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Inês Bénard

Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, CIUHCT - Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia, Graduate Student

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Member of the project “RUTTER: Making the Earth Global: Early Modern Nautical Rutters and the Construction of a Global Concept of the Earth”, led by Henrique Leitão (Universidade de Lisboa/CIUHCT) and funded by the European Research Council (ERC) with an Advanced Grant (Grant agreement No. 833438) PhD Student in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Lisbon funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT)

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Papers by Inês Bénard

The stars in sixteenth-century nautical literature: a comparative study

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Aug 1, 2022

The beginning of the sixteenth century was a period of intensive knowledge circulation between At... more The beginning of the sixteenth century was a period of intensive knowledge circulation between Atlantic and Indian Ocean navigational practices. Mariners began to incorporate new information from the disciplines of geography and astronomy into their sailing methods. Portuguese nautical instructions written in the decades after Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1497 provide clear testimonies to this shift. This article is an attempt to characterize part of the information that circulated in this transitional period through a comparative examination of Portuguese nautical instructions and Arabic navigational treatises, focusing specifically on the stars used for latitude measurements.

The Stars of Indian Ocean Arab Navigation

A reference identification and nomenclature handbook of the stars, asterisms and celestial object... more

Indian Ocean Arab Navigation Studies Towards a Global Perspective: Annotated Bibliography and Research Roadmap (TN no. 2, Version 3)

The present work is both a historical overview and a report on the current state of affairs in th... more The present work is both a historical overview and a report on the current state of affairs in the field of Arab navigation studies, with particular attention to Indian Ocean navigation. Having in view the earliest historical testimonies, and comprising both nautical technical and more general maritime literature, we focus on the late medieval and early modern periods. Although we are aware of the inextricable relation between the studies of different aspects of Indian Ocean Arab navigation, and though we are surveying and profiting from a wide range of sources, our particular research within the ERC RUTTER Project gives a certain angle to our perspective: we are primarily concerned with the seamanship treatises (in Portuguese, livros de marinharia) by Arab authors, and how they were shared with or made their way into other nautical traditions. In this regard, we are fortunate to benefit from the extraordinary pool of knowledge of our colleagues at the Centro Interuniversitário de H...

Indian Ocean Arab Navigation Studies Towards a Global Perspective: Annotated Bibliography and Research Roadmap

A detailed dossier on Indian Ocean Arabic nautical sources, with links to online repositories of ... more

Al-Mahrī's Mir'at al-salak li-kurat al-aflak: A 16th-century Yemeni Navigator's Reflections on Astronomical Knowledge

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Apr 28, 2023

Conspectus of Works of Sulaymān al-Mahrī (Muḥtawiyāt mu’allafāt Sulaymān al-Mahrī)

by Juan Acevedo and Inês Bénard

RUTTER Technical Notes , 2024

Detailed and bilingual overview of the works of Sulaymān al-Mahrī (d. ca 1550) one of the two mos... more

A 16th-century Yemeni Navigator’s Reflections on Astronomical Knowledge

by Eric Staples, Juan Acevedo, and Inês Bénard

Nouvelles Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen, 2023

The sixteenth-century Yemeni navigator Sulaymān al-Mahrī is one of the two main Arab authors writ... more The sixteenth-century Yemeni navigator Sulaymān al-Mahrī is one of the two main Arab authors writing on maritime navigation in the Indian Ocean in the early modern and pre-modern periods. While he is generally known to have written five treatises on various aspects of the navigational sciences, he is also in fact the author of a sixth work, entitled Mirʾāt al-salāk li-kurāt al-aflāk (Mirror of Travellers into the Heavenly Spheres). Unlike his other works, Mirʾāt al-salāk is an introduction to astronomical concepts and practices that has previously been largely ignored by scholars on the subject. This article provides an introductory discussion of this text, situating it within its broader literary context, both within previous astronomical literature as well as the corpus of al-Mahrī's other navigational works. It presents the ninth chapter of the work in particular in order to explore al-Mahrī's familiarity with historical mathematical astronomical practices. Collectively, the work is an interesting textual example of the connection between navigational and mathematical astronomical knowledge.

