ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Beyond Obsolescence: The Persistent Plurality of Babylonian Astral Science

• In Event: Burying the Torch: Illuminating Diverse Actors in the Making of Premodern Knowledge

English Abstract

Positivist philosophies of science in the twentieth century have long rejected the
possibility that a true astronomical science existed before the Greeks. Ancient
Mesopotamia has often been excluded from this narrative due to the alleged
absence of logical proofs and theoretical treatises. However, recent studies on the
theory underlying Babylonian mathematical-astronomical texts, together with
analyses of Mesopotamian epistemic practices, have shown that this culture played
a central role in forming the earliest systematic approaches to studying celestial
motion.

Whereas a chronological development of genres, from celestial observation to
methods for astronomical predictions, is clearly traceable in cuneiform sources, it is
crucial to avoid imposing an evolutionary framework on such developments. The
evidence shows that earlier genres of sky lore did not simply vanish —they
continued to be copied and actively produced. Very little becomes obsolete, even
as increasingly sophisticated techniques emerge from the perspective of the
modern historian of science.

This paper argues that Babylonian astronomy, perhaps the pre-Greek science par
excellence, not only addresses a markedly different set of intellectual questions, but
also operates within a conception of knowledge in which progress is not framed as
the replacement of older methods by newer ones. Instead, diverse approaches to
the sky coexist productively over centuries, challenging the modern Western
expectation that scientific development proceeds through linear advancement and
obsolescence.

Author

• Alessia Pilloni, FU Berlin