Collections and Treasures

Cuneiform tablet ca. 1900-1600 B.C. Cuneiform writing is believed to have originated with the Sumerians in Mesopotamia six thousand years ago and was used until the first century B.C. The writing was created by pressing the slanted edge of a stylus into soft clay tablets which were then baked to preserve the inscriptions. This clay tablet, in Old Babylonian script, is unique in confirming that the inhabitants of Mesopotamia employed in their calculations Pythagorean number theory, as much as thirteen hundred years before Pythagoras lived, to calculate the size of the sides of a right triangle whose sides are integers. From this tablet we learn that Greek mathematics, particularly astronomy, was indebted to the Babylonian science which preceded it. The tablet is part of a collection of six hundred tablets embracing the Sumerian, Old Babylonian, Kassite and Neo-Babylonian periods, 2100-300 B.C.

Omar Khayyam, thirteenth century. Best known in the west as the poet who wrote the Ruba 'iyat, Omar Khayyam was also one of the leading mathematicians of the Islamic world. This manuscript of his "Algebra," written in standard Arabic scientific characters, was probably copied from an original contemporary manuscript; the work begins with basic definitions and makes its principle contribution in the field of cubic equations.

Euclid Elementa cum commentario Campani Latin manuscript, ca. 1260. English philosopher and mathematician Aethelhard of Bath made the Latin translation, ca. 1120, of this manuscript of Euclid's Elements.

Homer Ilias; Ulyssea; Batrachomyomachia; Hymni xxxii Venice, Aldus and Andreae Asulanus, 1517. The two volumes of this annotated copy of Homer's works in Greek belonged to Philip Melancthon, the chief figure in the Lutheran Reformation after Martin Luther. Melancthon used it in his lectures to his pupils in 1518 in Wittenberg and presented it to Martin Luther, who may also have made some of the annotations. Melancthon began teaching at the University of Wittenberg in 1518, and it was there that he met Luther and formed with him a warm personal relationship. Melancthon taught Greek and Latin literature and was a popular lecturer.

Folk Music in the USA