Talk:Science in the ancient world

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I think it would be better to merge the two sections on Greek science and greco-roman science, because the information provided largely overlap. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.185.178.31 (talk) 16:35, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm italian and my english prose is not so good. If anybody fluent in English feels she/he can improve my paragraph on Greek Science I would be glad of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.185.178.31 (talk) 11:17, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Sources on Egyptian Medicine

The recently added discussion of Egyptian medicine (especially the third paragraph beginning with the discussion of "sewage pharmacology" to the end of the paragraph) relies on a number of tertiary sources of dubious quality. The beginning (and older) part of the paragraph seems to be based on sounder and more balanced sources. --SteveMcCluskey 00:00, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

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South and Central America?

My understanding is that enough of the dead languages in south and central American culture have been cracked as to allow a better understanding of their level of science? I have no data but perhaps this article could benefit from another section. 87.68.244.139 (talk) 10:32, 22 June 2013 (UTC)myg

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"Early cultures"? + Original research and essay-like writing

Who says that "early cultures" encompasses everything that predates the Islamic world and its contributions to science? What sources refer to this span of cultures and eras in this way? This seems like a very odd use of "early cultures", which I would ordinarily assume refers to prehistoric and protohistoric cultures, not classical and early medieval cultures. Why not "ancient world" or "antiquity"?

Looking at the earliest revisions of this article, it seems that article did at one point cover prehistoric and protohistoric cultures, but also extended to classical civilisations. It covered a broader range of cultures, including indigenous American cultures. I suspect the term "early cultures" is the original invention of the author, and was their effort to come up with a term that could lump all these topics together.

Given the article no longer makes an effort to cover prehistoric culture and only has limited coverage of protohistoric cultures, perhaps it would be best to move the article to History of science in antiquity, or perhaps simply Science in antiquity (like Science in classical antiquity, although broader in scope than that article, encompassing the pre-classical ancient world and late antiquity, as this article already does).

I'm not sure who came up with the lead sentence, "history of science in early cultures covers protoscience in ancient history to Islamic science", but it definitely needs a rewrite to clarify the scope of the article and remove the unclear use of "early cultures"; even simply changing "early cultures" to "antiquity" would make it much better. It would probably also be a good idea to go over the rest of the article to check for original research and essay-like writing. "Islamic science" section in particular ends with a "Conclusion" which is essay-like and not appropriate for an encylcopedia article. Additionally, the "China and the Far East" section seems to cover post-classical history, exceeding the scope set by "to Islamic science". Off-topic material like this should be moved to another article if it's not already covered elsewhere. – Scyrme (talk) 17:52, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

@Scyrme I've remedied that, fortunately, by removing the off-topic Islamic section (as their Ancient Near Eastern predecessors in Persia, Mesopotamia, the Levant and North Africa are already covered anyway) and totally rewriting the section on China and East Asia. I've also added a sorely needed section on Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, both here and in the History of science article (where it is slightly smaller and worded and arranged somewhat differently than here). Overall this article needs tons of work, but the main focus should be on the main "history of science" article, which has a huge daily readership compared to this one. Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:24, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

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Requested move 29 April 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Move to Science in the ancient world (non-admin closure) >>> Extorc.talk 21:24, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

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History of science in early cultures → Science in antiquity – It's questionable as to what "early cultures" means; I expected protohistoric or prehistoric cultures but that's clearly not what this article is about. It seems bizarre to label everything before Islamic civilisation as "early cultures". "Antiquity" better describes the intended scope and current content of the article, and the proposed title is more concise and more consisent with articles like Science in classical antiquity which has a narrower scope. See above for further discussion. – Scyrme (talk) 21:52, 29 April 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 19:02, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose The difference between "antiquity" and "classical antiquity" is not sufficiently distinct and not always understood. It tends to be far too associated narrowly with Graeco-Roman Mediterranean (indeed, the "Science in classical antiquity" article forgets to point out that geographical limitation!). I suppose the original intention of this article was to call it "early civilizations" or "ancient civilizations", which is more widely evocative of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, etc. than "antiquity" simply. Then someone changed "civilizations" to "cultures", and it became unrecognizable again. Walrasiad (talk) 23:59, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

  @Walrasiad: This article has always used "early cultures" rather than "early civilisations". I don't think "early civilisations" is much better, as I would interpret that as ancient Sumeria, the Indus civilisation, and pre-dynastic Egypt but not classical Rome and Sassanid Iran which are also included in this article.

  I understand if you object to "antiquity" as being too similar and possibly confusing to those who don't understand the distinction between "antiquity" and "classical antiquity".

  Would Science in the ancient world be better? It's currently a redirect to this article so would require a technical move, but it could be done. I suggest "ancient world" rather than "Science in ancient history" as this article doesn't necessarily exclude protohistorical and prehistoric cultures and civilisations, and in-fact the lead paragraph explicitly refers to "oral traditions" indicating that the article intends to be inclusive of cultures which predate recorded history. – Scyrme (talk) 14:39, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Heh, heh. If you find "early civilizations" too far back, "early cultures" makes me think Neolithic.

"Ancient World" would be preferable to "Antiquity". At least the term "world" suggests the article is not limited to the Mediterranean. I could support that.

EDIT: But I would exclude Islamic science from that rubric. That's Medieval, not Ancient. Walrasiad (talk) 15:04, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

The problem is less that it's too far back, and more than it's too narrow. The article currently covers the full span from early civilisations to ancient civilisations thousands of years younger. I think "antiquity" or "ancient world" best describe that range.

I agree that Islamic science should be excluded. The opening sentence of the article clearly indicates that Islamic science is excluded from "early cultures". In-fact, the oldest versions of this article didn't even have a large section about Islamic science, and I'm not sure why someone thought it would be a good idea to add one. It's entirely irrelvant. The content of that section should probably be moved somewhere else or simply deleted if it's already covered elsewhere; I intended to deal with that after moving the article to a better title. – Scyrme (talk) 15:31, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

• Agree that the current title is not great, but you cannot expect readers to figure out the difference between Science in classical antiquity and Science in antiquity. I agree with removing Islamic material in any case. Srnec (talk) 20:27, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Srnec: How about the other suggestion? Namely, Science in the ancient world? – Scyrme (talk) 20:38, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

  Maybe not the best, but I guess it is an improvement. "Ancient world" is clearer than "early cultures". Srnec (talk) 01:41, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, EggRoll97 ^(talk) 03:22, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

• Support Science in the ancient world. This alternate proposal is more clearly distinguished from "classical antiquity" while still being a recognizable term that accurately delimits the article scope. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 17:42, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Relisting comment: Fixing my own broken relist. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 19:02, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

@Walrasiad and Srnec: after notifying Scyrme above, I'm also letting you know that I've taken the liberty of making huge changes to the article. Per your discussions above, I have completely removed the section on Islamic science for being off-topic (with Ancient Near Eastern information obviously retained), I have dramatically rewritten and expanded the section on China and East Asia (formerly "China and the Far East"), and have created an entirely new section dedicated to Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations such as the Olmecs, Zapotecs, and Mayas of ancient Mexico (and Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador). I have also amended the lead section of the article with an additional sentence that explains the civilizations, geographical regions under study, and scope of the article more clearly. The main History of science article also lacked a section on Mesoamerica altogether, so I have created one there as well, albeit slightly less detailed than the one here. Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:20, 17 February 2024 (UTC)