latin Examples

16:30     BREAK

 

Panel 4, 17:00 -18:30  

Chair: Isabel Toral, Freie Universität Berlin

Leonie Böttiger, Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin, in-person

Bees, Birds, and Bathhouses: Materialities of Premodern Arabic Craft Recipes

Sousan Razaei, Freie Universität Berlin, in-person

Healing in Mandaeism and its connection to writing

18:30    Final Discussion (Day 1)

19:15/19:30     Dinner (by invitation)

 

Day 2: Tuesday, July 1

Panel 5,09:30 – 11:00

Chair: Reimund Leicht, Freie Universität Berlin

Claire Burridge, Universitetet i Oslo, in-person

Compiling Knowledge in the Early Medieval Latin West: The Addition of Practical Medical Texts to Non-Medical, Technical Manuscripts

Lennart Lehmhaus, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, in-person

Practitioners, Peer-Medicine and Prooftexts – Talmudic Discourse on Healing and Health

11:00     Break

 

Panel 6, 11:45 - 13:15

Chair: Anuj Misra, Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte/Freie Universität Berlin

Magdaléna Jánošíková, Universiteit van Amsterdam, in-person

Textualizing Medical Knowledge in Early Modern Europe and the Place of Jewish Physicians in the Medical Archive and Histories

Anthony Cerulli, University of Wisconsin, Madison, in-person

To Treat Ailing Bodies, Read Medical Texts

13:15     LUNCH (by invitation)

 

Panel 7, 15:00 – 16:30

Chair: Mathieu Ossendrijver, Freie Universität Berlin (ERC-project ZODIAC)

Anna Cherkashina, Tel Aviv University (ERC project “Jewish Library in Late Antiquity”), ZOOM

Indian and Iranian Connections in Newly Identified Judaeo-Syriac Medical Fragments from the Cairo Genizah

Thomas Benfey, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, in-person

Aḥūdemmeh An‏ṭīpaṭrōs Revisited: The Movement of Practical (?) Medical Knowledge between Greek, Syriac, and Hebrew in the Premodern Middle East

16:30     BREAK

 

Panel 8, 17:00 – 18:30

Chair: Shabo Talay, Freie Universität Berlin

Matteo Martelli, Università di Bologna, ZOOM

Zosimus of Panopolis and His Syriac Compendium on Alchemy

Markham J. Geller, University College London, in-person

Talmudic Recipes in Their Transcultural and Multilingual Contexts

 

18:30 Final Discussion (Day 2)

Ca. 19:15/19:30       Dinner (by invitation)