Illustration
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Astronomical Artifacts and Cuneiform
Tablets, etc
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T: Modern Constellation
Studies
44: Modern Investigators of
Constellations and Star Names
Cover page of Volume 1 of Le vocabulaire latin
de l'Astronomie by Andre le Boeuffle (1973, 3 Volumes).
(1) Mesopotamian
(a) Hermann Hunger (1942- )
Hermann Hungeris an Austrian assyriologist. PhD (1966, Philology) in Ancient
Near Eastern Studies, University of Münster
(Germany). Professor of Assyriology at the University of Vienna until his
retirement in 2007. A leading authority on Babylonian astronomy and Babylonian
celestial omens. Hermann Hunger has published widely on Babylonian
astronomy/astral sciences (e.g., Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings
(1992). At the 220th meeting
of the American Oriental Society on March 12-15, 2010, the membership
unanimously elected Hermann Hunger, emeritus professor at the University of
Vienna to honorary membership in the America Oriental Society. Among the
many paragraphs of praise in the nominating letter is the following: "Professor
Hunger’s career trajectory seems uneventful. He earned a doctorate in
Assyriology and Semitic philology earlier than most (24), a sign of his
competence. His dissertation about colophons was a meticulous assembling of an
enormous number of such notices with an imaginative reconstruction about their
use. But early on he began collaborative works with Otto E. Neugebauer, the
great historian of science in antiquity, and with Abe Sachs who, much earlier,
had followed a similar path in working with Neugebauer. The research
arrangements moved Professor Hunger into the areas of scholarship for which he
is best known now." Within the nominating letter there were also notices about
Dr. Hunger’s scholarship ("accurate, reliable, durable"), his wide collaborative
efforts, and his crucial role in formulating and finalizing the most basic and
indispensable tool of Assyriology, the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (CAD).
Currently (2011), Chairman: Commission for Mycenaean Studies; Chaiman:
Commission for the History of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Medicine. Hunger
is a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Relevant key
publication: Mul.Apin (1989, in collaboration with
David Pingree).
(b) Johannes Koch (1926-2011)
Johannes Koch. (1926-2011). Dr. Johannes Koch was perhaps born in northern
Bavaria. Johannes Koch was a Lutheran pastor (?) (Pfr. i.
R. = Pfarrer im Ruhestand = (literally) Pastor in retirement) and deputy headmaster (StD = Studiendirektor).
Std (a senior
position) = Studiendirektor = deputy headmaster. "Title of teaching post (entry
office) for teachers in the senior civil service grade (teachers at Gymnasien (=
Grammar School/Secondary School)
and vocational schools). Senior positions are Oberstudienrat and
Studiendirektor." Johannes Koch may have been at Reichsstadt-Gymnasium
Rothenburg od
T (Rothenburg ob der Tauber). He obtained his PhD in 1950 from the University of
Erlangen. His published (?) PhD ("Zur Beziehung von Vernunft und Wirklichkeit in
der Philosophie Hegels." = "On the Relationship Between Reason and Reality in
the Philosophy of Hegel.") had connections with theology.
His degree/MA was likely to be Staatexamen.
To obtain a professional career at a gymnasium a person has to complete a
Staatsexemen. (The "Staatsexeman" is a German degree awarded for studies leading
to an academic qualification in state supervised professions such as law,
medicine, teaching, pharmacy.) Dr. Johannes Koch (who resided in Rothenburg od T
= Rothenburg ob der Tauber (Thomas-Zweiffel-Strasse)) was a
distinguished German scholar and student of assyriology; and an expert on
historical and astronomical chronology. After
obtaining his PhD he became a High School teacher ("Gymnasium"). One of his
fields was teaching Protestant Religion. His first teaching position was in
northern Bavaria, then for many years until his retirement in 1991 in Rothenburg od
T.
His interest in Babylonian astronomy was a personal one unconnected with his
teaching duties. Whilst Johannes Koch was not a trained assyriologist his many
contributions to
Mesopotamian astronomy and astrology were certainly professional and widely welcomed by assyriologists. He
attended the Ernst Weidner Colloquium in Graz in 1991. His
Neue Untersuchungen zur Topographie des babylonischen Fixsternhimmels
(1989) was an important study. In this book Koch attempts to identify a number
of Mesopotamian constellations mentioned in the Mul.Apin series. In Chapters 1-3
Koch offers a critical re-evaluation of Waerden (1949) and Reiner and Pingree
(1981). In chapters 7-16 Koch deals in elaborate detail with the "planisphere" K
8538 from Niniveh.
