Post by Zadkiel on Jan 31, 2016 20:54:39 GMT
For people living in the ancient city of Babylon, Marduk was their patron god and thus, it is not a surprise that Babylonian astronomers took an interest in tracking the comings and goings of the planet Jupiter, which they regarded as a celestial manifestation of Marduk. What is perhaps more surprising, is the sophistication with which they tracked the planet, judging from inscriptions on a small clay tablet dating to between -350 and -50. The tablet, a couple of inches wide and a couple of inches tall, reveals that the Babylonian astronomers employed a sort of precalculus in describing Jupiter’s motion across the night sky relative to the distant background stars. Until now, credit for this kind of mathematical technique had gone to Europeans that lived some 15 centuries later.
