Mesopotamian astronomy | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: wikipedia tts
Date: 31/12/2018

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_astronomy


00:03:43 1 Old Babylonian astronomy
00:06:23 1.1 Planetary theory
00:07:23 1.2 Cosmology
00:09:26 1.3 Omens
00:12:12 1.4 The Astrolabes
00:14:45 1.5 MUL.APIN
00:16:04 1.6 The Connection Between a Calendar, Mathematics, and Astronomy
00:18:03 2 Neo-Babylonian astronomy
00:19:54 2.1 Arithmetical and geometrical methods
00:23:08 2.2 Heliocentric astronomy
00:25:56 3 Babylonian influence on Hellenistic astronomy
00:27:49 3.1 Early influence
00:29:13 3.2 Influence on Hipparchus and Ptolemy
00:31:56 3.3 Means of transmission
00:32:42 4 See also
00:34:15 5 Notes
00:34:20 6 References
00:39:26 See also



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SUMMARY
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Babylonian astronomy was the study or recording of celestial objects during early history Mesopotamia. These records can be found on Sumerian clay tablets, inscribed in  cuneiform,  dated approximately to 3500–3200 BC.In conjunction with their mythology, the Sumerians developed a form of astronomy/astrology that had an influence on Babylonian culture. Therein Planetary gods played an important role.
Babylonian astronomy seemed to have focused on a select group of stars and constellations known as Ziqpu stars. These constellations may have been collected from various earlier sources. The earliest catalogue, Three Stars Each, mentions stars of the Akkadian Empire, of Amurru, of Elam and others.A numbering system based on sixty was used, a sexagesimal system. This system simplified the calculating and recording of unusually great and small numbers. The modern practices of dividing a circle into 360 degrees, of 60 minutes each, began with the Sumerians.During the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Babylonian astronomers developed a new empirical approach to astronomy. They began studying and recording their belief system and philosophies dealing with an ideal nature of the universe and began employing an internal logic within their predictive planetary systems. This was an important contribution to astronomy and the philosophy of science, and some modern scholars have thus referred to this novel approach as the first scientific revolution. This approach to astronomy was adopted and further developed in Greek and Hellenistic astrology. Classical Greek and Latin sources frequently use the term Chaldeans for the astronomers of Mesopotamia, who were considered as priest-scribes specializing in astrology and other forms of divination.
Only fragments of Babylonian astronomy have survived, consisting largely of contemporary clay tablets containing astronomical diaries, ephemerides and procedure texts, hence current knowledge of Babylonian planetary theory is in a fragmentary state. Nevertheless, the surviving fragments show that Babylonian astronomy was the first "successful attempt at giving a refined mathematical description of astronomical phenomena" and that "all subsequent varieties of scientific astronomy, in the Hellenistic world, in India, in Islam, and in the West … depend upon Babylonian astronomy in decisive and fundamental ways."The origins of Western astronomy can be found in Mesopotamia, and all Western efforts in the exact sciences are descendants in direct line from the work of the late Babylonian astronomers. Modern knowledge of Sumerian astronomy is indirect, via the earliest Babylonian star catalogues dating from about 1200 BC. The fact that many star names appear in Sumerian suggests a continuity reaching into the Early Bronze Age.