Mathematics in Antiquity

Extract

In a stimulating lecture recently published in ANTIQUITY (1933, VII, 410–18) Gordon Childe raises the question : is Prehistory practical ? He suggests that the disastrous social consequences of applying ethnological hypotheses based on flimsy foundations of fact are sufficient justification for insisting on the scientific study of prehistory and archaeology as an essential part of the intellectual equipment of a civilized person in our generation. Current events certainly sustain the justice of his plea. Still it may be argued that there is an even stronger reason, and one which is perhaps more durable, for asserting the claims of such studies to occupy a pivotal position in twentieth - century culture. The publication of Neugebauer‘s Vorlesungen ueber Geschichte der antiken mathematischen Wissenschaften is a timely reminder of the contribution which students of prehistory and archaeology working together can make to the solution of one of the great intellectual issues of our own time.