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I do reference ancient Jewish astronomy a couple of times in the episodes on the Babylonians. Since they were both Mesopotamian societies they had many cultura

I do reference ancient Jewish astronomy a couple of times in the episodes on the Babylonians. Since they were both Mesopotamian societies they had many cultural similarities that extended to their astronomy. (E.g., they both marked new months when the crescent moon was first visible after the new moon.) But I would like to devote at least a full episode on Jewish astronomy, both ancient and medieval. There's a nice chapter by Tzvi Langermann in Astronomy Across Cultures on the subject. My plan is to briefly cover the Romans after finishing with the Greeks, and then turn to the astronomy of cultures that fall outside the "main thread" of Western astronomy (e.g., paleolithic European, Chinese, Indian, Mesoamerican, Subsaharan African, etc.). Then the plan is to turn to medieval astronomy in the West, starting with the astronomy of Islamic civilization and moving on to the astronomy of Western Europe.

dotancohen 5y ago
Sounds like an excellent plan, and you should have enough material to last dozens of episodes. Another interesting subject to cover might be prehistoric or even preagricultural astronomy. By definition, we know very little about the prehistoric but we have many hints, such as the significance of the name Kohab. And we know just a smidgen of preagricultural astronomy from stories such as the famed "seven sisters" stories common to several diverse cultures, even though the Pleiades has had only six visible stars for tens of thousands of years. I might suggest an episode dedicated to the things that you can't find research as well. I'm sure as you compile your episodes you have some questions that you cannot find the answers for. Even discussing those questions would be very interesting.
- antognini 5y ago
  Yeah, that's a great suggestion. I'm guessing I'll try to talk somewhat about preagricultural astronomy when I go over the astronomy of paleolithic peoples. But you're right that there's a lot we don't know, and even just talking about what we don't know would be interesting. The Seven Sisters stories are fascinating. As I recall something like 60 or 70% of cultures enumerate seven members in their story and the other 30-40% enumerate six. (Maybe I have that backwards.) Even more interesting, a small number of cultures have stories about how there once were seven, but one of the sisters died, leaving six. There's a great paper that argues that due to the proper motion of one of the stars there were seven stars visible tens of thousands of years ago, but that it is now too close to another to be distinguished, leaving six. [1] [1]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.09170.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.09170.pdf

dotancohen 5y ago

Sounds like an excellent plan, and you should have enough material to last dozens of episodes. Another interesting subject to cover might be prehistoric or even preagricultural astronomy. By definition, we know very little about the prehistoric but we have many hints, such as the significance of the name Kohab. And we know just a smidgen of preagricultural astronomy from stories such as the famed "seven sisters" stories common to several diverse cultures, even though the Pleiades has had only six visible stars for tens of thousands of years. I might suggest an episode dedicated to the things that you can't find research as well. I'm sure as you compile your episodes you have some questions that you cannot find the answers for. Even discussing those questions would be very interesting.

antognini 5y ago
Yeah, that's a great suggestion. I'm guessing I'll try to talk somewhat about preagricultural astronomy when I go over the astronomy of paleolithic peoples. But you're right that there's a lot we don't know, and even just talking about what we don't know would be interesting. The Seven Sisters stories are fascinating. As I recall something like 60 or 70% of cultures enumerate seven members in their story and the other 30-40% enumerate six. (Maybe I have that backwards.) Even more interesting, a small number of cultures have stories about how there once were seven, but one of the sisters died, leaving six. There's a great paper that argues that due to the proper motion of one of the stars there were seven stars visible tens of thousands of years ago, but that it is now too close to another to be distinguished, leaving six. [1] [1]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.09170.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.09170.pdf