ERC Synergy Grant

Award year: 2024

Category: Scholarship / Grant

Awarding organization: Europäischer Forschungsrat (ERC)

Astrology, alchemy, geomancy, magic and a wide range of other prognosis practices are classed as occult sciences, and are an essential aspect of the global history of science and technology. The aim of Dr. Petra Schmidl’s project is to investigate Islamic and Eastern Christian sources with this aspect in mind for the first time. The researchers’ work will cover an extremely large geographical area – stretching from the Iberian Peninsula to India – and a wide range of languages. The sources are written in Greek, Syrian, Arabic, Persian and Turkish.