Ostanes

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Ostanes (also Osthanes ; * around 400 BC) was a legendary alchemist. According to some sources, he came from Alexandria , according to other sources from the Persian Empire .

As the orientalist Fuat Sezgin states, the historical Ostanes is said to have been “a spiritual successor to Zoroaster in the founding of astrology and probably in the fifth century BC. Have lived ". Ostanes is often cited as an authority in Arabic and Persian alchemical literature. An Arabic treatise entitled Kitab al-Fusul al-ithnay 'ashar fi' ilm al-hajar al-mukarram (The Book of Twelve Chapters on the Honorable Stone) (also called "Book of Ostanes the Magician") is attributed to him.

Pliny the Elder reports in his Naturalis historia that Ostanes, as court diviner of Xerxes I, followed him on the train to Greece, wrote magical writings and made this discipline known in Greece.

literature

  • Manfred Hutter : Ostanes. In: Real Lexicon for Antiquity and Christianity . Volume 26, Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7772-1509-9 , Sp. 626-634
  • Fuat Sezgin: History of Arabic Literature , Vol. 4: Alchimie-Chemie , Brill 1996, ISBN 90-04-02009-8 .
  • Manfred Ullmann: The natural and secret sciences in Islam (= Handbook of Oriental Studies , Section I, Supplementary Volume VI, Section 2). Brill, Leiden 1972, p. 184.
  • Georges C. Anawati: Arabic Alchemy . In: Roshdi Rashed (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science . Routledge, Volume 3, London 1996, p. 862.
  • Christa Tuczay : Magic and Magician in the Middle Ages . Munich 2003, p. 40 note 37.

Web links

Wikiquote: Ostanes  - Quotes

Remarks

  1. ↑ Fuat Sezgin, History of Arabic Literature, Vol. 4: Alchimie-Chemie , Brill, Leiden 1996, p. 51.
  2. ^ Peter Lamborn Wilson , Karl Schlamminger: Weaver of Tales. Persian Picture Rugs / Persian tapestries. Linked myths. Callwey, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7667-0532-6 , p. 85.
personal data
SURNAME Ostanes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Wise in pre-Islamic times and alchemist
DATE OF BIRTH around 400 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 5th century BC BC or 4th century BC Chr.