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The Question
(Submitted September 17, 1998)
Why did ancient civilizations, like Mayans and Greeks, have such
advanced Astronomy? How did they build their observatories?
The Answer
Have you ever gone to a completely dark site, far, far away from any
cities or even a small village, on a clear, dark night, and watched the
stars? Many city dwellers today don't know how overwhelmingly beautiful
the night sky can be, when there are no street lights around. Yet, there
are many who enjoy stargazing as a hobby. The ancient peoples had a much
better view of the night sky than we usually do, and they had little
entertainment during the night (no MTV, no electric guitars, no
Blockbusters, no Simpsons, no Friends, no NFL, no World Series), so they
were well motivated to gaze at the sky.
Any civilizations with advanced enough astronomy gained practical
advantages, too. A calendar, based on the regular patterns of the Sun,
the Moon, and the stars, is essential if you want to be successful at
agriculture in temperate climates. Astronomy gives you navigation, too --
not only at sea (the Polynesians being the most amazing example), but
being able to tell which way is north at night may well be an advantage if
you wanted to hunt or wage a battle at night.
It is hard to compare the Greeks and the Mayans because they lived several
thousand years apart. The Ancient Greek society seemed to consider
knowledge and learning to be an important part of their culture - thus
studying astronomy was a natural extension of that.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/GreekScience/Students/Ellen/EarlyGkAstronomy.html
http://www.phys.virginia.edu/classes/109N/lectures/greek_astro.htm.
I would guess that astronomy was an important part of the Mayan religion,
which is why they studied it. You'll have to research that part yourself.
There are a lot of good resources on the web...I'll help you out with the
first few.
Here is one page only on Mayan Astronomy:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/9976/mayanintro.html
This one is a bit more general.
"http://www.sci.mus.mn.us/sln/ma/top.html (http://www.sci.mus.mn.us/sln/ma/top.html)
I don't believe either culture used telescopes, but instead used their
eyes and other aids (like pyramids in the case of the Mayans) to study the
different positions of planets and the motions of the sky above them. You
might want to check out some general history of astronomy sites to see
when the telescope was invented, and what other cultures were doing (i.e.
the Britons with Stonehenge...)
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~tlaloc/archastro/ (http://www.wam.umd.edu/%7Etlaloc/archastro/)
http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/astroweb/history.html
Maggie Masetti & Koji Mukai
for Ask A High-Energy Astronomer
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