Visual Aspects of the Transmission of Babylonian Astronomy and its Reception into Greek Astronomy

Summary

Evidence for the transmission of Babylonian astronomy into the Greco-Roman world is well attested in the form of observations, numerical parameters and astronomical tables. This paper investigates the reception of Babylonian astronomy in the Greco-Roman world and in particular the transmission, transformation and exploitation of the layout of texts and other visual information. Two examples illustrate this process: the use of Babylonian lunar eclipse records by Greek astronomers and the adaptation of Babylonian methods of eclipse prediction in the Antikythera Mechanism.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Alexander Jones for pointing out the evidence for the use of index letters on the sundial and inscription discussed in Section 4. I appreciate the comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper made by Charles Burnett, Benno van Dalen and Tony Freeth, and also wish to thank Tony Freeth for providing Figure 4.

Notes

¹F. X. Kugler, Die Babylonische Mondrechnung. Zwei Systeme der Chaldäer über den Lauf des Mondes und der Sonne (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1900). See also G. J. Toomer, ‘Hipparchus and Babylonian Astronomy’, in A Scientific Humanist. Studies in Memory of Abraham Sachs, edited by E. Leichty, M. deJ. Ellis and P. Gerardi (Philadelphia, 1988), 353–62.

²See e.g. O. Neugebauer, A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy (Berlin, 1975), A. Jones, ‘Evidence for Babylonian Arithmetical Schemes in Greek Astronomy’, in Die Rolle der Astronomie in den Kulturen Mesopotamiens, edited by H. D. Galter (Graz, 1993), 77–94, A. Jones, Astronomical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus (Philadelphia, 2000), A. Jones, ‘Babylonian Lunar Theory in Roman Egypt. Two New Texts’, in Under One Sky, edited by J.M. Steele and A. Imhausen. Astronomy and Mathematics in the Ancient Near East (Münster, 2002), 167–74, D. Pingree, ‘Legacies in Astronomy and Celestial Omens’, in The Legacy of Mesopotamia, edited by S. Dalley (Oxford, 1998), 125–37.

³J. M. Steele, ‘A Re-Analysis of the Eclipse Observations in Ptolemy's Almagest’, Centaurus, 42 (2000), 89–108, J. M. Steele, ‘Ptolemy, Babylon and the Rotation of the Earth’, Astronomy and Geophysics, 46/5 (2005), 11–15, A. Jones, ‘Ptolemy's Ancient Planetary Observations’, Annals of Science, 63 (2006), 255–90.

⁴J. M. Steele, ‘Applied Historical Astronomy: An Historical Perspective’, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 35 (2004), 337–55.

⁵On late Babylonian eclipse records, see P. J. Huber and S. De Meis, Babylonian Eclipse Observations from 750 BC to 1 BC (Milan, 2004) and J. M. Steele, Observations and Predictions of Eclipse Times by Early Astronomers (Dordrecht, 2000), 21–83 and 239–62.

⁶For editions of the eclipse texts, see H. Hunger, Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia. Volume V, Lunar and Planetary Texts (Vienna, 2001), nos. 1–33.

⁷See my appendix to Hunger (note 6).

⁸On Babylonian methods of predicting eclipses, see J. M. Steele, ‘Eclipse Prediction in Mesopotamia’, Archive for History of Exact Science, 54 (2000), 421–54.

⁹Hunger (note 6), nos. 2–4.

¹⁰Steele (note 5).

¹¹For a description of the contents of the accounts of eclipse observations, see A. J. Sachs and H. Hunger, Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia. Volume I, Diaries from 652 B.C. to 262 B.C. (Vienna, 1988), 23–4 and Huber and De Meis (note 4), 7–17.

¹²See most recently A. Aaboe, J. P. Britton, J. A. Henderson, O. Neugebauer and A. J. Sachs, Saros Cycle Dates and Related Babylonian Astronomical Texts, Transcations of the American Philosophical Society 81/6 (Philadelphia 1991).

