Babylonian Astronomy: Editing and Interpreting an Ancient Science

Abstract

The year 1881 marks the birth of Babylonian astronomy as a modern area of scholarship with the first publication about this topic. From the outset, its scholarly practices were based on a variety of methods rooted in Assyriology, astronomy, mathematics and the history of science. In this chapter, the editing practices that were applied to Babylonian astronomical texts and their relationship to research methods in the abovementioned disciplines are traced through the works of the main scholars who were active in the field of Babylonian astronomy between 1881 and 1955. In this period, two phases can be distinguished: a pioneering phase (1881–1935) in which mainly individual tablets were edited while editing practices remained fluid, and a subsequent phase characterized by the appearance of standard editions of complete and coherent corpora of texts. In both phases, the translations and interpretations were strongly shaped by modern mathematics and astronomy.