[blam]

GGG Ping.

[Red Badger]

rocks?.......Even a string and a stick would have been better......The ancient astrologers were not stupid. Their very lives depended on their measurements. If they screwed up their heads would be on the sticks........

[Dumpster Baby]

What’s amazing is that the ancient astronomers figured out the precession of the equinoxes caused by a wobble in Earth’s spin axis. A fixed viewpoint would follow a circle in the sky, with the 12 constellations of the Zodiac in that circle. The amazing part is the precession cycle is almost 26,000 years, but they figured it out with very short observation time. No civilization lasted anywhere near long enough to observe very much of the precession arc. I wonder if they had....help?

[SunkenCiv]

World's oldest telescope?
by Dr David Whitehouse
Thursday, July 1, 1999

According to Professor Giovanni Pettinato of the University of Rome, a rock crystal lens, currently on show in the British museum, could rewrite the history of science. He believes that it could explain why the ancient Assyrians knew so much about astronomy. It is a theory many scientists might be prepared to accept, but the idea that the rock crystal was part of a telescope is something else. To get from a lens to a telescope, they say, is an enormous leap. Professor Pettinato counters by asking for an explanation of how the ancient Assyrians regarded the planet Saturn as a god surrounded by a ring of serpents?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam.

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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

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[Old Student]

“Nevertheless, these measurements allowed him to pinpoint his own position and date more precisely than he could those of the Assyrian astronomers. He is not sure why his measurements worked better.”

I wonder if the figures he had in his tables had copyist-introduced errors, as is common in later manuscripts? How about continental drift for another, somewhat wilder, explanation?

[grey_whiskers]

The results were presented at the American Astronomical Society's summer meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Rough life, being an Astronomer.

Rades, do you have any comment?

[Sam Ketcham]

... and they discovered the Ouija board also dated to the same period.