astrolabe

Debate by a group of specialists on the astrolabes made in al-Andalus and in the Hispanic medieval kingdoms as a paradigmatic example of symbiosis between art and science.
The central theme will be two recently published books: “Astrolabios en al-Andalus y los reinos medievales hispanos” and “Catálogo razonado de los astrolabios de la España medieval” by Azucena Hernández Pérez, who will be accompanied by science historians David A. King (Univ. Frankfurt) and Julio Samsó (Univ. Barcelona) and art historians Susana Calvo, Javier Martínez de Aguirre and Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, all from the Complutense University of Madrid.
The multiple dimensions of the astrolabe will be highlighted: scientific, cultural, symbolic and artistic, emphasising the connections between the astrolabes, the architectural spaces “of knowledge” and the cultural reality in which Andalusian production and that of the Hispanic Christian kingdoms intertwined and which, in the books mentioned, dialogue and meet again. Aspects such as the manufacture of an astrolabe, from its conception and design to its materialisation, or the presence of the astrolabe in madrasas, mosques, monasteries and universities, will also be dealt with.

As part of Science Week, the MAN’s Department of Medieval Antiquities proposes to show how the development of technology and science had a positive impact on everyday life in the Middle Ages and favoured greater social equality. In this historical period, especially in al-Andalus, a series of innovations were introduced with interlinked effects: new means of water management, such as the waterwheel with arcaduces, had an impact on the production of paper, a technique imported to the Peninsula at this time. This, in turn, brought about a real revolution in written and scientific culture, contributing to the development of medicine and pharmacopoeia.

The University of Salamanca, like other European centres, was constituted before the process of royal concession of c. 1218, so that the knowledge preserved in the cloisters would be the seed of the cultural recomposition.
In addition to the books identified and other elements that provide information on the cultural universe in which the protagonists who would eventually make up the Estudio General de Salamanca moved, it is the preserved sculptural representations that confirm the relevance of the knowledge within its walls, by recognising the personification of the Liberal Arts in several Romanesque capitals in its battered cloister.
According to what has been analysed to date, these are the most remote figurations located on the Peninsula, a milestone in close agreement with those observed in the rest of Europe.
These cultural manifestations confirm that, prior to the foundation of the Studio, a powerful and highly qualified cultural elite existed in the Cathedral during the 12th and 13th centuries and that knowledge was given great importance.

This conference will bring together leading specialists in the field of music and sound in Prehistory and Protohistory. Sound is one of our sources of perception, which is why its importance is universal and timeless. We cannot pinpoint when and how music arose, but archaeological remains show that it has been with us since our most remote past, at least as long as we have been sapiens.
Through the analysis of both the preserved pieces and their archaeological context, and with the support of ethnoarchaeology, experimental archaeology, iconographic sources and, where possible, also written sources, we approach the soundscapes of Prehistory and Protohistory, times when music and sound formed part of the daily and ritual life of their societies.

Several recent research projects, including the European Music Archaeology Project (2013-2018), have made significant progress in the study of music in Prehistory and Antiquity. The interdisciplinary requirements to address such disparate aspects as the technological study of archaeological musical instruments, their experimental reconstruction, their performance (necessary for acoustic and musical characterisation) and their socio-cultural contextualisation have demanded not only significant funding, but also the collaboration of scholars and specialists from all over the world. Despite the long history of the discipline, this work has made it possible to trace technological relationships, cultural borrowings and local innovations that lie at the roots of the various European musics.