The Woman Who Drew Down the Moon

Right in the middle of a Venn diagram with circles that were labelled "Astronomy", "Ancient Greece" and "Witches", you'd find Aglaioniki of Thessaly.

Now, this 2nd century BCE woman probably wasn't an actual witch (Or was she? Opinions vary.), but that didn't stop people from making assumptions. What she was, in fact, was someone who had studied the heavens and could accurately predict lunar eclipses in a time when that was still considered supernatural. 

She just happened to do it in a part of Greece that was famous for it's enchantresses and their moon magic.

And if you were someone who happened to be "Science-ing While Female", well...that was even more suspicious. 

Aglaioniki didn't seem to suffer any detriment from this magical - if likely misguided - reputation. She was referenced by ancient Greek playwrights and Roman writers alike. 

So why don't we know her better? Maybe because of the Matilda effect. Maybe she did, in fact, have a volume or two in the doomed Library of Alexandria and it's been lost to us (I'm totally spit balling here, but it's not out of the question). Maybe she was just a curious and observant woman who was smart enough to recognize the patterns involved in the night skies where others didn't. 

And she happened to do it all in a region known for magic and mystery - Thessaly, home of Greece's most powerful witches. So it all makes for a great story.

It's especially poignant now, just days after the Artemis mission as I write this. 

Aglaioniki has a lunar crater named after her. And the Artemis mission had the first woman astronaut to orbit the moon. I like to think that the witchy astronomer would have been happy about both those things. 

Find out more in the latest article here.

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'Til next time,

Barbara

(This is called "foreshadowing". Maybe. If the world isn't completely on fire by then.)