RUTTER Technical Note: The Stars of Indian Ocean Arab Navigation

by Juan Acevedo and Inês Bénard

RUTTER Technical Notes, 2021

This is a reference identification and nomenclature handbook of the stars, asterisms and celestia... more This is a reference identification and nomenclature handbook of the stars, asterisms and celestial objects used in early modern Arabic-language nautical literature. Drawn from the works of Ahmad ibn Majid and Sulayman al-Mahri.

RUTTER Technical Notes are research materials and studies resulting from the activities and investigation of members of the Project RUTTER Making the Earth Global.

The stars in sixteenth-century nautical literature: a comparative study

Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, 2022

The beginning of the sixteenth century was a period of intensive knowledge circulation between At... more The beginning of the sixteenth century was a period of intensive knowledge circulation between Atlantic and Indian Ocean navigational practices. Mariners began to incorporate new information from the disciplines of geography and astronomy into their sailing methods. Portuguese nautical instructions written in the decades after Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1497 provide clear testimonies to this shift. This article is an attempt to characterize part of the information that circulated in this transitional period through a comparative examination of Portuguese nautical instructions and Arabic navigational treatises, focusing specifically on the stars used for latitude measurements.

RUTTER Technical Note: Indian Ocean Arab Navigation Studies Towards a Global Perspective

by Juan Acevedo, Inês Bénard, and Juliane Müller

RUTTER Technical Notes, 2024

A survey (tour d’horizon) of studies on early modern navigation in and around the Arabian Sea, wi... more A survey (tour d’horizon) of studies on early modern navigation in and around the Arabian Sea, with a detailed hyperlinked list of primary sources and a good commented bibliography of secondary sources which will be frequently expanded. Mostly on Arabic sources, but keen to add from other traditions around the Indian Ocean.

RUTTER Technical Notes are research materials and studies resulting from the activities and investigation of members of the Project RUTTER Making the Earth Global.

This version 5 is expanded and improved in several ways, including new materials.

A ciência árabe na Europa renascentista: a tradição hay’a e a astronomia europeia

Tese de mestrado, Historia e Filosofia das Ciencias, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciencia... more

The stars in sixteenth-century nautical literature: a comparative study

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Aug 1, 2022

The beginning of the sixteenth century was a period of intensive knowledge circulation between At... more The beginning of the sixteenth century was a period of intensive knowledge circulation between Atlantic and Indian Ocean navigational practices. Mariners began to incorporate new information from the disciplines of geography and astronomy into their sailing methods. Portuguese nautical instructions written in the decades after Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1497 provide clear testimonies to this shift. This article is an attempt to characterize part of the information that circulated in this transitional period through a comparative examination of Portuguese nautical instructions and Arabic navigational treatises, focusing specifically on the stars used for latitude measurements.

The Stars of Indian Ocean Arab Navigation

A reference identification and nomenclature handbook of the stars, asterisms and celestial object... more

Indian Ocean Arab Navigation Studies Towards a Global Perspective: Annotated Bibliography and Research Roadmap (TN no. 2, Version 3)

The present work is both a historical overview and a report on the current state of affairs in th... more The present work is both a historical overview and a report on the current state of affairs in the field of Arab navigation studies, with particular attention to Indian Ocean navigation. Having in view the earliest historical testimonies, and comprising both nautical technical and more general maritime literature, we focus on the late medieval and early modern periods. Although we are aware of the inextricable relation between the studies of different aspects of Indian Ocean Arab navigation, and though we are surveying and profiting from a wide range of sources, our particular research within the ERC RUTTER Project gives a certain angle to our perspective: we are primarily concerned with the seamanship treatises (in Portuguese, livros de marinharia) by Arab authors, and how they were shared with or made their way into other nautical traditions. In this regard, we are fortunate to benefit from the extraordinary pool of knowledge of our colleagues at the Centro Interuniversitário de H...