In a series of articles,
Johannes Koch (1996, 1997,
1998) challenged Wayne Horowitz's interpretation of Mul.Apin II ii 11–12 and
stressed that Mul.Apin uses a 360-day year, while the cuneiform tradition did
not know a 364-day calendar. In 2007 Koch wrote a 17-page critical analysis of
claims linking the Nebra disk with the astronomy of the Babylonian Mul.Apin
series: Bedenkenswerts zur Himmelsscheibe von Nebra.
Relevant key publications:
Neue Untersuchungen zur Topographie des babylonischen Fixsternhimmels
(1989). [Most of the biographical details for Johannes Koch were obtained/able
to be obtained through the kind assistance given by Dr Hermann Hunger and Dr
Joachim Oelsner.]
(c) David Pingree (1933-2005)
David Pingree was an outstanding American classicist and sanskritist and
historian of early astronomy. He was born with very limited vision, being blind
in one eye and having only 20% vision in the other. (The distance of his vision
was only 40 centimetres.) In 1950 he graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover,
Massachusetts. He began to teach himself Sanskrit whilst at Phillips Academy. In
1958 he made his first visit to India to study Sanskrit and returned to the USA
in 1960. His PhD (in classics and Sanskrit) was obtained from Harvard University
(1960). (His doctoral dissertation was jointly supervised by Daniel Ingalls (an
outstanding Sankritist) and Otto Neugebauer.) His dissertation title was:
Materials for the Study of the Transmission of Greek Astrology to India.
Shortly after completing his doctoral dissertation he worked at Harvard
University and also assumed a professorship at the Oriental Institute at the
University of Chicago. (In 1992 he received an honorary doctorate from the
University of Chicago.) He learned Arabic whilst at Harvard University, and also
began to compile lists of manuscripts in Sanskrit relating to the exact
sciences. David Pingree first began working with Neugebauer while a graduate
student and then a junior fellow in Sanskrit and classics at Harvard. David
Pingree, encouraged by Otto Neugebauer, spent eight years at the Oriental
Institute in Chicago and became familiar with Mesopotamian astral omens. Otto
Neugebauer then encouraged Pingree to join him at Brown University. By 1971
Neugebauer's persuasions were successful. In 1971 Pingree joined the History of
Mathematics Department at Brown University and succeeded Neugebauer who had
retired in 1969 aged seventy. He became chairman of the department in 1986.
Pingree was very productive and authored 43 books and monographs and 240
articles. Pingree's work focused on the history of the exact sciences (including
astrology and divination in the ancient world) from the ancient Near East
through to the Renaissance. (Included are numerous scientific texts in Arabic,
Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit.) He specifically concentrated on the study of
relevant texts in the original languages, and on the transmission of scientific
ideas between cultures. (In his fundamentally important 1963 paper in the
scientific journal Isis he again supported his thesis that Greek (and
Greco-Babylonian) mathematical astronomy (and astrology) entered India between
the 2nd and 4th centuries CE through a series of direct translations from Greek
to Sanskrit.) He also devoted time to cataloguing Sanskrit manuscripts in
numerous libraries throughout the world. His monumental Census of the Exact
Sciences in Sanskrit (5 Volumes, 1970-1994) was a catalog of unpublished
Sanskrit MSS in various libraries. Another example is his Catalogue of
Jyotisa Manuscripts in the Wellcome Library (2004) which contains his
comprehensive descriptions of over 1000 manuscripts on astronomy, mathematics,
divination, and astrology.
Pingree's personal library collection of approximately 20,000 items is ranked
as one of the best in the world for the study of mathematical science in the
ancient world. It is now housed in the Brown University Library (David E.
Pingree Collection). He received numerous scholarly awards including a
Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship, and an Honorary Degree of Doctor
of Humane Letters from the University of Chicago. He was also Chair, American
Committee for Asian Manuscripts. From circa the late 1970s he collaborated with
assyriologists in publishing cuneiform texts on astronomy and astral omens. With
his early death (from diabetes related complications) the very unique Department
of the History of Mathematics (established in 1947) at Brown University came to
a close. (For nearly 20 years he was the sole permanent faculty member of his
department. From January 2009 it was partially reestablished with the
appointment of John Steele as Professor of Egyptology and the Ancient Western
World, at Brown University, Rhode Island.)
Relevant key publications: MUL.APIN
(1989, in collaboration with Hermann Hunger); Astral
Sciences in Mesopotamia (1999, in collaboration with Hermann
Hunger).
