Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World

the Roman Empire. Until the 19th century the tablets, pa- pyri, and inscriptions of ancient Egypt were undeciphered, and Egypt’s ...

anointed it with oil and spices and then wrapped it in linen bandages. Amulets, talismans, precious stones, and other objects we ...

tians were the fi rst to develop a base-10 numbering system, which allowed the use of unit fractions and binary fractions. Squar ...

advanced early civilizations. A signifi cant increase in sophis- tication occurred sometime aft er 500 b.c.e. By then, however, ...

added. Some of these tables also provide the square of the principal number. Th e Babylonians had no division tables, but they d ...

ern scientists have begun investigating the power of prayer and religious faith in the healing process, believing that they can ...

he or she would receive a slight shock from the idol, convinc- ing the person of the idol’s power. ASIA AND THE PACIFIC BY TOM S ...

comprehensive star catalogue, plotting the position of more than 1,000 stars. A tradition also records that Gan De made the fi r ...

and studied astronomy, geography, and the physics of earth- quakes. A brilliant mapmaker, he created detailed render- ings of th ...

Th e school known as the Jainists came up with some startling ideas about the nature of matter. Th ey theorized that atoms might ...

the weather and soil conditions. Th ey experimented with fer- tilizers and various types of crops, primarily grains such as barl ...

before Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician usually credited with discovering the relationship between the squares of a triangle’ ...

as fi shermen and beekeepers for information. His books His- tory of Animals and Parts of Animals describe more than 500 species ...

of the fl at ends, surrounded by a thick mist that obscured the spheres of fi re that enclosed the mist. People could glimpse th ...

the notion of a horoscope, in which the positions of the heav- enly bodies at the moment of a person’s birth determined that per ...

with advice on diet and activity and sometimes with more drastic remedies such as purgative drugs or bloodletting, all with the ...

sician and methods of surgery, cauterization, and sometimes strong drugs. Th e fi rst Greek doctor in Rome was nicknamed “the bu ...

PHILOSOPHY SCHOOLS Scientifi c theories formed an extensive and integral part of several philosophical schools of the Roman age. ...

each other about theories, methods, and treatments. Most of them would have agreed that dissection was useful, but few physician ...

Roman government perceived it as reliable and useful. It re- mained, however, the specialty of a few experts, usually those of G ...