I wonder that too I think that this early civilations were more advance then us. In the terms I mean they knew some secrets or some forth. They had more conscience then us and instead of being blind they used there head and idk Its confuseing...

I'm sorry if this was already said but the main reason for ancient civilizations to look at the stars was for religious purposes. The ancients used the movements of the stars to memorize important religious events. Also they seen the stars as being devine or God-like. For instance in Ancient Egypt the sun got Re.

Originally posted by george_gaz
I should have been a little clearer originally too ... where I said "how could they see them" I was referring to the planets there because I have never (to my knowledge) seen another planet, day or night without aid so I was just baffled as to how ancient civilisations had such "advanced" knowledge of this stuff.

We live in modern times, George, when there's light pollution all over the Earth. The sky you see in 2008 is not the same as I saw in the 1970's, because cities were smaller and it was possible to drive 20 miles and get to a place where the glow of street lights and building lights didn't haze the sky. In today's suburbs you CAN see the planets (up to Saturn) if you know where to look and when to look.

You've undoubtedly seen Mercury and Venus and Jupiter and Saturn as well as Mars... but they look like stars to you.

The "advanced knowledge" just comes from years of observing. If you were a teller of tales about the stars, you'd soon notice that several of the stars move in the night sky. It doesn't take a genius to figure that if between one cycle of the moon and the next that wandering star moves a thumbwidth across the constellation, then 3 moons ought to make it move 3 thumbwidths... and so on and so forth.

Once you have writing and basic measuring tools, you can make an observatory... and the rest is just lots of adding and subtracting and keeping records.