Indian Ocean Arab Navigation Studies Towards a Global Perspective: Annotated Bibliography and Research Roadmap

A detailed dossier on Indian Ocean Arabic nautical sources, with links to online repositories of ... more

Al-Mahrī's Mir'at al-salak li-kurat al-aflak: A 16th-century Yemeni Navigator's Reflections on Astronomical Knowledge

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Apr 28, 2023

Conspectus of Works of Sulaymān al-Mahrī (Muḥtawiyāt mu’allafāt Sulaymān al-Mahrī)

by Juan Acevedo and Inês Bénard

RUTTER Technical Notes , 2024

Detailed and bilingual overview of the works of Sulaymān al-Mahrī (d. ca 1550) one of the two mos... more

A 16th-century Yemeni Navigator’s Reflections on Astronomical Knowledge

by Eric Staples, Juan Acevedo, and Inês Bénard

Nouvelles Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen, 2023

The sixteenth-century Yemeni navigator Sulaymān al-Mahrī is one of the two main Arab authors writ... more The sixteenth-century Yemeni navigator Sulaymān al-Mahrī is one of the two main Arab authors writing on maritime navigation in the Indian Ocean in the early modern and pre-modern periods. While he is generally known to have written five treatises on various aspects of the navigational sciences, he is also in fact the author of a sixth work, entitled Mirʾāt al-salāk li-kurāt al-aflāk (Mirror of Travellers into the Heavenly Spheres). Unlike his other works, Mirʾāt al-salāk is an introduction to astronomical concepts and practices that has previously been largely ignored by scholars on the subject. This article provides an introductory discussion of this text, situating it within its broader literary context, both within previous astronomical literature as well as the corpus of al-Mahrī's other navigational works. It presents the ninth chapter of the work in particular in order to explore al-Mahrī's familiarity with historical mathematical astronomical practices. Collectively, the work is an interesting textual example of the connection between navigational and mathematical astronomical knowledge.

RUTTER Technical Note: The Stars of Indian Ocean Arab Navigation

by Juan Acevedo and Inês Bénard

RUTTER Technical Notes, 2021

This is a reference identification and nomenclature handbook of the stars, asterisms and celestia... more This is a reference identification and nomenclature handbook of the stars, asterisms and celestial objects used in early modern Arabic-language nautical literature. Drawn from the works of Ahmad ibn Majid and Sulayman al-Mahri.

RUTTER Technical Notes are research materials and studies resulting from the activities and investigation of members of the Project RUTTER Making the Earth Global.

The stars in sixteenth-century nautical literature: a comparative study

Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, 2022

The beginning of the sixteenth century was a period of intensive knowledge circulation between At... more The beginning of the sixteenth century was a period of intensive knowledge circulation between Atlantic and Indian Ocean navigational practices. Mariners began to incorporate new information from the disciplines of geography and astronomy into their sailing methods. Portuguese nautical instructions written in the decades after Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1497 provide clear testimonies to this shift. This article is an attempt to characterize part of the information that circulated in this transitional period through a comparative examination of Portuguese nautical instructions and Arabic navigational treatises, focusing specifically on the stars used for latitude measurements.

RUTTER Technical Note: Indian Ocean Arab Navigation Studies Towards a Global Perspective

by Juan Acevedo, Inês Bénard, and Juliane Müller

RUTTER Technical Notes, 2024

A survey (tour d’horizon) of studies on early modern navigation in and around the Arabian Sea, wi... more A survey (tour d’horizon) of studies on early modern navigation in and around the Arabian Sea, with a detailed hyperlinked list of primary sources and a good commented bibliography of secondary sources which will be frequently expanded. Mostly on Arabic sources, but keen to add from other traditions around the Indian Ocean.

RUTTER Technical Notes are research materials and studies resulting from the activities and investigation of members of the Project RUTTER Making the Earth Global.

This version 5 is expanded and improved in several ways, including new materials.

A ciência árabe na Europa renascentista: a tradição hay’a e a astronomia europeia

Tese de mestrado, Historia e Filosofia das Ciencias, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciencia... more