scholarly journals Mathematical Philology in the Treatise on Double False Position in an Arabic Manuscript at Columbia University

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 308-352
Author(s):  
Alexandre M. Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Method ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Mathematical Text ◽  
Rare Book ◽  
False Position ◽  
Editio Princeps ◽  
Multiple Stages

Abstract This article examines an Arabic mathematical manuscript at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library (or. 45), focusing on a previously unpublished set of texts: the treatise on the mathematical method known as Double False Position, as supplemented by Jābir ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ṣābī (tenth century?), and the commentaries by Aḥmad ibn al-Sarī (d. 548/1153–4) and Saʿd al-Dīn Asʿad ibn Saʿīd al-Hamadhānī (12th/13th century?), the latter previously unnoticed. The article sketches the contents of the manuscript, then offers an editio princeps, translation, and analysis of the treatise. It then considers how the Swiss historian of mathematics Heinrich Suter (1848–1922) read Jābir’s treatise (as contained in a different manuscript) before concluding with my own proposal for how to go about reading this mathematical text: as a witness of multiple stages of a complex textual tradition of teaching, extending, and rethinking mathematics—that is, we should read it philologically.

scholarly journals A-4 Analytical Study Exegeses of “Alfiyya Ibn-E-Malik”

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-49
Author(s):  
Asiya Bibi ◽  
Kaleem Ullah
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Study ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Religious Schools ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Rare Book ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Language And Literature

This research deals with an Analytical Study Exegeses of “Alfiyya of Ibn Malik”. The Alfiyya of Ibn Malik   is a rare book of Arabic grammar written by Ibn Malik in the 13th century. Ibn Malik was a great man, he was well versed in Arabic language and literature and Arabic grammar. He wrote works in the field of Arabic grammar, philology, Arabic metrics, Qira'at and Hadith. He left behind a number of scientific works, some in the form of prose, and other in the form of "educational poetry". Alfiyya is his by far the most important work, which made his famous and preserved memory of him to this day. Due to his overall contribution to the grammar of the Arabic language,  The importance of Alfiyya of Ibn Malik can be gauged from this Along with the Ajārūmīya, the Alfiya was one of the first books to be memorized by students in religious schools after the Qur'an. Alfiyya of Ibn Malik has been included in madrassas for many years. Alfiyya of Ibn Malik was memorized in some madrassas in today’s۔ Alfiyya has been Part of the syllabus in madrassas for many years. Many Exegeses on Alfiyya of Ibn Malik have been written. These explanations have been reviewed in the following discussions.

scholarly journals SLAVIC «COOK ROOMS» FROM THE SETTLEMENT ROVANTSI — HNIDAVSKA HIRKA IN VOLYN

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-250
Author(s):  
A. B. Bardetskyi
Keyword(s):  
Tenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Earth Ovens ◽  
Individual Farm ◽  
Earth Oven ◽  
Excavation Area

In 2009 during the excavations at the multi-layered settlement of Rovantsi — Hnidavska Hirka near Lutsk in the excavation area 10 the dwellings and household buildings of the Slavic period have been discovered. To the horizon of the tenth century three houses and the building with three earth ovens were attributed. The stratigraphy of the filling of this building (object 3) indicates that the earth ovens were not operating at the same time. Three successive horizons are observed in this structure. The first site was a grain pit which was discovered at the bottom of the building. This pit was covered by two rammed floors, sagged into it. The analysis of ceramics made it possible to connect one house (object 18) with the first horizon of object 3 and the other house (object 16) with the third horizon of object 3. In the ovens of these houses there were fragments of pots, glued to the fragments of pots from the corresponding horizons of object 3. This building is interpreted as the room for cooking. The horizon of the 12th — the first half of the 13th century includes the structure with two clay ovens, pit-cellar, small rectangular building and the ditch that surrounded these objects. This ditch was obviously the part of fence, and the gap in it was the pass. The complex of this ditch also includes two ground fires, located in the pass in one line with the ditch. It has been suggested that the building with large clay oven which was discovered in 2010 in a nearby excavation 12 (object 12 / Ex. 12), is the same cook room. Obviously, it reflects certain stage in development of such buildings, namely the stop of the use of fast-destroying earth ovens and the transition to the construction of large clay ovens. This is evidenced by the following facts: this building is different in shape from all other houses of the 10th century; it is located at the site of the previous building with earth oven; the oven in it had too large sizes relative to other ovens from the houses of the 10th century. The results of the excavations at Hnidavka Hirka help to reject the version that such structures were the manufactories and to consider them not «mini-factories-bakeries» but only the kitchens with one oven in each individual farm.

scholarly journals Poggio Bracciolini, Phyllis Goodhart Gordan, and the Formation of the Goodhart Collection of Fifteenth-Century Books at Bryn Mawr College

2020 ◽  
pp. 189-197
Author(s):  
Eric L. Pumroy
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Bryn Mawr ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
World War ◽  
Bryn Mawr College ◽  
Rare Book ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Printed Books

The Poggio Bracciolini conference was dedicated to Bryn Mawr alumna Phyllis Goodhart Gordan (1913-1994) one of the leading Poggio scholars of her generation and the editor of the only major collection of Poggio’s letters in English, Two Renaissance Book Hunters (Columbia University Press, 1974). Gordan and her father, Howard Lehman Goodhart (1887-1951) were also responsible for building one of the great collections of 15th century printed books in America, most of which is now at Bryn Mawr College. This paper draws upon Goodhart’s correspondence with rare book dealers and the extensive notes on his books to survey the strengths of the collection and to examine the process by which he built the collection and worked with rare book dealers in the difficult Depression and World War II years, the period when he acquired most of his books. The paper also considers Goodhart’s growing connections with scholars of early printing as his collection and interests grew, in particular the work of Margaret Bingham Stillwell, the editor of Incunabula in American Libraries (1940).

