Mesopotamia, the ancient land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers
(also referred to as the Fertile Crescent) in what is today Iraq, was
far more advanced than many other emerging civilizations of its time.
By the year 3000 B.C., the Mesopotamian culture had developed an
irrigation system, building methods using clay bricks rather than wood
or mud, and a system of writing. Mesopotamia also made explorations in
science and mathematics. While much ancient knowledge of astronomy is
attributed to the works of Greek astronomers conducted centuries later,
the people of Mesopotamia had begun to delve into the oldest of
sciences as far back as 4000 B.C. They in turn developed their own
astronomical culture and passed it on to the Greeks and eventually to
our modern world. Perhaps the greatest legacy to modern western
astronomy was left to us by the Babylonians.
Babylonian and Assyrian Astronomy
These early scholars recorded their findings on thousands of clay
tablets belonging to both the Babylonian and Assyrian cultures.Much of
the data was collected before the era of Nabonassar, the time period
which occurred after the destruction of the Assyrian capital city of
Nineveh in the Seventh Century B.C. The information found on the clay
tablets includes both observations and calculations of the motions of
the planets. The Babylonians also predicted certain celestial
phenomena, such as eclipses and lunar periods. They began their studies
with the eclipse of March 19, 721 B.C..