Abstract
The earliest systematic observations of the sky date back to the fourth millennium bc, by the Babylonians, which were followed by those of the Egyptians in the Middle East and Chinese in the Far East.
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Notes
- 1.
The expression ‘Babylonian astronomy’ refers to theories and methods developed in Mesopotamia (the land between the two rivers Tigris and Euphrates, located in the south of the present Iraq), by the Sumerians, the Chaldeans, the Akkadians and Babylonians. In classical Greek and Latin sources, the term ‘Chaldeans’ is used to indicate the astronomers of Mesopotamia, which were in reality priest scribes skilled in astrology and other forms of divination.
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© 2013 Springer-Verlag Italia
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Dicati, R. (2013). The Ancients’ Astronomy. In: Stamping Through Astronomy. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2829-6_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2829-6_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Milano
Print ISBN: 978-88-470-2828-9
Online ISBN: 978-88-470-2829-6
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