Prophetic Windbag

I need information about the earliest known astronomers. I'm guessing they were the ancient Celts, but I'm not sure. Can anyone point me to a good source of knowledge or share any of their own?

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mammamaia

the mayans surely predated the celts, by centuries, i should think... as did the egyptians... both of whom developed incredibly accurate astronomical systems, even by today's standards...

fyi, a google search for 'earliest astronomy' came up with over a million hits... the info you need can probably all be found on the first couple of pages...

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Jeff Colburn

Google archaeoastronomy. It's the study of ancient astronomy.

Have Fun,
Jeff

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Prophetic Windbag

I'm sorry. I'd be the first to tell you that my education is lacking. I was thinking "Stonehenge" and imagined Celtic people . . . I feel stupid now.

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Prophetic Windbag

Thank you very much for the term. I've been searching different forms of "ancient astronomy" and was getting mostly half-wit student reports who's creators were so considerate as to pollute the Internet with. This should yield better results.

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red lantern

Many ancient cultures had religious aspects that had basis in celestial bodies such as sun worship. Also don't forget that a great deal of sea navigation was done by reference to celestial bodies, some of these early practitoners include the early Chinese, Greeks, Phonecians and peoples from Asia Minor (now Turkey)

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Elysia19

Hey there,

As far as i know, the Chaldeans (a civilization comming from Mesopotamia - you may know them for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon) were the first people to use to stars for direction. They believed that the stars controlled the heavens and therefore named them according to shapes etc (ie contellations) Hope this helps.

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ClancyBoy

And the Babylonians and Chinese.

In the West, astronomy was synonymous with astrology. Greek and Roman astronomy was limited to star charts for sailing, mainly. The twelve houses were (pretty sure) invented by the Babylonians, then were brought to Europe by the Arabs.

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~lola~

You're right about the Egyptians, for sure. They flourished in the third millenium BC (2500 BC-ish) and definitely practiced astronomy, so they were probably among the very first.

But you're actually wrong about the Maya from South America. They weren't around until, say, 900 AD (that makes them later than the Celts, who were around even at the time of the Greeks). I actually think a lot of people don't know that.