Celestial Science & Mathematical Astronomy
From scanning the sky for omens grew real astronomy — the zodiac, eclipse prediction, the first exact science of the heavens.
Out of centuries of watching the sky for omens, Babylonian scholars built one of the ancient world's great sciences. They catalogued the stars (the MUL.APIN compendium), divided the ecliptic into the twelve signs of the zodiac, tracked the planets, and devised arithmetical methods to predict lunar and planetary positions and eclipses with remarkable accuracy — without geometry, by pure calculation. This mathematical astronomy, the achievement of named late scholars and anonymous experts alike, was transmitted to the Greeks and underlies much of later astronomy and astrology. It is Mesopotamia's most enduring contribution to the exact sciences.