East Asian History Sourcebook East Asian History Sourcebook: Ch’ing-Tsing: Nestorian Tablet: Eulogizing the Propagation of the Illustrious Religion in China, with a Preface, – Paul Halsall
composed by a priest of the Syriac Church, 781 A.D. [Horne Introduction]: This remarkable record of the fact that Christianity flourished in medieval China is a huge stone about ten feet high. Carven dragons and a cross adorn its summit, and its main shaft is completely covered with some two thousand Chinese characters. It stands now in the Peilin or “Forest of Tablets” in Sian-fu, this Peilin being a great hall specially devoted to the preservation of old historic tablets. Up to a few years ago the ancient stone stood with other unvalued monuments in the grounds of a Buddhist...
Read MoreSeverus Sebokht, on the constellations
This text was transcribed by Roger Pearse, Ipswich, UK Introduction by François Nau • Introduction • The sources used by Severus • Biographical details on Severus Sebokht given by Ms. 364. The treatise on the constellations, written in 660 by Severus Sebokht, Bishop of Kinnesrin. Introduction Severus Sebokht has been known above all as a populariser among the Syrians of Greek philosophy. (cf. E. Renan, De philosophia peripatetica apud Syros) We now know, thanks to a manuscript brought to light by Addai Scher and analysed in ROC 15 (1910),...
Read MoreSeverus Sebokht, Description of the Astrolabe
This text was transcribed by Roger Pearse, Ipswich, UK Severus Sebokht, Description of the Astrolabe, in R.T.Gunther, Astrolabes of the World, Oxford (1932) •Introduction •Part 2 – Use of the Astrolabe ◦1. To find during the day, with the help of the astrolabe, the solar hour; then to find for this hour the degree (of the zodiac) that is in the ascendant, which star rises and sets, is in the descendant, which is in the middle of the heaven (at the meridian) and which is beneath the earth. ◦2. To find the hour during the night from the stars. ◦3. To find the hour during...
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