The Lighthouse and the Observatory

Stolz, Daniel A.

doi:10.1017/9781108164672

Cited by 26 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Proper to the period of pagan ignorance (al--Jahiliyya), these were structures that could aid meditation on the defeat of the tyrannic oppressor or the superior antiquity of indigenous knowledge and skill (Dykstra 1994, 57--9;Reid 2002, 28--31). The Egyptian scholar 'Abd al--Rahman al--Jabarti, son of an expert Cairo astronomer whose house was stocked with impressive apparatus, waspishly recorded Europeans' passion for "obscure details," puzzling at the removal from the pyramids of "vast quantities of debris made up of bats' droppings," while admiring the instrument workshops and the savants' "extraordinary and very well--made astronomical instruments, costly measuring instruments of marvellous design, covered in shiny brass" (Bosworth 1977, 232;al--Jabarti 1979, 92;Ortega 1999, 101;Murphy 2010, 567--8;al--'Adl 2005;Stolz, forthcoming, ch.1). He reported that during the Cairo revolt against the French occupiers in October 1798 "a great number of precision instruments: extraordinary telescopes, astronomical apparatus, measurement equipment for engineering and mathematics" were destroyed as signs of European power (al--Jabarti 1979, 84).…”

Section: Leaders Of the Egyptian Survey Such As The Mathematician Anmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oriental Metrology and the Politics of Antiquity in Nineteenth-Century Survey Sciences

Schaffer¹

2017

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Argument Metrological techniques to establish shared quantitative measures have often been seen as signs of rational modernization. The cases considered here show instead the close relation of such techniques with antiquarian and revivalist programs under imperial regimes. Enterprises in survey sciences in Egypt in the wake of the French invasion of 1798 and in India during the East India Company's revenue surveys involved the promotion of a new kind of oriental metrology designed to represent colonizers' measures as restorations of ancient values to be applied to current systems of survey and measurement. Surveyors' practice and hardware help clarify the significance of the complex historical and political functions of scientific standards. The balance of the paper discusses the survey work of later nineteenth-century indigenous Egyptian astronomers at a conjuncture of major economic and political dislocation to explore the various versions of antiquity at stake in these metrological programs.

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Section: Leaders Of the Egyptian Survey Such As The Mathematician Anmentioning

confidence: 99%