Editing Babylonia (section)

====Astronomy====
{{Main| Babylonian astronomy}}
Tablets dating back to the [[First Babylonian dynasty|Old Babylonian period]] document the application of mathematics to the variation in the length of daylight over a solar year. Centuries of Babylonian observations of celestial phenomena are recorded in the series of [[cuneiform script]] tablets known as the '[[Enūma Anu Enlil]]'. The oldest significant astronomical text that we possess is Tablet 63 of 'Enūma Anu Enlil', the Venus tablet of [[Ammi-Saduqa]], which lists the first and last visible risings of Venus over a period of about 21 years and is the earliest evidence that the phenomena of a planet were recognized as periodic. The oldest rectangular [[astrolabe]] dates back to Babylonia {{Circa|1100 BC}}. The [[MUL.APIN]], contains catalogues of stars and constellations as well as schemes for predicting [[heliacal rising]]s and the settings of the planets, lengths of daylight measured by a [[water clock]], [[gnomon]], shadows, and [[Intercalation (timekeeping)|intercalations]]. The Babylonian GU text arranges stars in 'strings' that lie along declination circles and thus measure right-ascensions or time-intervals, and also employs the stars of the zenith, which are also separated by given right-ascensional differences.<ref name=pingree>{{Citation | last=Pingree | first=David | author-link=David Pingree | year=1998 | contribution=Legacies in Astronomy and Celestial Omens | editor-last=Dalley | editor-first=Stephanie | editor-link= Stephanie Dalley | title=The Legacy of Mesopotamia | publisher=Oxford University Press | pages=125–137 | isbn =978-0-19-814946-0}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | last=Rochberg | first=Francesca | year=2004 | title=The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture | publisher=Cambridge University Press}}</ref><ref name=practice>{{cite book|title=The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy|first=James|last=Evans|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1998|pages=296–297|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nS51_7qbEWsC&q=babylon+greek+astronomy&pg=PA17
|access-date=2008-02-04|isbn=978-0-19-509539-5}}</ref>