this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2024
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Archaeology

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Archaeology or archeology[a] is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes.

Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time.

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41
How a Rare Islamic Astrolabe Helped Muslims, Jews and Christians Tell Time and Read Horoscopes (www.scientificamerican.com)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I do not understand why religions are mentioned here. No one says the Christian invented steam engine helped the Muslims and Jews. WTF Scientific America as religion has little to do with smart people making cleaver devices.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

The astrolabe’s ability to tell the time during day or night made it an important part of medieval worship, Morrison says. This was especially true for Muslims, who—in addition to praying at specific times during the day—also needed to pray facing the specific direction of a sacred building in Mecca called the Kaaba

[–] rockSlayer 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The Islamic Golden Age isn't called that just because scientific advancement happened in the Middle East.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It is just a label though. We could have easily called the British empire or the American the a Christian Golden Age, but we do not as religion has little to do with scientific advancement.

[–] rockSlayer 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The Islamic Golden Age was deeply intertwined with religion though. In this case considering it's discovery location, mentioning the religion is highly relevant.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Yet the same can be said about many cultures throughout time as religion was the government so I understand what you are saying, but religion is still not worth mentioning. It would be like saying the CPU was made by a Democratic nation and enjoyed by fascists, authoritarian governments etc etc.

[–] rockSlayer 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

There are, genuinely, artifacts from the Western world where the religion and culture are also highly relevant to the discovery and attribution. Perhaps in the future, it will be highly relevant to identify the political attribution to an artifact. That's certainly the case with civilizations that interacted with Rome.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Islam and islamic research into astronomy is mainly motivated by religion. A large motivator of research during the golden age is islam