This collection of essays explores processes of innovation in Greco-Roman technology and science. It uses the concept of ‘anchoring’ to investigate the microhistories of technological and scientific practices and ideas. The volume combines broad, theoretical essays with more targeted case studies of individual inventions and innovations. In doing so, it moves beyond the emphasis on achievement that has traditionally characterized modern scholarship on ancient technology and science. Instead, the chapters of this volume analyse the manifold ways in which new technologies and ideas were anchored in what was already known and familiar, and highlight how, once familiar, technologies and ideas could themselves become anchoring points for inventions and innovations.
Table of Contents
Anchoring, Science and Technology in Greco-Roman Antiquity—an Introduction (Miko Flohr, Teun Tieleman, and Stephan Mols)
Part 1 Anchoring
How the Romans Conceived Their Roads: Inner Experience in the Anchoring of Technological Innovation (James W. McAllister)
Anchoring Innovation as a Form of Social Construction of Technology (Wiebe E. Bijker)
Beyond Innovation: Early Modern European Technological Values (Lorraine Daston)
Ancient Greek Doors and Their Humans (Ineke Sluiter)
Part 2 Innovation
The Reinforcement System of the Theban Treasury in Delphi (Jean Vanden Broeck-Parant)
From Ashlar to Brick: Anchoring and Innovation in Roman Building Practice (Miko Flohr)
Tiberius and the Threat of Innovation (Serena Connolly)
Functional Innovation in Bookcraft in Roman Egypt (Mark de Kreij)
Part 3 Technology
Anchoring, Innovation, and Ancient Near Eastern Technology (Jill L. Baker)
From Hand-Bow to Torsion Artillery Devices: Technological Innovation and the Human Factor (Maria Gerolemou)
Risky Business: Anchoring Blown Glass and terra sigillata Production in the Face of Risk (Anna Soifer)
Models and Modeling in Roman Technology (Rabun Taylor)
Of Myths and Machines: Anchoring Technology in Mythology in Imperial Rome (Michiel Meeusen)
Part 4 Science
Authorizing Prognosis in Prometheus Bound (Marianne Govers Hopman)
Anchoring in tekhnê. Weaving and Plato’s Distinction of Pure and Applied Knowledge (Giovanni Fanfani, Ellen Harlizius-Klück, and Annapurna Mamidipudi)
Cultural and Cognitive Anchoring in Hero of Alexandria’s Metrica (Courtney Roby)
Galen’s Use of Hippocrates as an Anchor for Medical Innovation (Teun Tieleman)
Bibliographical details
Type
Edited volume. Publication of a 2020 virtual conference on Anchoring Technology, held in the context of the ‘Anchoring Innovation’ project.
Reference
Flohr, M., S. Mols and T. Tieleman (2025). Anchoring Science and Technology in Greco-Roman Antiquity. Euhormos. Greco-Roman Studies in Anchoring Innovation 7. Leiden: Brill.
Open Access
The book is published in open access and accessible through the Brill website.
Miko Flohr, 06/03/2025