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Articles

• Steele, J. M.

Astronomy in Babylonia during the first millennium BC developed out of a long tradition of observingand interpreting the sky into a science that was both observational and theoretical. It is well establishedthat these developments influenced the practice of astronomy in neighbouring cultures in theIndus valley, Egypt and the Greco-Roman world. However, it is less clear whether there was any significantinput from foreign cultures into the development of Babylonian astronomy. In this paper Iexamine the evidence for possible traces of Greek influence on Babylonian astronomy during the latefirst millennium BC. In particular, I discuss two possible cases of Greek influence that have been proposedin recent years: the naming of certain zodiacal signs and a value for the length of the year foundon a Babylonian text that may be based upon Greek observations of summer solstices

• History and Archaeology

• Αρχαιολογία

Babylonian astronomy, Greek astronomy, Zodiac, Constellations, Year lengths