Colloquium
The Institute for the History of Knowledge in the Ancient World and the ERC-project "ZODIAC - Ancient Astral Science in Transformation", in association with the Max-Planck Research Group "Astral Sciences in Trans-Regional Asia" (ASTRA, MPIWG, Berlin)
Wednesday, 18:00-19:30 s.t.
Venue: Inst. f. the History of Knowledge, Freie Universität Berlin, Arnimallee 10, room 010, 14195 Berlin
convenors: J. Cale Johnson, Anuj Misra, Mathieu Ossendrijver
Download of the program
| Winter term 2025/26 | |
| 22. Oktober 2025 | Abdurishid Yakup (Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften) "Astral Texts from Medieval Central Asia" | 
| 05. November 2025 | Alexander Jones (New York University) "Revisiting the Hellenistic astronomical papyri [with focus on P.Hib1.27 and P.Par.1]" | 
| 19. November 2025 | Bill Mak (University of Science and Technology of China) "27/28 nakṣatra-s in the Gārgīyajyotiṣa—astronomical time reckoning in early Indian astronomy" | 
| 26. November 2025 | Hamid Bohloul (Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, ASTRA Projekt) "Royal Horoscopes in Persian" | 
| 10. Dezember 2025 | Ralph Neuhäuser (Universität Jena) "Celestial observations by the Carolingians - knowledge transfer from Arabia on planets, eclipses, and the zodiac" | 
| 04. Februar 2026 | Alfred Schmid (Basel) "Hatte die Horoskop-Astrologie einen Gegenstand?" | 
| Summer term 2025 | |
| 16. April 2025 | Marta Iommelli (Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale) "Trees and Shrubs in Mesopotamian Therapeutic and Cultural Contexts" | 
| 30. April 2025 | Antonio Panaino (Università di Bologna) “Stars and Constellations of the Ancient Iranians” | 
| 21. Mai 2025 | Marina Escolano-Poveda (University of Liverpool) (in collaboration with Kim Ryholt, University of Copenhagen) "Heavenly Bodies: Astrological Physiognomies in Egypt and Qumran" | 
| 28. Mai 2025 | Reimund Leicht (Freie Universität Berlin) "The dynamics of scientific decline in Late antiquity: Some tentative thoughts about models of interpretation for the history of science" | 
| 11. Juni 2025 | Tommaso Scarpelli (Universität Leipzig) "The Weather in Mesopotamian Cultural History during the 2nd and 1st Millennia BC – Insights from Recent Research" | 
| Winter term 2024/25 | |
| 30. Oktober 2024 | Jeffrey Kotyk (Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte) "The zodiac signs in East Asian mandalas" | 
| 27. November 2024 | Levente László (Guest Scientist, ZODIAC Projekt)"The Personification of the Planets in Ancient Astrology" | 
| 04. Dezember 2024 | Robert Middeke-Conlin (Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology)"Another day at the office: Tracking epistemic change in the minutiae of daily work-life in ancient Mesopotamia" | 
| 15. Januar 2025 | Pouyan Rezvani (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften) "Ptolemy's star catalogue in the medieval Islamic sources" | 
| 5. Februar 2025 | Tim Brandes (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) "The Concept of Time in Mesopotamia" | 
| Summer term 2024 | |
| 15. April 2024 Monday!!! | Francesca Rochberg (University of California, Berkeley) "The Ontological Turn and Why We Should Be Interested" | 
| 8. Mai 2024 | Ulrike Steinert (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) "Therapeutic Agents and Medical Knowledge in First Millennium BCE Mesopotamia: New Insights from Women's Health Care Texts (and Beyond)" | 
| 29. Mai 2024 starts 16:00 c.t.!!! | Andreas Winkler (Freie Universität Berlin) "A New Animal - the Development of the Egyptian Zodiac" | 
| 12. Juni 2024 | Stamatina Mastorakou (Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte) "Unveiling the Celestial Imagery at the “Philosopher’s Tomb” at Pella” | 
| Winter term 2023/24 | |
| 13. November 2023 | Michael Zellmann-Rohrer (Freie Universität Berlin) "On the fourteenth day of the Moon, Hope and Peace were born: The earliest Greek lunarium" | 
| 20. November 2023 | Friedhelm Hoffmann (Ludwing-Maximilians-Universität München) "Zur Überlieferung ägyptischer medizinischer Rezepte im 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. - Beobachtungen am römischen Papyrus Wien D6257" | 
| 04. Dezember 2023 | Jeanette C. Fincke (Leiden) "The Moon in the 'Cattle Pen': The Halo of the Moon as Seen by Assyrian and Babylonian Astronomers" | 
| 08. Januar 2024 | Frederik Bakker (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen) starts at 17:00!!! "The Truth of Epicurus' Multiple Explanantions for Celestial Phenomena” | 
| 15. Januar 2024 | Mathieu Ossendrijver (Freie Universität Berlin) "The Astronomers in Seleucid Uruk Revisited" | 
| 29. Januar 2024 | Marvin Schreiber (Freie Universität Berlin) "The Babylonian Number Syllabaries in Context: New Evidence and Tentative Interpretation" | 
| 05. Februar 2024 | Annette Imhausen (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt) "The Conceptualization of Mathmatics in Pharaonic Egypt" | 
| Summer term 2023 | |
| 19. Juni 2023 | Serafina Cuomo (Durham University) "A distributed cognition framework in the study of ancient Greek and Roman numeracy" | 
| 12. Juni 2023 | Anna Monte (Università degli Studi di Udine) "Ophthalmology in Graeco-Roman Egypt: a papyrological journey through eye diseases and their ancient treatments" | 
| 5. Juni 2023 | Adrian Pirtea (Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte) "Celestial Omen Texts in Late Antique and Early Medieval Eurasia. Towards a Connected History of the Astral Sciences" | 
| 8. Mai 2023 | Sebastian Richter (Freie Universität Berlin) "Al-Rāzī in Upper Egypt? A 9th-/10th-Century Coptic Archive of Medical and Alchemical Manuscripts and its Intellectual Background" | 
| 24. April 2023 | Paul Unschuld (Charité Berlin) "The manifold messages of the most ancient Chinese medical texts: Who informed the anonymous authors?" | 
| Winter term 2022/23 | |
| 13. Februar 2023 | Nils Heeßel (Philipps-Universität Marburg) "Wie viel wog ein KISAL? Oder: Weshalb gab es neben dem Scheqel noch eine andere Gewichtseinheit in assyrisch-babylonischen Rezepten?" | 
| 16. Januar 2023 | Jacob Dahl (University of Oxford) "Back to the Future: Proto-Elamite and Linear Elamite" | 
| 12. Dezember 2022 | Stefanie Rudolf (Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte) A Great Star Falls" - Comets and Meteors in Syriac Literature and Language |