Astronomy and History Selected Essays

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. General

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. The Study of Wretched Subjects

      • O. Neugebauer

      Pages 3-3

   3. Some Fundamental Concepts in Ancient Astronomy

      • Otto E. Neugebauer

      Pages 5-21

   4. Exact Science in Antiquity

      • Otto E. Neugebauer

      Pages 23-31

   5. The History of Ancient Astronomy: Problems and Methods

      • O. Neugebauer

      Pages 33-98

   6. Mathematical Methods in Ancient Astronomy

      • O. Neugebauer

      Pages 99-127

   7. The Transmission of Planetary Theories in Ancient and Medieval Astronomy

      • O. Neugebauer

      Pages 129-156

   8. The Survival of Babylonian Methods in the Exact Sciences of Antiquity and Middle Ages

      • O. Neugebauer

      Pages 157-164

   9. Zur Transkription mathematischer und astronomischer Keilschrifttexte

      • Von O. Neugebauer

      Pages 165-166

3. Egyptian

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 167-167

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   2. Die Bedeutungslosigkeit der ‚Sothisperiode‘ für die älteste ägyptische Chronologie

      • O. Neugebauer

      Pages 169-195

   3. The Origin of the Egyptian Calendar

      • O. Neugebauer

      Pages 196-203

   4. The Egyptian “Decans”

      • O. Neugebauer

      Pages 205-209

   5. On the Orientation of Pyramids

      • O. Neugebauer

      Pages 211-213

4. Babylonian

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 215-215

      PDF

   2. Über eine Untersuchungsmethode astronomischer Keilschrifttexte

      • O. Neugebauer

      Pages 217-230

   3. Studies in Ancient Astronomy. VII. Magnitudes of Lunar Eclipses in Babylonian Mathematical Astronomy

      • O. Neugebauer

      Pages 232-237

   4. Studies in Ancient Astronomy. VIII. The Water Clock in Babylonian Astronomy

      • O. Neugebauer

      Pages 239-245

   5. The Alleged Babylonian Discovery of the Precession of the Equinoxes

      • O. Neugebauer

      Pages 247-254

The collection of papers assembled here on a variety of topics in ancient and medieval astronomy was originally suggested by Noel Swerdlow of the University of Chicago. He was also instrumental in making a selection* which would, in general, be on the same level as my book The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. It may also provide a general background for my more technical History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy and for my edition of Astronomi­ cal Cuneiform Texts. Several of these republished articles were written because I wanted to put to rest well-entrenched historical myths which could not withstand close scrutiny of the sources. Examples are the supposed astronomical origin of the Egyptian calendar (see [9]), the discovery of precession by the Babylonians [16], and the "simplification" of the Ptolemaic system in Copernicus' De Revolutionibus [40]. In all of my work I have striven to present as accurately as I could what the original sources reveal (which is often very different from the received view). Thus, in [32] discussion of the technical terminology illuminates the meaning of an ancient passage which has been frequently misused to support modern theories about ancient heliocentrism; in [33] an almost isolated instance reveals how Greek world-maps really looked; and in [43] the Alexandrian Easter computus, held in awe by many historians, is shown from Ethiopic sources to be based on very simple procedures.

• Altertum /Naturwissenschaften
• Astronomie
• History
• Mittelalter /Naturwissenschaften
• astronomy

• History of Mathematics Department, Brown University, Providence, USA

  O. Neugebauer

Policies and ethics