People have always looked to the stars for meaning, pattern, and guidance. This tradition dates back to the dawn of civilization. Ancient knowledge about night in old societies was limited due to the lack of modern facilities. Despite this limitation, unparalleled developments were achieved over time. Unfortunately, most of this traditional knowledge has been lost or obscured by history. From the Babylonians to the Mayans, ancient peoples made astrophysical predictions. They developed sophisticated calendar systems. They also mapped the stars with a precision that still sends current scholars into states of utter astonishment. Our progress up to this time has been impressive. However, much of what the ancients knew about the heavens remains relevant even today. This is true if only we decipher the messages. This being said:
The Babylonians: Masters of Celestial Timekeeping
The Babylonians, from 1900 BCE to 539 BCE in Mesopotamia, developed an extremely sophisticated understanding of the night sky, particularly in respect to the motion of the planets. Their works on astronomy were way ahead of their times. Among many other things, the Babylonians prepared one of the first star catalogues and the concept of a zodiac.
Of the many accomplishments reached by the Babylonians in their study of the stars, perhaps their most astounding achievements are those involving their ability to predict. The Babylonians mapped the planets in such incredible detail that they were able to make some very accurate predictions regarding such things as eclipses. Records were made on clay tablets, many of which have survived for modern research.
The Babylonians also developed arithmetic based on a base-60 system that would influence how time would be measured from then until the present day. That the hour has 60 minutes and that minute has 60 seconds is because of the way they had arrived at numeration. Further, their star catalogues-like the “Enuma Anu Enlil” tablet-provided a grounding for later astronomical study.
Perhaps their most remarkable legacy was the construction of an early form of astrology, wherein they believed in the positions of planets and stars having an effect on human matters. Today, while it is two somewhat different sciences, the capacity of the Babylonians to record patterns in the sky is continued today in how we view the heavens.
The Egyptians: The Pyramids Aligned with the Stars
Although famous for their architectural marvels-most notably the pyramids-what is less known about the ancient Egyptians was how connected these people were with the stars. The pyramids and temples constructed by them were in direct alignment to the stellar bodies of the stars. One such famous example showing this was that of the Great Pyramid of Giza aligning completely with Orion’s Belt.
Orion was the constellation of the god of the afterlife, Osiris; the Egyptians thought that at death, the pharaoh’s souls joined the stars of Orion. Therefore, the alignment of the pyramids with this constellation is an act of deliberateness, which connects this terrestrial world with divinity.
Apart from the pyramids, the Egyptians devised a calendar that was based on the heliacal rising of the star Sirius. The heliacal rising refers to the first instance that Sirius is seen to appear before sunrise after being invisible due to proximity to the Sun. This marked the beginning of the annual flooding of the Nile, critical in ensuring the land’s fertility, hence the basis of the Egyptians’ scheduling of agricultural activities.
Their chronology and knowledge of the stellar cycle developed to such an extent that almost all star and planet patterns were predictable. It is further reflected in many religious and cultural phenomena and significantly supported the molding fortunes of Egyptian history.
The Mayans: An Exacting Understanding of Cycles and Eclipses
Ancient Mayans possessed elaborate systems for calendrical notations, and their concept of the time cycle was second to none. Knowledge of the stars, especially that of Venus’s motion, was crucial for their society. Venus was the “Morning Star” or “Evening Star,” greatly important for the Mayans, who followed its movements with extraordinary precision. With such an articulated system for computation and calendar anticipation, they created another one corresponding to the appearance of Venus in heaven and even made predictions about solar and lunar eclipses.
The Maya calendar, especially the “Long Count,” was a rather sophisticated time-measuring system, using a base-20, or vigesimal, system. The Mayans knew full well that time was cyclical and that the long periods of time were separated by the cycles of creation and destruction. Today, the Mayan calendar is studied for the close observation of astronomical events it represents.
