Archaeologica.org

"Ruins of astronomical observatories have been discovered in all parts of the world, although in many cases, modern archaeologists are unaware of the true purpose for which these structures were erected.

Why? New space 'scopes are currently planned to investigate, for example, Dark Matter. This means that somebody has decided to investigate it, this means that somebody came up with the idea of Dark Matter and needs the matter put to rest.
Why did ancient people build observatories, it is unlikely that it was the King's hobby? They were after something.
That is my difficulty, if it was to plot precession, for example, somebody must have noticed the precession and somebody attached sufficient importance to it to build observatories.
What was the importance?

Digit wrote: it is unlikely that it was the King's hobby? They were after something.

In India, the highest caste was the priestly caste. The kings and other rulers came under that caste, and are known as the ksatryas. Then comes everyone else. So whatever the priests wanted to do, they generally got their own way!

I can accept that, the Big Wigs usually do, but it doesn't explain the why.
About the only thing that would have needed accurate observations would have been mapping the precession, a task that would have taken hundreds of years, but my point is that they would have to have aware of the precession before they started mapping. A task that seems to have no useful outcome.

I see your point.

But Berossus, the 3rd century BC Babylonian historian, dates the Chaldeans back more than 38,000 years. Others such as Proclus, Cicero and Diodorus said that Chaldean cosmology encompassed hundreds of thousands of years.

So that's a long time to put it all together. And maybe they weren't looking for precession, but noticed it as part of all their other general observations and then built the notions of the ages around it.

I think we have been practising astronomy for a lot longer than we realise.

This is according to Acharya:

In the famous caves in Lascaux in France have been discovered star maps that date to 16,500 years ago and, according to Dr Michael Rappengleuck of the University of Munich, record the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, as well as the ‘Summer Triangle’ composed of the three stars Vega, Deneb and Altair.





A 14,000 year old star map recording the Northern Constellation was also found in the Cueva di El Castillo in Spain.....

This discussion sort of reminds me of the "how-did-the-first-metal-smelting" thing that we've kicked around.

It almost seems as if you need some pre-knowledge in order to re-discover these sciences....i.e., you have to know what you are looking for.

With metal, you can't get a hot enough fire going with natural sources to melt ore.

With precession, the human life span is too short (especially back then - assuming that everything is as we are told it was) to account for even a person observing a 1 degree shift (72 years.) How did they know what to look for?

While it is true that some of these ancient cultures were very old it is also true that there were constant natural and man-made catastrophes going on. Cities rose and fell but somehow the star mappers sat there ignoring everything that went on around them, night after night, charting the stars?
Something does not compute.

There must be some evidence that ancient man knew about the poe. If there isn't I don't accept that they did.

If there was anything in the Vedas (which is loaded with astronomical references) that demonstrates that knowledge, I think we would be forced to believe that the culture was much more ancient than currently thought.

They did know about it.

http://books.google.com/books?id=DM58Bh ... #PPA147,M1

But because they practised sidereal astrology which was based on the moon, rather than the sun, they didn't change the age according to which constellation the sun was in. It was irrelevant to their system.

http://voiceofdharma.com/books/ait/ch23.htm

Another factor of uncertainty is that the equinox moves very slowly (10 in nearly 71 years), so that any inexactness in the Vedic indications and any ambiguity in the constellations� boundaries makes a difference of centuries. This occasional inexactness might possibly be enough to neutralize the above shift in Kalidasa�s date - but not to account for a shift of millennia (each millennium corresponding to about 14 degrees of arc) needed to move the Vedic age from the pre-Harappan to the post-Harappan period, from 4000 BC as calculated by the astronomers to 1200 BC as surmised by Friedrich Max Müller.

Indian astronomy clashes with Muller completely. I don't know if some of it shows evidence of poe knowledge or not, but some people claim that it does. I've always been a "bones" man in archaeology but when I began looking at Indian archaeology I began wishing I knew more about astronomy. There are lots of articles that are greek to me but may make sense to others. I think the proof of Indian antiquity is in the astronomy, not the pudding.

Ishtar wrote:They did know about it.

http://books.google.com/books?id=DM58Bh ... #PPA147,M1

But because they practised sidereal astrology which was based on the moon, rather than the sun, they didn't change the age according to which constellation the sun was in. It was irrelevant to their system.

Thank you for this Ishtar. I'll "cypher" on it.

This might help too:

The Vedic system, said to be over five thousand years old, takes into account a phenomenon called (in Sanskrit) the Ayanamsha. This is the gradual rotation of the Earth’s axis over thousands of years. Called the precession of the equinox, it is central to modern astronomy, as well as to Vedic Astrology. This means that the actual positions of the planets are constantly getting further behind the “imaginary” tropical placements.


http://www.vedicworld.org/vedic_astrolo ... ology.html

Interestingly, it's Sidereal (Vedic) Astrology that does take into account the precession. Tropical Astrology or Western Astrology doesn't and is still making its calculations based on us still being in the Age of Taurus! That's why, when you read your horoscope in the newspaper, it's always wrong!

Unfortunately, I'm not convinced about this. For instance, some people have stated that because the Egyptians built geometric structures, they must have had knowledge of pi. Although pi figures prominently in geometry, it doesn't prove anything about the Egyptians knowledge of pi.

I think by the same token, that the use of sidereal astronomy does not prove that the Vedic culture had knowledge of poe.

I went through this when I was trying to put together the Indus thread. I do think their astronomy can prove the antiquity of the vedas, but I need more proof that there was knowledge of poe.

They may have. I hope they did.

It's just knowing where to find in the voluminous Rig-veda!

I think I have seen it, but I can't remember where. There is this guy, I think called Dhantanvari, talking about astronomy. But it's all in metaphor so only the most simple concepts are understable. I cannot imagine how someone would describe precession with metaphor!

No, sorry. It's Dirghatamas, and it's RV 1. 140-164.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirghatamas

Some scholars have claimed that the Babylonians invented the zodiac of 360 degrees around 700 BCE, perhaps even earlier. Many claim that India received the knowledge of the zodiac from Babylonia or even later from Greece. However, as old as the Rig Veda, the oldest Vedic text, there are clear references to a chakra or wheel of 360 spokes placed in the sky. The number 360 and its related numbers like 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 108, 432 and 720 occur commonly in Vedic symbolism. It is in the hymns of the Rishi Dirghatamas (RV I.140 - 164) that we have the clearest such references.

The number 72 relates to precession (usually!).

Thanks again. This then, seems to be the clearest indication of poe in the RVeda. It seems to have some substance, but I'll have to mull it over some and google some more about this passage.

Very interesting.