Sonja Brentjes

Sonja Brentjes is a historian of science affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin. She specializes in institutions, mathematics, and mapmaking in Islamicate societies until 1700, as well as cross-cultural encounters in the Mediterranean and western Asia since the eighth century.

• Studied mathematics at Technical University Dresden (1969–1973)
• History of mathematics and science at Karl Marx University Leipzig (1973–1976)
• Near Eastern history and Arabic at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (1978–1982)

Her research focuses on the history of science in Islamicate societies, cross-cultural knowledge transfer through translation, and material cultures of astral knowledge. She led the Visualization of the Heavens (VoH) project (2017–2021) and contributed to studies on Al-Khazini’s Book on the Balance of Wisdom.

Recent work includes developing a digital database of astral imagery across Eurasia and North Africa, with publications in journals like NTM and Intellectual History of the Islamicate World. Her edited volumes, such as the Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies (2023), highlight her expertise in pre-modern scientific practices.

The VoH project’s findings reveal the diversity of zodiac representations and their conceptual transformations across cultural boundaries, challenging earlier text-based understandings. Brentjes collaborates with an international interdisciplinary team, including art historians, historians of astronomy, and religious scholars.