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Cover illustration: the beginning of Hippocrates’s famous aphorism ‘Life is Short, Art is Long’, in Syriac and Arabic translation. Paris, BNF, MS arabe 6734, fol. 29v.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gutas, Dimitri, editor. | Burnett, Charles (Charles S. F.), editor. | Vagelpohl, Uwe, editor.
Title: Why translate science? : documents from antiquity to the 16th century in the historical West (Bactria to the Atlantic) / edited by Dimitri Gutas ; with the assistance of Charles Burnett, Uwe Vagelpohl.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2022] | Series: Handbook of Orientalistik = Handbuch der Orientalistik. Section one, Near and Middle East, 0169-9423 ; volume 160 | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2021061932 (print) | LCCN 2021061933 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004472631 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004472648 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Science–Translating–History. | Scientific literature–Translations–History and criticism. | Communication in science–History. | Translating and interpreting–History.
Classification: LCC Q124 .W48 2022 (print) | LCC Q124 (ebook) | DDC 418/.035–dc23/eng20220218
LC record available at
LC ebook record available at
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download:
ISSN 0169-9423
ISBN 978-90-04-47263-1 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-47264-8 (e-book)
Copyright 2022 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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