A M Roberts
Biographic Data
| ID | 76081 |
|---|---|
| NAME | A M Roberts |
| GIVEN NAMES | A M |
| FAMILY NAME | Roberts |
| SIGNATURE | ROBERTS A M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Southern California |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6648-5392 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 11 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1978 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Disentangling Alchemy
We have long known that “alchemy” is a problematic term. The present article critiques its use as a term of analysis and proposes a new conceptual vocabulary. That this proposal represents an improvement is demonstrated through analysis of a selection of medieval Greek and Arabic sources. The article concludes by considering how the proposed conceptual disentanglement can help us rethink the roles of chemical theory and practice, and of textual t…
Thinking about Chemistry in Byzantium and the Islamic World
This article investigates several discussions of "chemistry," understood as an analysts' category referring to theories and practices dealing with the structure and transformation of matter. By reading these texts (a treatise defending kīmiyāʾ by al-Fārābī, the famous passage from Ibn Sīnā's Shifāʾ on transmutation, Ibn Taymiyyah's fatwā against kīmiyāʾ , Michael Psellos's treatise On Making Gold , and the same author's Accusation against a sitti…
Hierotechnicians by Name and their Middle Byzantine Fame
This article examines the names of authors appearing in the front matter of our single most important witness to the Greek Alchemical Corpus, Marcianus graecus 299 (ca. tenth century). The names appear in the table of contents and in a list of authors, both original to the manuscript. The aim is to understand how these authorial attributions would have resonated with readers. What was the portrait of the textual tradition of the Sacred Art that t…
Islamicate alchemy in Greek letters on the first page of Marcianus graecus 299
The famous middle Byzantine alchemical manuscript Marcianus graecus 299 contains annotations from the late Byzantine period, most prominently in its opening quire. This article examines a text on the very first page of the manuscript, a text written in a late Byzantine Greek script, but in a language other than Greek. A number of words in this undeciphered text can be correlated with Arabic technical vocabulary that would also have been used in o…
Byzantine Engagement with Islamicate Alchemy
This essay analyzes the known evidence for Byzantine engagement with what are conventionally termed “alchemical” texts, theories, and practices of the Islamic world. Much of the evidence is difficult to date. Nevertheless, the aggregated direct, indirect, and circumstantial evidence suggests at least some engagement by Greek-speaking scholars throughout the Middle Ages. This engagement took various forms, from the use of Arabic, Persian, and Turk…
Like a Runaway Slave
This article developed out of a research paper written under the auspices of a seminar on slavery in the Graeco-Roman world led by Susanna Elm. I would also like to thank Michael Cooperson and the anonymous
Being a Sabian at Court in Tenth-Century Baghdad
Thābit b. Qurra (d. 288/901), a Sabian of Ḥarrān, and his descendants remained in their ancestral religion for six generations. Why did they persist despite pressure to convert? This article argues that religious self-identification as a Sabian could be a distinct advantage in Baghdad's elite circles. It focuses on Thābit's great-grandson Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Hilāl al-Ṣābī (d. 384/994) and his poetry as collected by al-Thaʿālibī (d. 429/1038). Tw…
A Greek Alchemical Epigram in its Middle Byzantine Context
This article examines the dedicatory epigram of the earliest and most important witness to the Greek alchemical corpus, the tenth-century manuscript donated by Cardinal Bessarion to the Republic of Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana MS gr. 299, as a window onto the cultural coordinates of the manuscript’s middle Byzantine readers. Scrutiny of the epigram’s meter, language, literary conventions, and the handwriting of the scribe who copied it i…
A case of bilateral scapholunate advanced collapse in a Romano-British skeleton from Ancaster
Degenerative joint disease (DJD) of the wrist (radiocarpal joint) is relatively uncommon in modern Western populations, usually occurring as a result of trauma. Clinically, scapholunate advanced collapse (SLAC) is the most common pattern of DJD seen in the wrist, involving a progressive destruction of the radioscaphoid and then the capitolunate joint. There is only one report of SLAC wrist in the palaeopathological literature. In this paper, we r…
Anonymous masters
The origins of fluctuations in the human secondary sex ratio
A probabilistic model of the human reproductive process is used to assess the success of hypotheses designed to explain human sex ratio fluctuations. It is shown that theories based on different maturation rates or effective lifetimes of X- and Y-bearing spermatozoa cannot account for many of the major sex ratio fluctuations. A specific physiological model is proposed, based on differential motility of the two types of spermatozoa in the female r…
A case of bilateral scapholunate advanced collapse in a Romano-British skeleton from Ancaster
