The Making of a Scribe - Middeke-Conlin, Robert

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Résumé :
This book presents a novel methodology to study economic texts. The author investigates discrepancies in these writings by focusing on errors, mistakes, and rounding numbers. In particular, he looks at the acquisition, use, and development of practical mathematics in an ancient society: The Old Babylonian kingdom of Larsa (beginning of the second millennium BCE Southern Iraq). In so doing, coverage bridges a gap between the sciences and humanities. Through this work, the reader will gain insight into discrepancies encountered in economic texts in general and rounding numbers in particular. They will learn a new framework to explain error as a form of economic practice. Researchers and students will also become aware of the numerical and metrological basis for calculation in these writings and how the scribes themselves conceptualized value. This work fills a void in Assyriological studies. It provides a methodology to explore, understand, and exploit statistical data.The anlaysis also fills a void in the history of mathematics by presenting historians of mathematics a method to study practical texts. In addition, the author shows the importance mathematics has as a tool for ancient practitioners to cope with complex economic processes. This serves as a useful case study for modern policy makers into the importance of education in any economy.

Biographie:
Robert is an historian of knowledge and assyriologist whose work concentrates on knowledge production, acquisition, and change in the ancient world. Robert has won numerous research grants, including a Marie Sk?odowska-Curie fellowship at the University of Copenhagen, visiting postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and Berlin Center for the History of Knowledge, as well as a postdoctoral grant to work at Yale University's Babylonian Collection. His Ph.D. work was carried out in the SPHERE Laboratory at the University of Paris (formerly the University of Paris Diderot) with a pre-doctoral fellowship from the European Union's Mathematical Sciences in the Ancient World project. His book, The Making of a Scribe: Errors, Mistakes and Rounding Numbers in the Old Babylonian Kingdom of Larsa, examines numeracy and mathematical education in an ancient kingdom....

Sommaire:
Chapter 1.Introduction.- Chapter 2. The early scribal education.- Chapter 3. Text types and archival practices in the kingdom of Larsa.- Chapter 4. Archives, bureaus and management systems of the kingdom of Larsa.- Chapter 5. Metrology and sexagesimal place value notation in economic texts.- Chapter 6. Errors, mistakes and evidence for a counting device.- Chapter 7. Observation and the limits of numeracy. Chapter 8. Multiplication and estimation.- Chapter 9. Rounding in mathematical and economic texts.- Chapter 10. Conclusion: On errors, rounding and education in the kingdom of Larsa.