Interwoven Disciplines

An article from carl 03|2025

by Karin Hollricher

Science historian Josephine Musil-Gutsch studied how the practice of joint research in sciences and the humanities came about and was pursued in around 1900.

The notion that sciences and humanities sing from a completely different song sheet is almost as old as the academic societies from which the academies and universities of modern society emerged,” wrote cultural scientist Hazel Rosenstrauch, almost a quarter of a century ago, in “Gegenworte – Zeitschrift für den Disput über Wissen” (Opposites – Magazine for the Dispute about Knowledge) [1]. Whether and how representatives of the technical and natural sciences can work together with representatives of the cultural and social sciences and the humanities, is still a subject of discussion today. The debate was sparked in the middle of the last century by the text “The Two Cultures”, written by physicist Charles Percy Snow. His thesis was that the schools of thought in the respective disciplines were diametrically opposed.

Until 1800 there was no dedicated separation of sciences and humanities. Universal scholars, who studied many disciplines, were not unusual; philology was particularly prominent at the time. It was only in the 19th century that sciences gained strength and increasingly separated themselves from the humanities. Was that the end of collaborative research?

This was the question considered by historian Josephine Musil-Gutsch. “There are many examples of this kind of interdisciplinary collaboration, but they are very difficult to find,” said the historian. “That’s because co-authorship was not usual back then, and any colleagues involved were mentioned in the footnotes at most.” She didn’t just look for references in the footnotes – she also searched cultural science magazines for words that are typical for scientific methods.

That’s how she came across the botanist Julius von Wiesner. At the University of Vienna, around the turn of the 19th century, he was not only researching plant physiology and morphology, but was also analysing the components of old paper manuscripts under the microscope [2]. Initially only upon request by historians, he examined what the manuscript paper was made of (such as papyrus or cotton) and where it most likely came from. Based on this, he developed both an independent interest and further experimentation methods, ultimately becoming a “sought-after expert in old paper” throughout Europe [3].

Musil-Gutsch also selected two further examples: the analysis of the provenance of a wax bust as well as deciphering chemical recipes written in cuneiform.

A genuine da Vinci?

The wax bust of Flora was purchased in 1909 by the Bode Museum in Berlin. Soon after, however, an intensive debate erupted regarding whether or not it could actually be attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, dating from the Renaissance period. Art historian Wilhelm von Bode commissioned scientists with an analysis. First, the bust was X-rayed. Musil-Gutsch: “This was unsuccessful, because the bust is made of wax, fabric remnants and other substances with a low specific weight. It was not possible to render these visible using this equipment – scientists at the time didn’t realise this, because X-ray technology was relatively new back then.” Next, chemical historians, fat-chemists and experts in the newly emerging field of microchemistry were consulted. These experiments too ended without clear results. It wasn’t until a few years ago that the bust was tackled again, this time with modern methods: infrared spectroscopy, particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE), gas chromatography and carbon-14 dating would finally reveal the age of the work of art [4]. They showed that Bode was indeed sitting on a fake. According to the results, the bust likely dated from the 19th century and not from the studio of the Italian genius. 

Babylonian chemistry

The next example investigated by Musil-Gutsch was slightly different: here, chemistry historians turned to Assyriologists. They were interested in the content of cuneiform tablets with formulas that had been found during the excavation of Babylon. “But because the words were ambiguous or had perhaps been translated incorrectly due to a lack of understanding of the chemical concepts, it was not clear what was actually being described on the tablets,” said Musil-Gutsch. Were they describing the production of the bright blue tiling glaze for the famous Ischtar Gate that they wanted to reconstruct in Berlin? Or did the texts describe how to convert metal into gold? “So chemists and assyriologists worked hand in hand, checking the translation for plausibility through chemical experiments. Ultimately, they were able to discover how the Babylonians had produced this special blue and how it differed from the blue glass of the Egyptians.”

Unusual at the time, such cooperations are today perhaps not a daily occurrence, but they are also no longer exotic. And not just in the history of art. Together with psychologists and philosophers, neuroscientists analyse the consciousness and identity of living beings, and in the cognitive sciences, methods from IT, mathematics, linguistics and psychology are used. So, does Musil-Gutsch have any idea how to bridge the gap between the disciplines? 

[1] H. Rosenstrauch, 2000, Gegenworte 6, 4-11
[2] J. von Wiesner, 1887, Mittheilungen aus der Sammlung der Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer, Bd. II-III
[3] J. Musil-Gutsch et al., 2020, NTM 28, 1-33
[4] I. Reiche et al., 2021, Sci. Rep. 11, 8249

Image credits: Magnus Altschäfl / Wikimedia Commons, LBM1948 (CC-BY-SA-4.0) / Wikimedia Commons, Gryffindor / Wikimedia Commons, Daderot