¹³A. Aaboe, ‘Remarks on the Theoretical Treatment of Eclipses in Antiquity’, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 3 (1972), 105–18.

¹⁴Steele (note 8).

¹⁵For a more detailed discussion of Ptolemy's use of the Babylonian eclipses and the problems he may have faced, see J. M. Steele (note 4).

¹⁶J. P. Britton, Models and Precision: The Quality of Ptolemy's Observations and Parameters (New York, 1992), 151.

¹⁷Steele (note 4), 339.

¹⁸Steele (note 5), 101.

¹⁹See Steele (note 4) and C. B. F. Walker, ‘Achaemenid Chronology and the Babylonian Sources’, in Mesopotamia and Iran in the Persian Period: Conquest and Imperialism 539–331 BC , edited by J. Curtis (London, 1997), 17–25.

²⁰J. P. Britton, ‘Calendars, Intercalations and Year-Lengths in Babylonian Astronomy’, in Calendars and Years: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient Near East, edited by J. M. Steele (Oxford, 2007), 115–32.

²¹For further details of the Late Babylonian calendar, see R. A. Parker and W. H. Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C. – A.D. 75 (Providence, 1956).

²²Steele (note 4), 343. On Ptolemy's royal canon, see G. Toomer, Ptolemy's Almagest (London 1984), 11 and L. Depuydt, ‘More Valuable Than All Gold: Ptolemy's Royal Canon and Babylonian Chronology’, Journal of Cuneiform Studies 47 (1995), 97–111.

²³See, for example, J. M. Steele, ‘A Simple Function for the Length of the Saros in Babylonian Astronomy’, in Under One Sky: Astronomy and Mathematics in the Ancient Near East, edited by J. M. Steele and A. Imhausen (Münster, 2002), 405–20.

²⁴Of course it is almost certain that the Babylonians themselves also used the format of the compilation to resolve calendrical problems in similar ways.

²⁵For details of the Antikythera Mechanisn, see T. Freeth et al., ‘Decoding the ancient Greek astronomical calculator known as the Antikythera Mechanism’, Nature, 444 (2006), 587–91 and M. T. Wright, ‘The Antikythera Mechanism Reconsidered’, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 32 (2007), 27–43, with references to earlier work.

²⁶Freeth et al. (note 25).

²⁷T. Freeth, A. Jones, J. M. Steele and Y. Bitsakis, ‘Calendars with Olympiad and Eclipse Prediction on the Antikythera Mechanism’, Nature 454 (2008), 614–17.

²⁸Freeth et al. (note 25). The distribution of lunar eclipse possibilities within a Saros is identical to what we find in Babylonian sources but the solar eclipse possibilities seem to have been determined from a theoretical model of nodal elongation with unequal north and south eclipse limits. See further Freeth et al. (note 25), supplementary notes.

²⁹Freeth, Jones, Steele and Bitsakis (note 27).

³⁰O. Neugebauer, R. A. Parker and K.-T. Zauzich, ‘A Demotic Lunar Eclipse Text of the First Century BC’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 125 (1981), 312–27; A. Jones (note 2), no. 4137.

³¹Freeth, Jones, Steele and Bitsakis (note 27).

³²Freeth, Jones, Steele and Bitsakis (note 27).

³³Standard sign-lists, known today as syllabaries, were used in scribal education in Mesopotamia, but they do not offer a simple ordering of signs in the way the alphabet does with letters.

³⁴L. Pearce, ‘The Number-Syllabary Texts’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 116 (1996), 453–84.

³⁵S. Gibbs, Greek and Roman Sundials (New Haven, 1976), no. 1044.

³⁶E. Breccia, Inscrizioni Greche e Latine, Catalogue Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée d'Alexandrie Nos. 1–568 (Cairo, 1911), no. 185.

³⁷I distinguish here between index letters which refer to another piece of text and labels on a diagram which exist in their own right and do not refer to the reader to another piece of text.