Question for the forum: What would the ancients have needed to determine planetary orbits?

originally posted by: KilgoreTrout


The 'why' very much depends on what you mean by 'the ancients'.

The historical period prior to the Classical age (in European and ME, northern Africa) and in general runs from circa 3,000 BCE to 8-600 BCE and overlaps with bronze age. Ancient Egypt Sumer, etc.

originally posted by: Hanslune

originally posted by: KilgoreTrout


The 'why' very much depends on what you mean by 'the ancients'.

The historical period prior to the Classical age (in European and ME, northern Africa) and in general runs from circa 3,000 BCE to 8-600 BCE and overlaps with bronze age. Ancient Egypt Sumer, etc.

So what would you classify goblecki tepi? Pre ancient? Pre historical? No tryng to be rinde justo tryng to better uderstand your clasification.

originally posted by: Hanslune

originally posted by: KilgoreTrout


The 'why' very much depends on what you mean by 'the ancients'.

The historical period prior to the Classical age (in European and ME, northern Africa) and in general runs from circa 3,000 BCE to 8-600 BCE and overlaps with bronze age. Ancient Egypt Sumer, etc.

Okay. They had no specific need to (at the earliest point), other than a curiousity to know, hence why it developed as a branch of knowledge (by which time the desire to widen the parametres of predictibility had become greater due to increased uncertainty within their environment which was seen as a failure of the system). They did, via observation, map the movements of the constellations around the pole star which they utilised to fix their calendar, which is the whole point of the Marduk mythology, and they identified planets and bodies as markers of time/movement beyond the pole revolving constellations which allowed for adjustments to that calendar. Otherwise, no 'need' to drive the development of the instruments, skills and mathematics but those abiliites were through the process and increased drive for accuracy were nurtured. They knew that the planets had orbits, because they were looking for and recording that information, but the specifics of orbits (particularly relationally), no. For that, it had to first pass through Ancient Egypt, who adopted (and adapted to their purpose) the Marduk (pole star) calendar system and then into the classical world.

originally posted by: Jarocal

originally posted by: Hanslune

originally posted by: KilgoreTrout


The 'why' very much depends on what you mean by 'the ancients'.

The historical period prior to the Classical age (in European and ME, northern Africa) and in general runs from circa 3,000 BCE to 8-600 BCE and overlaps with bronze age. Ancient Egypt Sumer, etc.

So what would you classify goblecki tepi? Pre ancient? Pre historical? No tryng to be rinde justo tryng to better uderstand your clasification.

GT is classified as a PPN site or Pre Pottery Neolithic

Observation and a means to pass on the record. Since the god(s) moved and ruled everything. You were attempting to understand the god(s). To simple. Take a piece of string and pull it tight. Magic, a straight line. Pin an end of the string and tie a scribe to the other end. Now keeping the string tight, scribe or draw a line keeping the string tight. A perfect circle. Amazing the amount of information you can accumulate with a piece of string. The basics of geometry is a straight line, a piece of string pulled tight.

originally posted by: Brandyjack
Observation and a means to pass on the record. Since the god(s) moved and ruled everything. You were attempting to understand the god(s). To simple. Take a piece of string and pull it tight. Magic, a straight line. Pin an end of the string and tie a scribe to the other end. Now keeping the string tight, scribe or draw a line keeping the string tight. A perfect circle. Amazing the amount of information you can accumulate with a piece of string. The basics of geometry is a straight line, a piece of string pulled tight.

And you just need a stick and the Sun to establish a right angle. None of the planets has an orbit which is a perfect circle though. The Sumerians were obsessed with quantification and developed whole new social classes as a result of clerks, accountants and surveyors. Each plot of land was marked by a stone that bore it's exact measurements, value, yield and expected tythe, penalties for encroachment and authorised usage. That is what civilisation means. But astrologers, who set the calendar, did not initially have those skills available to them, because it was a closed profession. Later, numeracy became less specialised in much the same way as literacy did that permitted the opportunity for the two key cultural interests of quantification and astrology to merge.