Hi, all
I normally try and avoid this subject, having no wish to have cynical persons asking me all day long to produce an ancient Mayan telescope and so forth.
So far I'm not a big believer that ancient people knew the size of planets aside from Earth, NASA barely seems to know that (I was working with a value for Mars circumference until 2006 when NASA revised the figures), and while I may concede the possibility that the foot, mile and meter may be very ancient units, I'm not quite prepared to accept the idea that things like the AU (Astronomical Unit) is another ancient metric value that has somehow been magically recycled...
If there's one thing that seems certain to me that ancient people did know then, it's the cycles of the planets relative to the Earth and their periodicity.
I would be just as happy to leave the outer planets out of it, except that I think the long calendar cycles that ancient people seem to have used (such the Half Venus Cycle or Long Count) do seem to be able to integrate the Orbital Periods or Synodic Periods of planets generally regarded as not visible to the unaided eye, as a number of authors seem to have already noted.
So my question is, what should we make of that?
Is that just a big fabulous coincidence, or might it actually constitute actual circumstantial evidence of ancient people having been aware of, and capable of observing, the motions of Uranus and Neptune?
(I'm leaving Pluto out of it for now just because that really does seem to me like pushing it so much that I haven't bothered to check if its rhythms fit these ancient calendar cycles as well).
Maybe there are indications of ancient astronomical equipment having existed that I'm not aware of?
What does everyone think of this? - and thanks in advance for any and all contributions.
Cheers!
I normally try and avoid this subject, having no wish to have cynical persons asking me all day long to produce an ancient Mayan telescope and so forth.
So far I'm not a big believer that ancient people knew the size of planets aside from Earth, NASA barely seems to know that (I was working with a value for Mars circumference until 2006 when NASA revised the figures), and while I may concede the possibility that the foot, mile and meter may be very ancient units, I'm not quite prepared to accept the idea that things like the AU (Astronomical Unit) is another ancient metric value that has somehow been magically recycled...
If there's one thing that seems certain to me that ancient people did know then, it's the cycles of the planets relative to the Earth and their periodicity.
I would be just as happy to leave the outer planets out of it, except that I think the long calendar cycles that ancient people seem to have used (such the Half Venus Cycle or Long Count) do seem to be able to integrate the Orbital Periods or Synodic Periods of planets generally regarded as not visible to the unaided eye, as a number of authors seem to have already noted.
So my question is, what should we make of that?
Is that just a big fabulous coincidence, or might it actually constitute actual circumstantial evidence of ancient people having been aware of, and capable of observing, the motions of Uranus and Neptune?
(I'm leaving Pluto out of it for now just because that really does seem to me like pushing it so much that I haven't bothered to check if its rhythms fit these ancient calendar cycles as well).
Maybe there are indications of ancient astronomical equipment having existed that I'm not aware of?
What does everyone think of this? - and thanks in advance for any and all contributions.
Cheers!