Ancient Mesopotamian Astronomy and Astrology

The History of Celestial Observations in Mesopotamia

De: Charles River Editors

Narrado por: Steve Knupp

Although the Sumerians continue to get second or even third billing compared to the Babylonians and Assyrians, perhaps because they never built an empire as great as the Assyrians or established a city as enduring and great as Babylon, they were the people who provided the template of civilization that all later Mesopotamians built upon.

The Sumerians are credited with being the first people to invent writing, libraries, cities, and schools in, and many would argue that they were the first people to create and do those things anywhere in world.

When Western Europe was still in the Stone Age, it was the Sumerians who invented writing and the wheel, divided time into minutes and seconds, tamed nature, and built gigantic cities.

The Sumerians also provided the civilizational template for the earliest forms of astronomy.

As the Sumerians gazed at the sky and began mapping the cosmos, they successfully tracked retrograde motion and predicted lunar and solar eclipses, bringing forth thousands of years of discoveries made by enterprising astronomers.

For the Mesopotamians, astronomy and astrology intertwined.

Today, astronomy is understood as the scientific study of the universe, focusing on the physical properties of different bodies, from how they move to how they came into being.

Conversely, astrology is a non

-scientific belief system that interprets the stars and planets to predict human behavior, personality, or future events.

However, in Mesopotamia, the astronomy determined the course of religion and the choices made by rulers, providing a certain mix between the mundane and the surreal.

From their births to their deaths, the ancient Mesopotamians believed that deities surrounded them, and whether their social interactions were on the level of a smaller city or that of a larger nation

-state, the deities played key roles in the social fabric of their society.

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