On the tricentenary of Isaac Newton’s birth, the economist John Maynard Keynes declared that “Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians.” Tracing the origins of this statement leads us to an unusual set of historical episodes, all orbiting a unified theme: the recovery of lost knowledge and “modes of thought” from ancient Babylonia. In this talk, Escobar introduces a new historiographical project that includes economists, a ballerina, a physicist, and (at least one) Babylonian.