(d) Erica Reiner (1924-2005)
Erica Reiner was a Hungarian-born American assyriologist. Reiner was born in
Budapest and received an undergraduate degree in linguistics there in 1948. She
then studied Elamite, Sumerian, and Akkadian at the
École Pratique des Hautes Études (a university in Paris that is part of the
University of Paris) and received a Diploma (= Master's Degree?). (At the time
of her death she was one of the few persons proficient in Elamite.) Reiner
received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 1955. She began working on
the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary project when she first came to the
University of Chicago in 1952 as a research assistant. During this early period
she also worked closely with the distinguished assyriologist Adolf Oppenheim.
She became an associate editor in 1956 and an editor in 1962. From 1973 to her
retirement in 1996 she was editor-in-charge of the Chicago Assyrian
Dictionary project. After her retirement in 1996 she continued to work on
the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary project. Her role with the project
included writing, editing, and reviewing entries.
At the time of her death she was the John A. Wilson Distinguished Service
Professor Emeritus in the Oriental Institute and editor of the Chicago
Assyrian Dictionary. (The publication is more an encyclopedia.) Reiner is
the only scholar to have contributed to every one of its 26 volumes. The first
volume was published in 1956 and the last was published in 2006. Reiner
collaborated with David Pingree on four facsimiles of Babylonian Planetary
Omens (1975-2005). They comprise studies of the celestial omens and
astronomy of a number of tablets forming part of the Babylonian omen series
Enuma Anu Enlil. Two volumes deal with Venus omens, one dealt with omens
about stars, and the last with Jupiter omens. Reiner took on the challenging
task of dealing with the omen series Enuma Anu Enlil to fulfill the wish
of Adolf Oppenheim to have all of this major omen series properly published.
Relevant key publications: Babylonian Planetary Omens: Part Two
(1981, in collaboration with David Pingree); and Astral Magic in Babylonia
(1995).
(2) Hellenistic / Roman (Latin)
(e) Gerd Grasshoff [Graßhoff]
(1957- )
Relevant key publication: The History of Ptolemy's Star
Catalogue (1990).
(f) Andre le Boeuffle (1924-2006)
André le Boeuffle was a French classicist and historian and renowned
specialist on Latin (i,e., Roman) astronomy. He was a specialist in Greco-Roman
astral-lore. His PhD thesis, Le vocabulaire latin de l'astronomie (Université
de Paris, 1970) was published in 3 volumes. It was also rewritten (abridged) as
a single volume, Les noms latins d'astres et de constellations (1977). It
is basically concerned with Latin astronomical terminology of classical times
and late Roman times. Later in his career he published studies on the theme of
cosmic religion and astral mysticism in Roman civilisation (Le
ciel des Romains (1989), which had mixed reviews).
His academic focus lay in
understanding the importance
and influence of Roman
astral beliefs on
ancient and medieval
civilizations.
This still remains
little known,
despite the studies
of André le
Boeuffle (and others such
as Henri Stern, Le Calendrier de 354
(1953; the standard study)).
His PhD thesis covers
the large amount
of important
important
Latin vocabulary
related to astronomical
matters and the
problems of suitably
understanding it
(i.e., problems of definition). Critics pointed out
there is not,
strictly speaking
Roman astronomy,
and the only
astronomer known in
Rome (C.
Sulpicius
Galus,
circa. 170 BCE)
can not claim to
be a scientist.
The Romans
were
debtors
of Greek science
in both
theory and in
practice e.g., such
inventions as dials,
clocks,
etc.
It is
more accurate to speak
of
"literary"
astronomy
(Hyginus,
some passages
of Virgil,
translations of Greek texts
such as the Phainomena of'Aratos
by
Germanicus)
and "philosophical"
astronomy (Lucretius,
Martianus
Capella).
The popularity
of the elite and
the Roman people
for contributions to
practical applications of astronomy
were numerous and include:
Establishing a
civil calendar,
identification of
sunrises and sunsets
for the
stellar
agriculture,
construction
of sundials.
For much of his academic career he was at Université d'Amiens.
Other publications included: Astronomie - Astrologie. Lexique Latin
(1987); translating and editing, Germanicus: Les Phénomènes d'Aratos
(1975); Le Ciel et la mer: l'utilisation de l'astronomie
dans la navigation ancienne (1997).
Upon his retirement he was Professeur émérite de latin et de grec à
l'Université d'Amiens. Membre de l'Académie
d'Amiens.
Relevant key publications: Le vocabulaire latin
de l'Astronomie (1973, 3 Volumes). (the volumes comprise the
authors 1970 doctorate thesis on Classical Roman constellations
and star names); Astronomie
Astrologie Lexique Latin (1987); Le ciel des Romains (1989).
(3) Arabic
(g) Paul Kunitzsch
German Arabist scholar and philologist. Currently (2007) Professor Emeritus of
Arabic Studies at the Institute of Semitic Studies, at the University of Munich, Germany.
