Livio Catullo Stecchini
Encyclopedia
Livio Catullo Stecchini was a professor of ancient history at Paterson State Teachers College
William Paterson University
William Paterson University is a comprehensive public institution located in Wayne, New Jersey serving nearly 11,000 undergraduate and graduate students through five colleges: , , , , and ....

 (now William Paterson University) in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

. He wrote on the history of science, ancient weights and measures (metrology
Metrology
Metrology is the science of measurement. Metrology includes all theoretical and practical aspects of measurement. The word comes from Greek μέτρον , "measure" + "λόγος" , amongst others meaning "speech, oration, discourse, quote, study, calculation, reason"...

), and the history of cartography
Cartography
Cartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.The fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to:*Set the map's...

 in antiquity. He is best known as a defender of the theories of Immanuel Velikovsky
Immanuel Velikovsky
Immanuel Velikovsky was a Russian-born American independent scholar of Jewish origins, best known as the author of a number of controversial books reinterpreting the events of ancient history, in particular the US bestseller Worlds in Collision, published in 1950...

 and for his numerological theories about the dimensions of the Great Pyramids.

Originally a classicist, he became a student of Angelo Segre at the University of Freiburg
University of Freiburg
The University of Freiburg , sometimes referred to in English as the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, is a public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.The university was founded in 1457 by the Habsburg dynasty as the...

, Germany where he studied the philosophy of Husserl, and attended the lectures of Heidegger and Oskar Becker
Oskar Becker
Oscar Becker was a German philosopher, logician, mathematician, and historian of mathematics.-Early life:Becker studied mathematics at Leipzig...

. Eventually he focused on the work of Fritz Prinsheim which was concentrated on the contract of sale
Contract of sale
A contract of sale is a legal contract an exchange of goods, services or property to be exchanged from seller to buyer for an agreed upon value in money paid or the promise to pay same...

 in ancient times. Had he known that in the hands of Kenneth Kitchen
Kenneth Kitchen
Kenneth Anderson Kitchen is Personal and Brunner Professor Emeritus of Egyptology and Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool, England...

 the sequence of blessings and curses in ancient contracts was eventually to become one of the most important dating tools of modern archaeology, Stecchini might not have focused on the clauses relating to measures. As it happened it was this focus that led Otto Lenel
Otto Lenel
Otto Lenel was a German Jewish jurist and legal historian. His most important achievements are in the field of Roman law.-Life and career:...

 to allow him to read a paper on the length of miles in the Syro-Roman Law Book.

After the Freiburg group was disbanded by Hitler he returned to Italy where he received a doctorate in the field of Roman Law. He became assistant to the chair of history of Roman Law at the University of Rome
University of Rome La Sapienza
The Sapienza University of Rome, officially Sapienza – Università di Roma, formerly known as Università degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a coeducational, autonomous state university in Rome, Italy...

 and a member of the Institute of Roman and Oriental Law of that University where he was influenced by Edoardo Volterra holder of the chair of Oriental Law there.

When he fled from the Fascist regimes of Europe to the United States to work for a doctorate in Ancient History at Harvard, he worked under Werner Jaeger
Werner Jaeger
Werner Wilhelm Jaeger was a classicist of the 20th century.Jaeger was born in Lobberich, Rhenish Prussia. He attended school at Lobberich and at the Gymnasium Thomaeum in Kempen Jaeger studied at the University of Marburg and University of Berlin. He received a Ph.D...

, who suggested that he write his thesis on the concept of akribea or precision in Greek thought. In the end, his Ph.D. dissertation (1946) was entitled "On the Origin of Money in Greece". From there, he went to the study of Greek monetary weights, the operation of Greek mints and the dimensions of Greek temples. From there he turned to the study of ancient geography and geodesy. His knowledge was specialized in agrarian measures in cuneiform tablets, rates of money exchange in Greek tablets, and the volume of jars in Egyptian papyri, cited in major periodicals such as Classical Philogogy. He also wrote some more general works, some subsequently republished, such as his analysis of Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

 in "The Persian Wars"http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/persian_wars1.php

Controversy

Stecchini's work included many controversial elements, and he complained he was ignored by fellow scholars. His defence of Immanuel Velikovsky
Immanuel Velikovsky
Immanuel Velikovsky was a Russian-born American independent scholar of Jewish origins, best known as the author of a number of controversial books reinterpreting the events of ancient history, in particular the US bestseller Worlds in Collision, published in 1950...

 in the September 1963 issue of American Behavioral Scientist
American Behavioral Scientist
American Behavioral Scientist is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes papers in the field of Psychology. The journal's editor is Laura Lawrie. It has been in publication since 1957 and is currently published by SAGE Publications.- Scope :...

 (republished in 1966 as The Velikovsky Affair) undoubtedly also contributed to this.

Most scholars consider his unpublished work on metrology, based on his work on ancient numismatics
Numismatics
Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, and related objects. While numismatists are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, the discipline also includes the broader study of money and other payment media used to resolve debts and the...

, as numerology
Numerology
Numerology is any study of the purported mystical relationship between a count or measurement and life. It has many systems and traditions and beliefs...

 or pseudoscientific metrology
Pseudoscientific metrology
Some approaches in the branch of historic metrology are highly speculative and can be qualified as pseudoscience. Interest in ancient metrology was triggered by research into the various Megalith building cultures and the Great Pyramid of Giza.-Origins:...

. His method consists of starting with an assumption, namely that all ancient measures are by definition related. It is an old and intriguing idea, but one for which no proof has been found. Based on numerical analysis of data, he reaches his conclusion (in "A History of Measures"):


I have solved the inner rationale of ancient and medieval units of length, and by implication, of all units of measure, by discovering two facts:
a) that there were four fundamental types of foot related as 15:16:17:18,
b) that each of these types existed in two varieties related as the cube root of 24/the cube root of 25.



He does suggest a very intricate theoretical means by which this could have been calculated in practical terms, but presents no evidence from archeology or otherwise.

Stecchini's analysis of the geometry and methods for constructing the Great Pyramid were interpreted for a popular audience in Peter Tompkins
Peter Tompkins
Peter Tompkins was an American journalist, World War II Office of Strategic Services spy in Rome, and best-selling occult author....

' Secrets of the Great Pyramid with Stecchini's "Notes of the Relation of Ancient Measures to the Great Pyramid," in an appendix to the book.

External links

  • metrum.org preserves some scattered material, his essay "The Deluge as Metaphor," an essay on the origin of money in Greece, on the relation between Greece and Anatolia in "Gyges and Homer", "A History of Measures", and in "The Key to Ancient Architecture," Stecchini's analytic measurements of the Parthenon, etc.
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