Anchoring Science and Technology in Greco-Roman Antiquity: (07 Euhormos: Greco-Roman Studies in Anchoring Innovation)

This collection of essays explores processes of innovation in Greco-Roman technology and science. It uses the concept of ‘anchoring’ to investigate the microhistories of technological and scientific practices and ideas. The volume combines broad, theoretical essays with more targeted case studies of individual inventions and innovations. In doing so, it moves beyond the emphasis on achievement that has traditionally characterized modern scholarship on ancient technology and science. Instead, the chapters of this volume analyse the manifold ways in which new technologies and ideas were anchored in what was already known and familiar, and highlight how, once familiar, technologies and ideas could themselves become anchoring points for inventions and innovations.

Table of Contents:
Foreword List of Figures 1 Anchoring, Science and Technology in Greco-Roman Antiquity—an Introduction  Miko Flohr, Teun Tieleman, and Stephan Mols Part 1: Anchoring 2 How the Romans Conceived their Roads: Inner Experience in the Anchoring of Technological Innovation  James W. McAllister 3 Anchoring Innovation as a Form of Social Construction of Technology  Wiebe E. Bijker 4 Beyond Innovation: Early Modern European Technological Values  Lorraine Daston 5 Ancient Greek Doors and Their Humans  Ineke Sluiter Part 2: Innovation 6 The Reinforcement System of the Theban Treasury in Delphi  Jean Vanden Broeck-Parant 7 From Ashlar to Brick: Anchoring and Innovation in Roman Building Practice  Miko Flohr 8 Tiberius and the Threat of Innovation  Serena Connolly 9 Functional Innovation in Bookcraft in Roman Egypt  Mark de Kreij Part 3: Technology 10 Anchoring, Innovation, and Ancient Near Eastern Technology  Jill L. Baker 11 From Hand-Bow to Torsion Artillery Devices: Technological Innovation and the Human Factor  Maria Gerolemou 12 Risky Business: Anchoring Blown Glass and Terra Sigillata Production in the Face of Risk  Anna Soifer 13 Models and Modeling in Roman Technology  Rabun Taylor 14 Of Myths and Machines: Anchoring Technology in Mythology in Imperial Rome  Michiel Meeusen Part 4: Science 15 Authorizing Prognosis in Prometheus Bound  Marianne Govers Hopman 16 Anchoring in tekhnê. Weaving and Plato’s Distinction of Pure and Applied Knowledge  Giovanni Fanfani, Ellen Harlizius-Klück, and Annapurna Mamidipudi 17 Cultural and Cognitive Anchoring in Hero of Alexandria’s Metrica  Courtney Roby 18 Galen’s Use of Hippocrates as an Anchor for Medical Innovation  Teun Tieleman Index

About the Author :
Miko Flohr is lecturer in ancient history at Leiden University. He has published widely on urban history, crafts and technology in the Roman world, including The World of the Fullo. Work Economy and Society in Roman Italy (OUP 2013). Stephan Mols is associate professor of Classical and Roman Archaeology at Radboud University Nijmegen and professor by special appointment in the History of Nijmegen, with special focus on the Roman Period and the Roman Limes. Teun Tieleman is Professor of Ancient Philosophy and Medicine at Utrecht University. His research focuses on Galen of Pergamum and his influence, Stoicism, theories of emotion, ancient anthropology as well as the relation between ancient philosophy and early Christianity. Contributors are: Miko Flohr, Stephan Mols, Teun Tieleman, James W. McAllister, Wiebe E. Bijker, Lorraine Daston, Ineke Sluiter, Jean Vanden Broeck-Parant, Serena Connolly, Mark de Kreij, Jill L. Baker, Maria Gerolemou, Anna Soifer, Rabun Taylor, Michiel Meeusen, Marianne Hopman, Giovanni Fanfani, Ellen Harlizius-Klück, Annapurna Mamidipudi, Courtney Robey.