Learned man and woman in antiquity and the middle ages

This chapter discusses various social roles of learned individuals in the ancient and medieval periods, by focusing on the technical and exact sciences. In particular, it covers mathematicians in Hellenic Greece, Scribal families in Achaemenid and Selucid Uruk, scholarly clients from Warring States and early Han China, Galen and Ptolemy in Imperial Rome, the contexts of medieval Sanskrit scholarship, translators in Abbasid Baghdad, calendar reform in medieval China, stipendiary scholars in medieval Damascus, and women scholars of the ancient and medieval periods. I argue that the social roles of practitioners and the products of scholarly activities are inseparable.