Description
This volume presents an edition of cuneiform tablets with lunar and planetary data, extending from the 3rd century to the 1st century B.C. By far the largest a part of these data are observations, in all likelihood excerpted from “Astronomical Diaries” of the kind published in vols. I to III. Planetary phenomena occur after a certain collection of years at almost the same calendar date within a Babylonian year; this period is different for each and every planet. In the so-known as Goal-year texts, the phenomena of the planets are collected from a year which is by one period earlier than the year for which the text is intended. On this way, the calendar dates and positions of the planets’ phenomena may also be predicted approximately. The texts were most certainly also used by the Babylonian astronomers to investigate periodically recurring phenomena with a purpose to find how you can compute them upfront.