Babylonian · c. 380–50 BCE

Babylonian planetary ephemerides

Synodic tables of the ACT corpus, e.g. ACT No. 600 (Jupiter, System A)

Computed tables that give, cycle after cycle, the dates and zodiacal positions of each planet's synodic phenomena, including the first and second stations and acronychal rising of the outer planets. About 350 such tables survive for the Moon, the five planets and the Sun, roughly half of them planetary, written c. 380–50 BCE in Babylon and Uruk. Retrograde arcs are implicit in them, as the longitude differences between consecutive stations; ACT No. 600, a System A table of Jupiter's first stations, was written in Uruk's Rēš temple in SE 118 (194 BCE).

Author: Anonymous (Babylonian scribes)
Date: c. 380–50 BCE
Original language: Akkadian (logographic numerical tables)
Kind: Mathematical astronomy
Planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn

On the shelf · Mesopotamia · 08−1800 → 2026

−1800−1500−1000−5001500100015002026

Span · c. 380–50 BCESame shelfThis source’s span

Editions

2 editions.

Year	Edition	©
1955	O. Neugebauer, Astronomical Cuneiform Texts: Babylonian Ephemerides of the Seleucid Period for the Motion of the Sun, the Moon, and the Planets, 3 vols. (London: Lund Humphries for the Institute for Advanced Study, 1955; repr. Springer, 1983)	©
2012	M. Ossendrijver, Babylonian Mathematical Astronomy: Procedure Texts (New York: Springer, 2012), Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences	©

Read it

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References

M. Ossendrijver, 'The Sky over Ancient Iraq: Babylonian Astronomy in Context', Lecture 3, Rostovtzeff Lectures 2018

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1889	Astronomisches aus BabylonJoseph Epping & Johann N. StrassmaierMath. astronomy	General	Math. astronomy