THE EVIDENCE OF TRANSMISSION

Second only to the invention of writing, science, in the forms of astronomy and astrology, ranks as the cultural phenomenon through which Mesopotamian civilization had its broadest impact on other cultures. This impact is measured by the nature of the evidence for the transmission of the Mesopotamian celestial sciences both to the west and east, in antiquity and even later. During the Hellenistic period the transmission of astronomical knowledge from Mesopotamia to Greece was to be influential in the early development of western astronomy. The preservation of Babylonian astronomy in Medieval European, Indian, and Arabic traditions is in turn a consequence of the influence of Hellenistic astronomy and astrology, in which parts of the Babylonian tradition came to be embedded. Whereas the Indian reception of western astronomy and astrology occurred as early as the mid-second century of the Common Era, the impact of Indian astronomy on Arabic astronomy took place during the ninth century of our era, by which time Indian astronomy represented a hybrid of Babylonian and Greek traditions. In addition to the Babylonian contribution to Arabic science via India, the Greek Almagest became another significant vehicle for the transmission of Babylonian astronomy to the Islamic world and all the places where the Almagest became known. Babylonian astronomical units (the sexagesimal system, the measure of time and arc, units of length and magnitude in cubits and fingers, tithis, and ecliptical coordinates), parameters (such as period relations for lunar, solar, planetary phenomena, and values for the length of daylight), and methods (Systems A and B of Babylonian mathematical astronomy and methods for computing the rising times of the zodiac) were incorporated within the astronomy of these later antique and mediaeval sciences.