Probably the most famous thing related to Mayan astronomy is that they managed to predict solar and lunar eclipses. The Maya put such predictive skills to use not only in scientific inquiry but also in religious and ceremonial purposes. Eclipses were considered very potent omens; their timing was used in decision-making with regard to the timing of warfare, politics, and religious rituals.
The Mayans produced the “Dresden Codex,” a very detailed manuscript containing astronomical tables on Venus and eclipses. The codex contains the most accurate eclipse predictions of any ancient civilization and serves only to show just how much the Mayans knew about celestial cycles that modern astronomers are still unraveling.
The Greeks: Mapping the Heavens and Developing Geometry
Probably one of the finest contributions to scholarship that came into being over the star was through the ancient Greeks such as Hipparchus and Ptolemy, generally believed to be the founders of astronomy in the modern world. Hipparchus is commonly known as the “father of astronomy” due to the belief that he had compiled the first comprehensive star catalogue ever produced, circa 190 BCE. He recorded over 1,000 stars, classifying them in order of brightness in his catalog of apparent brightness in the sky. Moreover, this was the first stellar catalog used later for further studies in astronomy.
Perhaps his most important work, however, is that Hipparchus produced a method whereby one could predict the positions of the planets. This involves his use of epicycles-a means to describe the apparent retrograde motion of the planets. His methods continued through to the astronomer Ptolemy and the geocentric model of the universe that dominated astronomy until the system developed by Copernicus and Galileo.
Equally fundamental was the role of the Greeks in applying geometry to the heavens. It was the application of mathematics in describing the motion of the heavenly bodies that allowed better description of stars and planets. To the Greeks, the universe was ordered according to the laws of mathematics; this belief spurred learning about spherical geometry, and several works are relevant even today.
The star charts showed the positions, but apart from the positions, the Greeks are interested in the philosophical involvements that take many metaphysical tones of astronomy. Indeed, for most great thinkers amongst the Greeks, the cosmos was related to human affairs, and leading thinkers like Plato and Aristotle described it simply as a reflection of a higher or divine order of things.
Aboriginal Australians: star stories and southern sky
Aboriginal Australians have a rich and diverse tradition of stargazing that dates back tens of thousands of years. Unlike the civilizations we’ve already discussed, the Aboriginal people did not have large-scale telescopes or observatories. However, their understanding of the stars was deeply connected to their culture, spirituality, and survival. The stars were seen as guides for navigation, as well as key elements in their creation stories.
One of the most famous star constellations called by Aboriginal Australians was the “Emu in the Sky”. In fact, it is not a common constellation of stars at all but rather a dark nebula which outlines an emu. This “emu” figures as the principal feature in much Aboriginal mythology, making up the major part of the spiritual beliefs of the aborigines. The Emu in the Sky was used to follow seasonal changes, the position of the “emu” in the sky marking important times of the year in showing for example beginning of the rainy season.
The Southern Cross is most outstanding star group in the southern hemisphere, well and brightly known also by Aboriginal Australians. The Aboriginal peoples of Australia used the Southern Cross to navigate and for orientation purposes several thousand years prior to modern, Western application of the same. For their various clans, more specific meaning beyond such was usually then attached. What is often very important concerning this to remember with Aboriginal culture would be just the impressive nature of its astronomical knowledge without record or notation in any written system.
But as their knowledge had been enclosed by oral traditions- stories and songs themselves are forms of recording history-the means to relating both to land and cosmos alike.
Astronomical cognizance that ancient civilizations took is in praise of the great curiosity, resourcefulness, and aptitude of their observation skills that gave man the vision forward. They were capable of mapping the stars, forecasting what would occur in the heavens, and even construct methods of timekeeping that continue to impact life today. This space travel and exploration, which is a possibility through advanced technology, was impossible to be conceived by these ancient civilizations-in fact, the latter intuitively understood the meaningful ways to explain the night sky. Their legacy, however, lives on in our knowledge of the stars, urging us to look up and examine the universe around us precisely as they did all those many thousands of years ago.