Workshop: Cosmic architectures in the late antique and early medieval Near East
'Astronomy, calendar, and related sciences in Near Eastern cultures, third-eighth centuries CE' project workshop
Workshop: Cosmic architectures in the late antique and early medieval Near East
27 Oct 2025, 09:30 – 18:00
UKRI Frontier Research Grant (ERC AG award)
This five-year project aims to demonstrate how astronomy, calendar and related sciences thrived in local Near Eastern languages, religious and cultural traditions during this period. We challenge the idea that this was a 'dark age' and that these sciences were merely 'popular' or unoriginal. This project highlights the contributions of minority cultures to the history of science.
Morning Session
9:30 Registration and coffee
10:00 Mathieu Ossendrijver (FU Berlin): ‘Mesopotamian conceptions of the universe - traditions and developments’
11:00 Emilie Villey (CNRS Paris): ‘Celestial matter and cosmic architecture according to Syriac authors’
12:00 Lunch break
Afternoon Session
13:00 Stephanie Pambakian (UCL): ‘Architectures of the Universe in the seventh-century Cosmology attributed to Anania Širakac’i’
14:00 Sacha Stern and Nadia Vidro (UCL): ‘Cosmic architecture in the Hebrew Baraita de-Shemuel’
15:00 Tea break
15:30 Karen ní Mheallaigh (Johns Hopkins): ‘Intercultural cosmology: the Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos’
16:30 Olivier Defaux (CNRS Paris): ‘The Scientific Correspondence of Severus Sebokht: Unedited Letters’
17:30 Conclusion
18:00 End
Image: Arab-Kufic celestial globe, probably built in Morocco. National Library of France.
Selected by the ERC, funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
Further information
Ticketing
Pre-booking essential
Cost
Free
Open to
All
Availability
Yes
Related events
The Afterlife of a Kabbalistic Manuscript: Reconstructing a Lost Anthology
Lecture by Prof Emma Abate. Held jointly with the Rothschild Fund Europe Network (London, Tübingen, Berlin).
Workshop: Late Antique Astronomical Sciences in Medieval Compendia
'Astronomy, calendar, and related sciences in Near Eastern cultures, third-eighth centuries CE' project workshop