Abstract
Abstract I offer here an edition and translation of a Hebrew text on the five regular polyhedra, the so-called Platonic solids, translated from the Arabic and, in my view, descending ultimately from a Greek original. The text survives in a single mansucript, now at Oxford; the translator is Qalonymos ben Qalonymos. Neither the Arabic nor the presumed Greek Vorlagen are extant. There are grounds for speculating that the Arabic original is due to al-Kindī, who reworked many Greek texts, but I find no finn evidence that this is the case. An Arabic text by Muḥlyī al-Dīn al-Maghribī draws on the same source; it has been published by J.P. Hogendijk. The author of another Hebrew geometry, extant only in a virtually unstudied Hebrew manuscript now preserved at Mantua, has had access to the text on polyhedra published here. The Hebrew text is collated to the other witnesses; some relevant materials found only in the Mantua manuscript are also edited and translated.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | From Alexandria, Through Baghdad |
Subtitle of host publication | Surveys and Studies in the Ancient Greek and Medieval Islamic Mathematical Sciences in Honor of J.L. Berggren |
Publisher | Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
Pages | 409-467 |
Number of pages | 59 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9783642367366 |
ISBN (Print) | 9783642367359 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Jan 2014 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014.