grasshoff_antik

Clay Tablet. Source: Paper Graßhoff/Ossendrijver for Spektrum (2017) “Astronomie – ein antikes Großforschungsprojekt.”

Project (2017-2023)

Ancient Babylonian Astronomy

The first complex and at the same time empirically exact scientific theories date back to the year 2000 BC. A series of projects investigated the interplay between observation and theory in Babylonian astronomy. Studying computationally accessible database of the astronomical diaries allows to establish how the Babylonian astronomers made their exact measurements of stellar measurements in reference to the ecliptical coordinate system were taken as early as 600 years before BCE.