Overview
- Combines perspectives from history of mathematics, economics and administrative history with textual, and archaeological perspectives
- Offers new interpretations of administrative and economic texts, drawing on an analysis of their connections with mathematical activities
- Discusses the variety of mathematical cultures in Mesopotamia, in the South Asian subcontinent, in China and in Medieval Europe
- Sheds light on key basic mathematical concepts like area and volume
Part of the book series: Why the Sciences of the Ancient World Matter (WSAWM, volume 5)
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About this book
This book focuses on the ancient Near East, early imperial China, South-East Asia, and medieval Europe, shedding light on mathematical knowledge and practices documented by sources relating to the administrative and economic activities of officials, merchants and other actors. It compares these to mathematical texts produced in related school contexts or reflecting the pursuit of mathematics for its own sake to reveal the diversity of mathematical practices in each of these geographical areas of the ancient world. Based on case studies from various periods and political, economic and social contexts, it explores how, in each part of the world discussed, it is possible to identify and describe the different cultures of quantification and computation as well as their points of contact. The thirteen chapters draw on a wide variety of texts from ancient Near East, China, South-East Asia and medieval Europe, which are analyzed by researchers from various fields, including mathematics, history, philology, archaeology and economics. The book will appeal to historians of science, economists and institutional historians of the ancient and medieval world, and also to Assyriologists, Indologists, Sinologists and experts on medieval Europe.
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Keywords
Table of contents (13 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Mathematical Writings, Regulations, Laws and Norms
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Front Matter
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Quantifying Spatial Extension, Quantifying Work
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Front Matter
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Quantifying Land and Surfaces
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Front Matter
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Prices, Rates, Loans and Interests
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
“On a very general historiographic level, it is a tributary of the idea that unifying narratives … . On a very specific level, it is the consequence of the specialties of each contributor taking part in the collective and collaborative research initiative that was the SAW Project. It is an up-to-date window on what currently advances the historiography of ancient mathematics and, therefore, a work that I recommend without any shadow of doubt.” (Carlos Gonçalves, Aestimatio, Vol. 4, 2023)
“Mathematics, Administrative and Economic Activities in Ancient Worlds fills a longstanding need to situate mathematics into its context of administration in which it originated and developed in various societies. … These publications attest to the lively and active community of historians of science working on ancient sources and the potential to learn about the origin and early development of sciences … within societies which–judging by recent developments–has become a point of concern in many parts of the world.” (Annette Imhausen, NTM, Vol. 30 (3), September, 2022)
“As an economist, I thoroughly enjoyed and was impressed at the many details and analysis of those examples of these activities in the varied places during these early time periods. … The is book is very comprehensive in its discussion. Math formulas explaining different ways of computing interest and many other types of financial economic analysis are given. Each chapter has an ample number of references.” (Paul Gentle, HEI History of Economic Ideas, Vol. 29 (2), 2021)
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Cécile Michel is a Senior Researcher at the laboratory ArScAn, at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), (CNRS, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Université Paris Nanterre, Ministère de la Culture) and a Professor at Hamburg University. An Assyriologist, she works on Assyrian and Babylonian cuneiform texts from the 2nd millenium BC and conducts research on social and economic history, gender studies, material culture, education, mathematics and literacy. She is a member of the international team in charge of the decipherment of the private archives of Assyrian merchants excavated in central Anatolia. Her publications include Correspondance des marchands de Kaniš au début du IIe millénaire av. J.-C. (Le Cerf, 2001), Women in Aššur and Kaneš from the private archives of Assyrian merchants of the early 2nd millennium BC (SBL, in press), Richesse et sociétés (ed. with C. Baroin, De Boccard 2013), Wool Economy in the Ancient Near East and the Aegean: from the Beginnings of Sheep Husbandry to Institutional Textile Industry (ed. with C. Breniquet, Oxbow Books 2014), and The Role of Women in Work and Society in the Ancient Near East (ed. with B. Lion, Walter de Gruyter 2016).
Karine Chemla is a Senior Researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), laboratory SPHERE (CNRS & Université de Paris. Her research focuses the historical anthropological aspects of the relationship between mathematics and the various cultures in the context of which it is practiced. Chemla published Les Neuf Chapitres (with Guo Shuchun, Dunod, 2004), and edited The History of Mathematical Proof in Ancient Traditions (Cambridge University Press, 2012); Texts, Textual Acts and the History of Science (with J. Virbel, Springer, 2015); The Oxford Handbook of Generality in Mathematics and the Sciences (with R. Chorlay and D. Rabouin, Oxford University Press, 2016); Numerical Tables and Tabular Layouts in Chinese ScholarlyDocuments (Special issues of East Asian Science, Technology and Medicine, 43 (2016, March 2017) & 44 (2016, April 2017)); and Cultures without culturalism: The making of scientific knowledge (with Evelyn Fox Keller, Duke University Press, 2017). Chemla is a member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (2005), of the Academia Europaea (2013), and of the American Philosophical Society (2019).
Karine Chemla is a Senior Researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), laboratory SPHERE (CNRS & Université de Paris. Her research focuses the historical anthropological aspects of the relationship between mathematics and the various cultures in the context of which it is practiced. Chemla published Les Neuf Chapitres (with Guo Shuchun, Dunod, 2004), and edited The History of Mathematical Proof in Ancient Traditions (Cambridge University Press, 2012); Texts, Textual Acts and the History of Science (with J. Virbel, Springer, 2015); The Oxford Handbook of Generality in Mathematics and the Sciences (with R. Chorlay and D. Rabouin, Oxford University Press, 2016); Numerical Tables and Tabular Layouts in Chinese ScholarlyDocuments (Special issues of East Asian Science, Technology and Medicine, 43 (2016, March 2017) & 44 (2016, April 2017)); and Cultures without culturalism: The making of scientific knowledge (with Evelyn Fox Keller, Duke University Press, 2017). Chemla is a member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (2005), of the Academia Europaea (2013), and of the American Philosophical Society (2019).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Mathematics, Administrative and Economic Activities in Ancient Worlds
Editors: Cécile Michel, Karine Chemla
Series Title: Why the Sciences of the Ancient World Matter
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48389-0
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-48388-3Published: 30 September 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-48391-3Published: 01 October 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-48389-0Published: 29 September 2020
Series ISSN: 2662-9933
Series E-ISSN: 2662-9941
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VI, 568
Number of Illustrations: 127 b/w illustrations, 35 illustrations in colour
Topics: History of Mathematical Sciences, History of Science, History of Economic Thought/Methodology, Epistemology