Astronomy of the Earth-Moon system and the Eschatological Expectations of the Christian Historians of the 5th century CE (original) (raw)
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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science II, 2021
Nowadays we understand 'astronomy' as the study of celestial bodies. However, astronomical knowledge in classical Greece and Rome cannot be reduced to the study of the sky. Of course, it did include the study of stars and planets, but this knowledge was intimately linked to many other subjects, such as religion, geography, meteorology, mythology, medicine, etc. Acquaintance with many celestial phenomena and the constellations and their lore was part of ancient culture. Remove from the classical Antiquity its astronomical knowledge, and many of its features and activities would become impossible or meaningless. Astronomy was deeply implanted in ancient culture, as will be shown in this paper, and that was the reason underlying its very high status in Antiquity.
The dichotomy between 'practical' and 'theoretical' astronomy in ancient and late antique literature
In Plato's dialogues Republic and Laws, the most important disciplines for the best education of the rulers of the city are identified with arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. Those disciplines, however, are not intended for practical applications, but to reach the truth and see the form of good. In particular, another dialogue, Epinomis, stresses on the relevance of astronomy itself as main discipline, since it coincides with the study of the gods, that is, the planets and the heaven. According to Epinomis, the wise astronomer does not observe the risings and settings of stars for practical applications such as the farmer calendar, but he studies the orbits of the planets. Therefore, the 'practical' astronomy of farmers appears intrinsically less important than the 'theoretical' astronomy, i.e. the study of the planetary motions. We discuss the possibly far-reaching negative implications of such a specific discrimination. We report some examples taken from Greek and Latin literature illustrating the difficulties of a coherent description of the risings and settings of stars that had been attempted by scholars, and probably had been of little help for farming. We conclude by pointing out the practical importance of astronomy (intended in a broad sense) even today, and of the dangers of the separation or discrimination of disciplines and sub-disciplines for the culture during the present global economic crisis.
The coincidental astronomical backbone of ancient world history
The coincidental backbone of ancient world history
Through a new comprehensive analysis of the astronomical evidence, including records and traditions of solar and lunar eclipses and planetary conjunctions, we confirm Peter J. Huber's High Chronology for the Near East. After making minor changes in his framework, one may call our proposed system "Extended High Chronology." Numerous illustrations elucidate the eclipses listed, made by Kerry Shetline's Sky View Café software. 54 of them depict historical eclipses of the Sun, while 12 shows historical lunar eclipses. The scope covers Europe (Greece, Rome, and Ireland), Africa (Egypt), Asia (Near East, China), and America (Mexico and Aztlan-Bahamas). The time frame of this paper is from 2400 B.C.E. (the approximate date for Sargon's accession to the throne) to the final days of the Toltec rulers in Mexico (1177 C.E.) Our aim here is to consider the dozens of ignored records related to astronomical dates and assist the open-minded researchers that wish to reconstruct a true absolute chronology of the ancient world. In particular, the astronomical time frame has been accurately established for the 108 years of Ur III (2178-2070 B.C.), enabling scholars to begin their "dead reckoning" down from the fall of Ur. A second aim is to assist astronomers in to confirm (or find better and more reliable) Delta-T values.
Astronomical Lunisolar Cycles and Late Antique Chronology
arXiv (Cornell University), 2024
This article advances the hypothesis that the heightened eschatological sensitivity evident among the historians writing in the 5th century and its weaker echos in the time of Charlemagne were caused by the irregularities of the the lunisolar calendar and its particular realization, the Easter calendar. The lunisolar calendar that Christians used for the calculation of the date of the Easter had a number of key periods when the cycles of the Sun and the Moon came in sync in relationship to the beginning of the count and thus produced an effect of the times repeating themselves or ending with the nearly precise astronomical repetition. In this article several key lunar cycles that stemmed from the harmonics of the Moon's precession on its orbit around the Earth are outlined on the basis of the modern astronomical data and with the help of simple mathematical calculations. It is suggested that the conjunctions of the solar and lunar calendars fell on the 1st and on the late 4th and 5th centuries CE, with a long hiatus in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. It is argued, at the same time, that there were significant irregularities in the lunisolar calendar that were visible in the 5th century and ca. year 800 CE. These irregularities when the calendar either lost or added a day due to the imperfections of the Julian calendar and to the lack of knowledge about the true length of the solar and lunar periods may have contributed in the 5th century and ca. year 800 CE to the heightened expectations of the time (or the lunisolar cycle) reaching its end in disarray. It is suggested that the first episode of facing off with the irregularities of the lunar calendar of Easter holidays came at about 410 CE when the problem did make historians wonder whether the Heavens all went against the normal course of time. Thus sensitivity to eschatological vision of time in the 5th century and ca. 800 CE may be hypothetically explained by the fact that the solar calendar stopped syncing with the lunar calendar and discrepancies arose.