He spent
more than 20 years at the University of Munich (Germany), retiring as a
professor of Arabic Studies in the university’s Institute for Semitic Studies.
Kunitzsch is acknowledged as having done more to document and study the
influence of medieval Arab and Islamic astronomy on European science than any
other living scholar.
He
specialised in the transmission of science from antiquity to the Arabs and from
the Arabs to medieval Europe and tracing Arabic influence in medieval European
literature and languages. Kunitzsch has specialised in the transmission of astronomy
(and other sciences) from antiquity to the Arabs and from Arab-Islamic
civilisation to medieval Europe. His work has been fundamental
in highlighting the development of Arabic astronomy and star names and their
influence on Latin Europe.
In his life-long study of the
Almagest used 40 different manuscripts that contained the whole of the
Almagest.
Professor Dr. Kunitzsch has published more than 20 books and monographs, 130
articles, primarily in scientific, journals and congress proceedings, 30
articles in lexicons and 65 major book reviews.
Relevant key publications: Arabische Sternnamen in
Europa (1959) (the best and most reliable study of Western use (i.e.,
adaptations) of Arabic star names); Untersuchungen zur
Sternnomenklatur der Araber (1961) (a study of indigenous Arabic
constellations and star names); Über eine anwa-Tradition
mit bisher unbekannten Sternnamen (1983) (an update to his Untersuchungen zur Sternnomenklatur der Araber);
and Peter Apian und Azophi: Arabische Sternbilder in Ingolstadt im frühen 16. Jahrhundert
(1986) (basically deals with Arabic constellations in Renaissance astronomy).
(h) Roland Laffitte
Roland Laffitte is a
French linguist and writer (author of works on
linguistics) and specialist in Semitic languages and Arabic, and specialist on Arab influences on Europe.
He researches the influence of Arabic words in Western languages (the purpose of
SELEFA). (Currently (2007) "linguiste émérite."?)
Author of works on ancient astronomy and celestial nomenclatures Babylonian,
Greek, Aramaic and Arabic, Project The Sky, our Common Heritage and its
research component, Star Lore in the Arab World.
Participates in educational workshops on astronomy in partnership with
associations or clubs, including: Centre social La Florentine de Maubeuge, Nord,
l’association Arc-en-ciel, Jeumont, Nord, l’association Le Télescope et la
municipalité d’Ivry-sur-Seine, Val-de-Marne, le Palais de la Culture Moufdi
Zakaria, Alger. Founder
and President of Société d'Études Lexicongraphiques et Étymologiques Françaises
et Arabes (SELEFA), France. It was created as an association (involving a
network of scholars) in March, 2002, and is based in Paris, France. It holds
regular meetings and publishes a bulletin. Laffitte
is editor and responsible for its twice-yearly publication, Bulletin of SELEFA.
URANOS
is one of the
SELEFA
websites. Some of his projects, such as
Star Lore in the Arab World,
are sponsored/funded.
Relevant key publication: Héritages
Arabes: Des noms arabes pour les étoiles (2001; 2nd edition 2005) (a study of the
Arabic origins of numerous Western star names).
(4) Western
See above, especially Andre le Boeuffle for the establishment of
Western constellations, and Paul Kunitzsch and Roland Laffitte for the Western
use of Arabic-Islamic star names.
Appendix: Giovanni Schiaparelli
Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835-1910) was an eminent Italian
astronomer of the 19th-century. He originally graduated in hydraulic engineering
and architecture from the University of Turin in 1854. Though not a linguist or
philologist by training Schiaparelli was also an outstanding linguist;
especially conversant with Greek and Latin. He also had a deep knowledge of
cuneiform, mainly self-taught. Schiaparelli carried out his own investigations
into Babylonian stars, planets, and constellations. He was determined to prepare
for himself a list of all star names occurring in cuneiform texts. More than 40
years before the publication of Felix Gössmann's
Planetarium Babylonicum (1950) Schiaparelli was systematically
investigating and compiling an extensive list of Babylonian star names. For his
investigations he used a variety of cuneiform texts, including the early works
of Joseph Epping and Franz Kugler. He also used
Astrological-Astronomical
Texts (1899) by James Craig; and The
Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of
Nineveh and Babylon (1900, 2 Volumes) by Reginald Thompson.
For his investigations Schiaparelli kept a particular notebook listing
Mesopotamian star names. His outstanding 3-volume history of ancient astronomy
was completed by his pupil Luigi Gabba, more than 10 years after his death.
Copyright © 2007-2012 by Gary D. Thompson
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