Death of the philosopher Hypatia, in Alexandria. Hypatia (355/370-415 AD) was the daughter of Theon of Alexandria who was a teacher of mathematics with the Museum of Alexandria in Egypt which included many independent schools and the great library of Alexandria. From the little historical information about Hypatia that survives, it appears that she invented the plane astrolabe, the graduated brass hydrometer and the hydroscope. Hypatia was murdered by a Christian mob which accused her of causing religious turmoil. She was dragged from her chariot and, according to accounts from that time, they stripped her, killed her, stripped her flesh from her bones, scattered her body parts through the streets, and burned some remaining parts of her body in the library of Caesareum. Image appeared in Lives of illustrious scholars, from antiquity to the nineteenth century' by Louis Figuier, 1866. |