scholarly journals Comparing Modern and Classical Perspectives on Spider Silks and Webs

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-156
Author(s):  
Gabriele Greco ◽  
Virginia Mastellari ◽  
Chris Holland ◽  
Nicola M. Pugno
Keyword(s):  
Material Properties ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Research Network ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Spider Silks ◽  
The Web ◽  
Ancient Texts

Abstract Spiders have always fascinated humankind as whilst they are often reviled, their product, the web and its silk, are commonly viewed in awe. As such, silks’ material properties and the fear and fascination surrounding the animals that spin it are seen to play an important role in the development of many cultures and societies. More recently this is even more so with the formalization of this inspiration in scientific and technical communities through biomimetics. The aim of this work is to reflect on the beginnings of our relationship with silk and discuss concepts associated with spider silks and webs in ancient Greek and Roman times whilst comparing this with our current understanding of the field. In this way, ancient texts, namely Greek and Latin ones, are found to intersect with modern advanced disciplines, ranging from architecture to medicine to physics. This allows us not only to understand how natural observation has evolved from antiquity to today, but also how such a highly interdisciplinary research network has been spun by some shared conceptual threads.

La part d’Henri Weil dans l’édition du De la musique attribué à Plutarque (Paris, E. Leroux, 1900)

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-265
Author(s):  
Laurent Calvié
Keyword(s):  
Original Condition ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Close Collaboration ◽  
First Time ◽  
Ancient Texts

The Weil-Reinach edition of the De musica attributed to Plutarch is the result of a close collaboration of two among the best philologists and specialists of ancient Greek music active in France between the 19th and the 20th centuries : H. Weil and his pupil Th. Reinach. The latter (who personally provided the collation of the manuscripts, some of the exegetical notes and the index) put together the material, but it was Weil who should be regarded as primarily responsible for the work, whose overall organization and component parts are perfectly consistent with the principles and methods that he had already applied to his previous editions : the subordination of the criticism of the texts, founded on the recension of manuscripts, to their history and interpretation. The interventionism typical of this publication derives from the extremely ambitious target that Weil imposed on all his ecdotic works : the reconstruction not of the corrupt archetype of the extant Byzantine and Humanist manuscripts, but of the original condition of the ancient texts. Viewed in this light, the Weil-Reinach edition of the De musica is a treasure of erudition and intelligence, in which the textual problems of a text, which had been deeply altered since antiquity, are raised for the first time.

The 373 B.C. Helike (Gulf of Corinth, Greece) Earthquake and Tsunami, Revisited

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stathis C. Stiros
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Total Loss ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
Gulf Of Corinth ◽  
Tectonically Active ◽  
City States ◽  
The Town ◽  
Archaeological Excavations ◽  
Ancient Texts

Abstract Ancient authors report the destruction and drowning in 373 B.C. in the Gulf of Corinth (Greece) of Helike (Helice and Eliki), an important, nearly coastal town, and of Boura (Bura, Buris, Bouris, and Voura), another town in the hinterland, as a punishment by the ancient God Poseidon because of a serious crime committed in his shrine. This narrative has been regarded as a description of a true event, though with some exaggerations, and the 373 B.C. event is included in earthquake and tsunami catalogs. In the first part of this article, it is shown that (1) local natural hazards exclude the possibility (risk) of total loss of the ancient “polis” (town state) of ancient Helike because of its vulnerability due to its geography. (2) Systematic geoarchaeological studies confirm this prediction because they reveal essentially undisturbed archaeological layers predating and postdating 373 B.C., with no signs of a tsunami. (3) Archaeological excavations have recently brought to light, among other findings, remains of the harbor of Boura and of the shrine of Poseidon at Helike, as well as coins issued by Helike several decades after its alleged loss. This evidence permits a reconsideration of ancient texts related to the loss of Helike in a supervised learning-type approach. It was found that genuine ancient Greek texts do not mention any catastrophe of Helike, but rather that the legend of its total loss appeared several centuries later in Roman times, in local legends, rumors, and forged or manipulated ancient texts (e.g., by pseudo-Aristotle). The ancient legend became important because it explained the collapse of the town state of Helike and it fit ancient religious ideas in a tectonically active region because of the rapid burial (“disappearance”) of ancient Greek remains under sediments in a young delta and because of the prominent location of Helike in the seafaring route between Rome and the eastern Mediterranean. For earthquakes before our era, historical and archaeological data have attracted interpretations… attributing to earthquakes… the demise of flourishing city-states. …The reason for the revival of catastrophe hypotheses is perhaps that they are easy to explain. They are too simple, too obvious and too coincidental and chiefly because they have become fashionable in recent years. (Ambraseys, 2006)

Conclusions

2019 ◽  
pp. 243-250
Author(s):  
Lucy C. M. M. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Drama ◽  
Relevant Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Questions ◽  
The Way

As well as bringing together all the relevant evidence for the quality and activity of the chorus of drama in the fourth century, this monograph has raised certain key questions about the current understanding of the nature and development of Attic drama as a whole. First, it shows that the supposed ‘civic’ quality of the chorus of drama is, in fact, an association loaned, inappropriately, from the genre of circular, ‘dithyrambic’, choral performance. Being attentive to the cultural differences between these two genres should prompt a further re-evaluation of how to read dramatic choruses more generally. Second, the way in which key fourth-century authors such as Plato and Xenophon use the image of the chorus to discuss the concept of leadership has profoundly shaped ways of construing choreia in ancient Greek drama, and the ancient Mediterranean more generally. Armed with this knowledge, it is possible to retell the story and history of the chorus in drama.