The hidden material culture of the Dark Ages. Early medieval ceramics at Sagalassos (Turkey): new evidence (ca AD 650–800)

2009 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 147-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Athanasios K. Vionis ◽  
Jeroen Poblome ◽  
Marc Waelkens
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Dark Ages ◽  
General Decline

AbstractOn the basis of recent archaeological evidence unearthed in the course of systematic excavations by the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) in southwestern Turkey, this paper attempts to pull together different strings of ceramic data in order to bridge the era between late antiquity and the Middle Ages (mid seventh century to ninth century AD). Our aim is to present samples of the ceramic assemblages excavated at the site of ancient Sagalassos from layers that are most probably dated to the late seventh and eighth centuries. An attempt has been made to examine rigorously the stratigraphy and its contents that are admittedly completely different to the known ceramic forms of the late Roman/early Byzantine (fourth century to mid seventh century) and middle Byzantine (early tenth century to mid 13th century) periods at Sagalassos. Five different pottery types are presented, both kitchenwares and tablewares. The fact that all the ware types presented here are local products should not be seen necessarily as a result of a general decline in trade, rural and/or urban life, but rather as a local response to a generally changing economic system and an emerging local pottery tradition based on household-organised production. The shift from the Roman mass-produced and customised wares (that started to disappear from the market) to non-specialised local/regional production (that started to satisfy basic household needs) need not have been a sudden one. Our ultimate aim is to contribute to recent attempts to throw more light on the archaeologically ‘hidden’ material culture of the so-called ‘Dark Ages’.

Authoring and Publishing in the Age of Manuscripts: the Columbia University Copy of an Ottoman Compendium of Sciences with Marginal Glossing

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 353-377
Author(s):  
A. Tunç Şen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
Reading Public ◽  
Rare Book ◽  
Popular Book ◽  
Trace Back ◽  
The World

Abstract This study examines an early-seventeenth century copy of a popular book in Ottoman Turkish originally composed by Nevʿī Efendi (d. 1599) in the early 1570s. With around 150 extant copies available in almost every major Islamic manuscript collection across the world, Nevʿī Efendi’s compendium, or the “fruits,” of sciences (Netāyicü’l-fünūn) deserves to be called an early modern bestseller among the Ottoman reading public. The particular copy of the work located at Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Or. 360) is a notable one with numerous minhu records (i.e., marginal glosses one could trace back to the author) written in Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, and Persian. In this article, besides situating Nevʿī Efendi’s work in the broader genre of taṣnīf al-ʿulūm (classification of sciences) in the Ottoman as well as the broader Islamicate realm of learning, I will pay closer attention to discussing the minhu notes that present intriguing insights into the questions of what a published work meant in the age of manuscripts, and how the continuous interventions on the text made by the author, and possibly by the copyists and readers, enrich as well as shuffle the “authentic” contents of the “published” version.

On Original and “Originals”: The “Copy” of the Tashkent Qurʾān Codex in the Rare Collection Books at the Butler Library

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 282-307
Author(s):  
Avinoam Shalem
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Grey Zone ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
Rare Book ◽  
The Third

Abstract In 1905, Dr. S. Pissareff from St. Petersburg was involved in the production of 50 copies of an earlier Qurʾān codex. The original, namely the Qurʾān codex first discovered to western gaze around the mid 19th century, held in the Khoja Akhrar mosque in Samarqand, is a large-sized Qurʾānic manuscript written in Kufic on parchment with hardly any use of punctuation or vowel marks. This codex has been traditionally regarded as the muṣḥaf of ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān, the third caliph (murdered in 656), and was said to have been brought from Iraq by Timur. This essay presents the ‘Pissareff copy’ kept at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University, discusses its specific status as residing in the grey zone between reproduction and copy, and aims at setting it in the larger context of ‘copies’ of Qurʾān codices.

scholarly journals Abstracts

2001 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-156
Author(s):  
Roshdi Rashed
Keyword(s):  
Tenth Century ◽  
Direct Study ◽  
Editio Princeps

Among the phenomena examined in the Meteorologica, some, although they are sublunar, are too distant to be accessible to direct study. To remedy this situation, it was necessary to develop procedures and methods which could allow observation, and above all the geometrical control of observations. The eventual result of this research was to detach the phenomenon under consideration from meteorology, and to insert it within optics or astronomy. Abū Sahl al-Qūhī (second half of the tenth century), composed a treatise on shooting stars in which he carries out such an insertion. In a second treatise, he deals with another type of observation, intended to measure maritime, terrestrial, and celestial surfaces. Here, the author studies al-Qūhī's contribution and gives the editio princeps of these two treatises, as well as their translation.

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