Degenerative joint disease (DJD) of the wrist (radiocarpal joint) is relatively uncommon in modern Western populations, usually occurring as a result of trauma. Clinically, scapholunate advanced collapse (SLAC) is the most common pattern of DJD seen in the wrist, involving a progressive destruction of the radioscaphoid and then the capitolunate joint. There is only one report of SLAC wrist in the palaeopathological literature. In this paper, we r…
The origins of fluctuations in the human secondary sex ratio
A probabilistic model of the human reproductive process is used to assess the success of hypotheses designed to explain human sex ratio fluctuations. It is shown that theories based on different maturation rates or effective lifetimes of X- and Y-bearing spermatozoa cannot account for many of the major sex ratio fluctuations. A specific physiological model is proposed, based on differential motility of the two types of spermatozoa in the female r…
Anonymous masters
A case of bilateral scapholunate advanced collapse in a Romano-British skeleton from Ancaster
Degenerative joint disease (DJD) of the wrist (radiocarpal joint) is relatively uncommon in modern Western populations, usually occurring as a result of trauma. Clinically, scapholunate advanced collapse (SLAC) is the most common pattern of DJD seen in the wrist, involving a progressive destruction of the radioscaphoid and then the capitolunate joint. There is only one report of SLAC wrist in the palaeopathological literature. In this paper, we r…
A Greek Alchemical Epigram in its Middle Byzantine Context
This article examines the dedicatory epigram of the earliest and most important witness to the Greek alchemical corpus, the tenth-century manuscript donated by Cardinal Bessarion to the Republic of Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana MS gr. 299, as a window onto the cultural coordinates of the manuscript’s middle Byzantine readers. Scrutiny of the epigram’s meter, language, literary conventions, and the handwriting of the scribe who copied it i…
Like a Runaway Slave
This article developed out of a research paper written under the auspices of a seminar on slavery in the Graeco-Roman world led by Susanna Elm. I would also like to thank Michael Cooperson and the anonymous
Being a Sabian at Court in Tenth-Century Baghdad
Thābit b. Qurra (d. 288/901), a Sabian of Ḥarrān, and his descendants remained in their ancestral religion for six generations. Why did they persist despite pressure to convert? This article argues that religious self-identification as a Sabian could be a distinct advantage in Baghdad's elite circles. It focuses on Thābit's great-grandson Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Hilāl al-Ṣābī (d. 384/994) and his poetry as collected by al-Thaʿālibī (d. 429/1038). Tw…
Hierotechnicians by Name and their Middle Byzantine Fame
This article examines the names of authors appearing in the front matter of our single most important witness to the Greek Alchemical Corpus, Marcianus graecus 299 (ca. tenth century). The names appear in the table of contents and in a list of authors, both original to the manuscript. The aim is to understand how these authorial attributions would have resonated with readers. What was the portrait of the textual tradition of the Sacred Art that t…
Islamicate alchemy in Greek letters on the first page of Marcianus graecus 299
The famous middle Byzantine alchemical manuscript Marcianus graecus 299 contains annotations from the late Byzantine period, most prominently in its opening quire. This article examines a text on the very first page of the manuscript, a text written in a late Byzantine Greek script, but in a language other than Greek. A number of words in this undeciphered text can be correlated with Arabic technical vocabulary that would also have been used in o…
Byzantine Engagement with Islamicate Alchemy
This essay analyzes the known evidence for Byzantine engagement with what are conventionally termed “alchemical” texts, theories, and practices of the Islamic world. Much of the evidence is difficult to date. Nevertheless, the aggregated direct, indirect, and circumstantial evidence suggests at least some engagement by Greek-speaking scholars throughout the Middle Ages. This engagement took various forms, from the use of Arabic, Persian, and Turk…
Thinking about Chemistry in Byzantium and the Islamic World
This article investigates several discussions of "chemistry," understood as an analysts' category referring to theories and practices dealing with the structure and transformation of matter. By reading these texts (a treatise defending kīmiyāʾ by al-Fārābī, the famous passage from Ibn Sīnā's Shifāʾ on transmutation, Ibn Taymiyyah's fatwā against kīmiyāʾ , Michael Psellos's treatise On Making Gold , and the same author's Accusation against a sitti…
Disentangling Alchemy
We have long known that “alchemy” is a problematic term. The present article critiques its use as a term of analysis and proposes a new conceptual vocabulary. That this proposal represents an improvement is demonstrated through analysis of a selection of medieval Greek and Arabic sources. The article concludes by considering how the proposed conceptual disentanglement can help us rethink the roles of chemical theory and practice, and of textual t…
Alchemy (6 works) · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies (6 works) · History (6 works) · Art (5 works) · Byzantine architecture (5 works) · Classics (5 works) · Linguistics (5 works) · Literature (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Arabic (4 works)