The Crest of the Peacock - A Response

This is a little off topic but one thing that surprised me was the nonchalance with which a Babylonian clay tablet being in a Berlin museum was mentioned. Earlier on in this class we were shown an ancient Indian artifact with the earliest known record of “zero” being held in a library in the UK. The irony of this article, to be exposing our Eurocentric views while casually mentioning that a priceless artifact from an ancient civilization is still being held somewhere in Europe is something I can’t wrap my head around. In recent times we have been visiting the concept of orientalism and rightfully so, it’s important for us to understand that current world views are dominantly Eurocentric. There’s something about physical, and tangible examples like stolen artifacts not being returned to this day always makes me stop in my tracks – the example in this article was no different.

The clarifications of the progress of mathematics during the dark ages was something that was especially surprising. Although I was somewhat privy to the history of math and science during the earliest Islamic Caliphates, I did not know they were so crucial to modern day mathematics. It is a shame that such rich history from then, and other places including India and China have been reduced to the term “the dark ages”. It would be great and I may with some more knowledge argue that it is a necessity that the history of math and science be taught through true world views and not a Eurocentric one.