During the centuries between the fall of Rome and the beginnings of the European Renaissance, much of the scientific work associated with ancient Greece and Rome disappeared from the European view. Significant contributions to science and medicine migrated instead to the Arab world, where numerous scholars not only preserved this material but added greatly to it. Grafting their own research to the stems passed from Greece and Rome, Arab scholars created a body of knowledge that was re-introduced into Western Europe as a result of the Islamic expansion across North Africa into Spain at the end of the First Millennium. These materials found interested readers during the early years of the Renaissance, serving as the core documents in the process of translation and study that characterized the humanistic revival of the time. An excellent example of this process is the recovery of the work of the noted Greek astronomer Ptolemy, whose major contribution is known by its Arabic title, Almagest.
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