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The Revival of Planetary Astronomy in Carolingian and Post-Carolingian Europe. Variorum Collected Studies Series. Vol. CS 279. Ashgate. ISBN 0-86078-868-7. Hodson, F. R., ed. (1974). The Place of Astronomy in the Ancient World: A Joint Symposium of the Royal Society and the British Academy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-725944-8.
Ancient Greek astronomy is the astronomy written in the Greek language during classical antiquity. Greek astronomy is understood to include the Ancient Greek , Hellenistic , Greco-Roman , and late antique eras.
The first major Arabic work of astronomy is the Zij al-Sindh by Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. The work contains tables for the movements of the Sun, the Moon, and the five planets known at the time. The work is significant as it introduced Ptolemaic concepts into Islamic sciences. This work also marks the turning point in Arabic astronomy.
Babylonian astronomy was "the first and highly successful attempt at giving a refined mathematical description of astronomical phenomena." [2] According to the historian Asger Aaboe, "all subsequent varieties of scientific astronomy, in the Hellenistic world, in India, in Islam, and in the West—if not indeed all subsequent endeavour in the exact sciences—depend upon Babylonian astronomy in ...
Egyptian astronomy dates back to prehistoric times. The presence of stone circles at Nabta Playa in Upper Egypt from the 5th millennium BCE show the importance of astronomy to the religious life of ancient Egypt , even in the prehistoric period.
The Ptolemaic system used in ancient Greek astronomy placed the planets by order of proximity to Earth in the then-current geocentric model, closest to furthest, as the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. [16]
The Babylonians were the first civilization known to possess a functional theory of the planets. [9] The oldest surviving planetary astronomical text is the Babylonian Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, a 7th-century BC copy of a list of observations of the motions of the planet Venus that probably dates as early as the second millennium BC.
A common justification for the need for astronomy is the need to develop an accurate calendar for agricultural reasons. Ancient texts like Hesiod's Works and Days, an ancient farming manual, would appear to partially confirm this: astronomical observations are used in combination with ecological signs, such as bird migrations to