British Academy lecture at the University of Leicester:

‘The place of theory in Babylonian astral science’
Prof. John Steele, Brown University

Thu 9 May 2024 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Bennett Building, Lecture Theatre 1, LE1 7RH

Ancient Babylonian scholars interacted with the night sky in several ways: they regularly observed a range of lunar and planetary phenomena and kept systematic records of these observations; they developed methods of calculating future astronomical phenomena; they created mathematical schemes to describe astronomical phenomena; they interpreted astronomical phenomena through systems of astrology; and they applied their astronomical knowledge to address various societal needs including the regulation of the calendar and fixing the time of cultic rituals and festivals. Babylonian approaches to describing and calculating astronomical phenomena were primarily – though, as I will show, not exclusively – through numerical modelling rather than by means of geometrical or physical models.

And therein lies the rub: some historians claim that geometrical models and physical theories are a requirement of science and so therefore judge Babylonian astronomy as falling short of being true science. In this talk I will discuss whether this is an appropriate way to understand whether an early astronomy is scientific and, more to the point, show that Babylonian scholars did indeed construct theories of the behaviour of the sun, moon, and planets but that historians have usually been looking in the wrong place to find those theories.

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