scholarly journals Hippocrates, Galen, and the uses of trepanation in the ancient classical world

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Symeon Missios
Keyword(s):  
Surgical Procedures ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
The State ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Classical World ◽  
The World ◽  
Medical Writers ◽  
Ancient Texts

✓Trepanation (ανατρησιζ) is the process by which a hole is drilled into the skull, exposing the intracranial contents for either medical or mystical purposes. It represents one of the oldest surgical procedures, and its practice was widespread in many ancient cultures and several parts of the world. Trepanation was used in ancient Greece and Rome, as described in several ancient texts. Hippocrates and Galen are two of the most prominent ancient Greek medical writers, and their works have influenced the evolution of medicine and neurosurgery across the centuries. The purpose of this paper is to examine Hippocrates' and Galen's written accounts of the technique and use of trepanation in the ancient Greek and Roman world. Examination of those records reveals the ancient knowledge of neurological anatomy, physiology, and therapeutics, and illustrates the state and evolution of neurosurgery in the classical world.

A practice-based exploration of the enactment of information literacy among PhD students in an interdisciplinary research field

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 414-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ola Pilerot
Keyword(s):  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Research Network ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Crucial Part ◽  
Interdisciplinary Network

Purpose – The study aims to explore the interaction between the students, the material objects surrounding them, and their social site. The purpose of this paper is to identify and elucidate information literacy as it is being enacted within a complex and heterogeneous community of PhD students. Design/methodology/approach – The study is conducted from a practice-based perspective, according to which information literacy is conceived as learnt through interaction within the socio-material practice where the learner is active. In order to produce empirical material, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten doctoral students in an interdisciplinary research network, and their workplaces were visited. Findings – The PhD students in this interdisciplinary network are more or less constantly engaged in the enactment of information literacy. It takes place in dialogue with others who can be both co-located and distantly located, and occurs through discussions about work in progress, through processes of evaluation and assessment of texts and authors, and through mundane everyday activities such as participating in meetings, which offer insights into how to navigate, in the broadest sense, the world of academia. A crucial part of the enactment of information literacy, which in practice is inseparable from interaction with others, is to pay attention to physical surroundings and material objects. Practical implications – The findings have implications for prospective PhD students in interdisciplinary fields, for their supervisors, and potentially also for librarians who are supposed to serve these groups. Originality/value – Research on the information literacies of PhD students in interdisciplinary fields is scarce. The practice-based approach applied in this study offers an extended and deepened understanding of the enactment of information literacy among PhD students in one interdisciplinary research practice.

Vesalius and the Reading of Galen's Teleology*

1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy G. Siraisi
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Major Part ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Intellectual Tradition ◽  
New Information ◽  
The World ◽  
Modern Experience ◽  
Ancient Texts

Sixteenth-century approaches to the world of nature remained resolutely bound to ancient texts. Hostility to the medieval past, new theories, new experiences, and new information were evidently abundantly present. But medieval predecessors were far more likely to be criticized for failure to understand ancient authority than for slavish dependence on it; dissatisfaction with intellectual tradition was apt to express itself in form of a call for return to the ideas of ancients who preceded the standard school authors in time; and in every branch of natural philosophy, natural history, and medicine, examination of the writings of ancient Greek authors was a major, perhaps the major, part of the task of the investigator. Innovators — some of them very bold and some very eccentric indeed — reworked, recombined, and criticized the ancients, or measured their teachings against modern experience; but they seldom ignored them.

illustrations, technical

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Ann Roby
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Medieval Manuscript ◽  
Ancient Texts

Ancient Greek and Roman scientific and technical works, especially in the exact sciences, were much more commonly illustrated than texts in other genres. The images in those texts ranged from the relatively abstract diagrams in mathematical, astronomical, and harmonic texts to the more pictorial images of botanical, medical, and surveying texts. For the most part, the images that survive are found in medieval manuscript copies. Although there are often striking variations from one manuscript to another, and the parchment or paper codex offers very different possibilities for illustrations than the papyrus rolls on which the ancient texts would originally have been composed, the texts themselves often offer clues about the author’s intentions for the images that accompanied the text.

scholarly journals Climate Change: A Bibliometric Study of Adaptation, Mitigation and Resilience

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (17) ◽  
pp. 6935 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Einecker ◽  
Andrew Kirby
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Web Of Science ◽  
Bibliometric Study ◽  
Stem Fields ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Web ◽  
Research And Policy

The paper uses bibliometric methods to explore the production of knowledge in the field of climate change from 1991–2019. Using the Web of Science database, we demonstrate the growth of publications in the field, including papers in mitigation, adaptation and resilience. Using VOSviewer software, we show the connections between these subfields and the journals in which they are published. The analysis displays clusters of publications in different subfields and minimal convergence of research in STEM fields and the social sciences. We suggest that this lack of convergence may reflect a relative shortage of interdisciplinary research which may in turn have negative outcomes in terms of research and policy.

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