The Moon and the Planets in Classical Greece and Rome
OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, PLANETARY SCIENCE, 2021
While the moon naturally featured in Mediterranean cultures from time immemorial, principally noted in the earliest literature as a marker of time, time-dependent constructs such as the calendar, and time-related activities, awareness and recognition of the five visible planets came relatively late to the Greeks and thence to the Romans.
In: Outi Merisalo & Raija Vainio (Eds.), Ad itum liberum. Essays in honour of Anne Helttula. Jyväskylä, Finland., 2007
Latin texts dating from different periods of antiquity provide an ample source for studying how cosmological and astronomical themes were presented and pondered in learned Roman circles. Although much of this material was more or less directly derived, adapted or translated from Greek sources, it is also possible to try to form a tentative historical picture of how the Latin writers themselves saw the surrounding physical world, and how their (philosophical) preconceptions influenced these views. In this article I discuss some of the methodological problems encountered in this kind of historical and philological research. I will also elaborate on relevant ways to approach the sources, and suggest topics for further studies and collaboration in the field. The body of texts here referred to consists of philosophical and other learned Latin literature, i.e. philosophical and didactic treatises both in prose and verse, handbooks and encyclopaedias, written between ca. 90 BCE and 180 CE. (This paper was uploaded to Academia.edu in 2018 and I am well aware that it is not up-to-date with recent scholarship. It was published in 2007 as a tentative review before a prolonged hiatus in my studies due to practical reasons. In this PDF file there may be slight differences in pagination compared to the printed version.)
Astronomy and ancient chronology
2000
The currently available astronomical evidence relevant for the absolute chronology of the late third and early second millennium BC has five independent parts: (a) OB Venus data linked to Ammis aduqa year 1 (b) OB month-lengths about 400 years (c) Ur III month-lengths linked to Amar-Sin year 1 (d) Ur III eclipses about 287 years (e) Akkad eclipses linked to Sargon year 1 None of them is fully trustworthy. The Venus data (a) are corrupted through a long scribal tradition and it is not a priori obvious that they represent genuine observations from the time of Ammis aduqa. The month-length data (b) and (c) are noisy. If they have the same statistical structure as their Neo-Babylonian counterparts (which is not proven), a correct chronology induces an agreement rate of merely 67% between calculated and observed 30-day months. This is uncomfortably close to the agreement rate 53% pertaining to a randomly chosen wrong chronology, and for establishing absolute dates on the basis of month-lengths alone one would need between 250 and 300 precisely spaced month-lengths (i.e. several decades of data, which may have lacunas, but with perfectly known intercalations). The eclipses (d) and (e) are from the omen series Enuma Anu Enlil, and it is not clear to what extent such omens contain genuine eclipse observations, or merely learned systematization. Also the identification of the apodoses with historical events is uncertain (e.g. whether the omen EAE 20-III pertains to the death of Šulgi or of some other king). Around 2000 BC, eclipse times are subject to clocktime errors of give or take about one hour, caused by the irregular rotation of the earth. Moreover, the year Astronomy and Ancient Chronology Peter J. Huber-2-counts establishing the distances between the First Dynasty of Babylon, the Third Dynasty of Ur, and the Akkad dynasty, may have unsuspectedly large uncertainties. The only way to check astronomical consistency of the evidence is by trying, that is: by attempting to fit chronologies to the data. The best fitting chronology is not necessarily the correct one, but if some chronologies can be fitted coherently, then this supports validity of the data.
Poésie et astronomie. De l’antiquité au romantism edited by Florian Barrière and Caroline Bertonèche
Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science, 3(1), 161–169, 2023
This collection of essays edited by Florian Barrière and Caroline Bertonèche presents an anthropological and cultural approach to astronomical themes in poetic works from antiquity to the Romantic period (with emphasis on Latin literature and British Romantic poetry). Apart from the main subject, the framework spans myth, theater, natural philosophy, and musical composition. Although the reader can tell that the emphasis is on the philological aspects of works, it is done with much careful consideration of contemporary scientific and philosophical debate and a good knowledge of the critical literature.