The Babylonian astronomical diaries are a collection of Babylonian cuneiform texts that contain systematic records of astronomical observations and political events as well as predictions, based on astronomical observations. They also include other information such as commodity prices for particular dates and weather reports. [1] [2]
Currently, they are stored in the British Museum.
It is suggested that the diaries were used as sources for the Babylonian Chronicles.
The Babylonians were the first to recognise that astronomical phenomena are periodic and to apply mathematics to their predictions. [3] The oldest known significant astronomical text is Tablet 63 of the Enûma Anu Enlil collection, the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, which lists the first and the last visible risings of Venus over a period of about 21 years. It is the earliest evidence that planetary phenomena were recognised as periodic.
The systematic records of ominous phenomena in astronomical diaries began during the reign of Nabonassar (747–734 BC), when a significant increase in the quality and frequency of astronomical observations occurred. That allowed, for example, the discovery of a repeating 18-year Saros cycle of lunar eclipses. [4]
Translations of the Diaries are published in multivolume Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia, edited by Abraham Sachs and Hermann Hunger. [1] [2] [5]
Hipparchus was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician. He is considered the founder of trigonometry, but is most famous for his incidental discovery of the precession of the equinoxes. Hipparchus was born in Nicaea, Bithynia, and probably died on the island of Rhodes, Greece. He is known to have been a working astronomer between 162 and 127 BC.
Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, dating back to antiquity, with its origins in the religious, mythological, cosmological, calendrical, and astrological beliefs and practices of prehistory: vestiges of these are still found in astrology, a discipline long interwoven with public and governmental astronomy. It was not completely separated in Europe during the Copernican Revolution starting in 1543. In some cultures, astronomical data was used for astrological prognostication.
A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures, combining lunar calendars and solar calendars. The date of Lunisolar calendars therefore indicates both the Moon phase and the time of the solar year, that is the position of the Sun in the Earth's sky. If the sidereal year is used instead of the solar year, then the calendar will predict the constellation near which the full moon may occur. As with all calendars which divide the year into months there is an additional requirement that the year have a whole number of months. In some case ordinary years consist of twelve months but every second or third year is an embolismic year, which adds a thirteenth intercalary, embolismic, or leap month.
The Metonic cycle or enneadecaeteris is a period of almost exactly 19 years after which the lunar phases recur at the same time of the year. The recurrence is not perfect, and by precise observation the Metonic cycle defined as 235 synodic months is just 2 hours, 4 minutes and 58 seconds longer than 19 tropical years. Meton of Athens, in the 5th century BC, judged the cycle to be a whole number of days, 6,940. Using these whole numbers facilitates the construction of a lunisolar calendar.
The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north and south of the ecliptic, which is the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The orbital paths of the Moon and major planets are within the belt of the zodiac.
The Julian day is the continuous count of days since the beginning of the Julian period, and is used primarily by astronomers, and in software for easily calculating elapsed days between two events.
Kidinnu was a Chaldean astronomer and mathematician. Strabo of Amaseia called him Kidenas, Pliny the Elder called him Cidenas, and Vettius Valens called him Kidynas.
The saros is a period of exactly 223 synodic months, approximately 6585.3211 days, or 18 years, 10, 11, or 12 days, and 8 hours, that can be used to predict eclipses of the Sun and Moon. One saros period after an eclipse, the Sun, Earth, and Moon return to approximately the same relative geometry, a near straight line, and a nearly identical eclipse will occur, in what is referred to as an eclipse cycle. A sar is one half of a saros.
The Antikythera mechanism is an Ancient Greek hand-powered orrery, described as the oldest known example of an analogue computer used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance. It could also be used to track the four-year cycle of athletic games which was similar to an Olympiad, the cycle of the ancient Olympic Games.
Nabû-nāṣir was the king of Babylon from 747 to 734 BC. He deposed a foreign Chaldean usurper named Nabu-shuma-ishkun, bringing native rule back to Babylon after twenty-three years of Chaldean rule. His reign saw the beginning of a new era characterized by the systematic maintenance of chronologically precise historical records. Both the Babylonian Chronicle and the Ptolemaic Canon begin with his accession to the throne. He was contemporary with the Assyrian kings Aššur-nirarī V and Tiglath-Pileser III, the latter under whom he became a vassal, and the Elamite kings Humban-Tahrah I and Humban-Nikaš I.
In astronomy and celestial navigation, an ephemeris is a book with tables that gives the trajectory of naturally occurring astronomical objects as well as artificial satellites in the sky, i.e., the position over time. Historically, positions were given as printed tables of values, given at regular intervals of date and time. The calculation of these tables was one of the first applications of mechanical computers. Modern ephemerides are often provided in electronic form. However, printed ephemerides are still produced, as they are useful when computational devices are not available.
The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa is the record of astronomical positions for Venus, as preserved in numerous cuneiform tablets dating from the first millennium BC. It is believed that this astronomical record was first compiled during the reign of King Ammisaduqa, the fourth ruler after Hammurabi. Thus, the origins of this text could probably be dated to around the mid-seventeenth century BC despite allowing two possible dates.
Lunar theory attempts to account for the motions of the Moon. There are many small variations in the Moon's motion, and many attempts have been made to account for them. After centuries of being problematic, lunar motion can now be modeled to a very high degree of accuracy.
Babylonian mathematics are the mathematics developed or practiced by the people of Mesopotamia, from the days of the early Sumerians to the centuries following the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. Babylonian mathematical texts are plentiful and well edited. With respect to time they fall in two distinct groups: one from the Old Babylonian period, the other mainly Seleucid from the last three or four centuries BC. With respect to content, there is scarcely any difference between the two groups of texts. Babylonian mathematics remained constant, in character and content, for over a millennium.
Babylonian astronomy was the study or recording of celestial objects during the early history of Mesopotamia.
Babylonian astrology was the first known organized system of astrology, arising in the second millennium BC.
Hyspaosines was an Iranian prince, and the founder of Characene, a kingdom situated in southern Mesopotamia. He was originally a Seleucid satrap installed by king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, but declared independence in 141 BC after the collapse and subsequent transfer of Seleucid authority in Iran and Babylonia to the Parthians. Hyspaosines briefly occupied the Parthian city of Babylon in 127 BC, where he is recorded in records as king (šarru). In 124 BC, however, he was forced to acknowledge Parthian suzerainty. He died in the same year, and was succeeded by his juvenile son Apodakos.
Maya astronomy is the study of the Moon, planets, Milky Way, Sun, and astronomical phenomena by the Precolumbian Maya Civilization of Mesoamerica. The Classic Maya in particular developed some of the most accurate pre-telescope astronomy in the world, aided by their fully developed writing system and their positional numeral system, both of which are fully indigenous to Mesoamerica. The Classic Maya understood many astronomical phenomena: for example, their estimate of the length of the synodic month was more accurate than Ptolemy's, and their calculation of the length of the tropical solar year was more accurate than that of the Spanish when the latter first arrived. Many temples from the Maya architecture have features oriented to celestial events.
Lis Brack-Bernsen is a Danish and Swiss mathematician, historian of science, and historian of mathematics, known for her work on Babylonian astronomy. She is an extraordinary professor of the history of science at the University of Regensburg.
One comprises what we have called "Saros Cycle Texts," which give the months of eclipse possibilities arranged in consistent cycles of 223 months (or 18 years).