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 That is the finding of a study published on Thursday that analyzed
four clay tablets dating from 350 to 50 BC featuring the
wedge-shaped ancient Babylonian cuneiform script describing how to
track the planet Jupiter's path across the sky.
"No one expected this," said Mathieu Ossendrijver, a professor of
history of ancient science at Humboldt University in Berlin, noting
that the methods delineated in the tablets were so advanced that
they foreshadowed the development of calculus.
"This kind of understanding of the connection between velocity, time
and distance was thought to have emerged only around 1350 AD,"
Ossendrijver added.
The methods were similar to those employed by 14th century scholars
at University of Oxford's Merton College, he said.
 Babylon was an important city in ancient Mesopotamia, located in
Iraq about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Baghdad. Jupiter was
associated with Marduk, the city's patron god.
Babylonian astronomers produced tables with computed positions of
the planets, Ossendrijver said.
"They provided positions needed for making horoscopes ordered by
clients, and they also held the view that everything on Earth - from
river levels to market prices, for example grain, and weather - is
connected to the motion of the planets. So by predicting the latter
they hoped to be able to predict things on Earth," Ossendrijver
added.
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He noted that the tablets themselves do not mention anything about
these astrological applications.
The four tablets, excavated around 1880, were stored at the British
Museum in London. The cuneiform characters were impressed in soft
clay with a reed stylus and the tablets may have been stored in the
scientific library of an astronomer or a temple building,
Ossendrijver said.
The tablets contain geometrical calculations based on a trapezoid's
area, and its long and short sides. It had been thought that
Babylonian astronomers relied only on arithmetical concepts, not
geometric ones.
The ancient Greeks also were known for using geometry, but the
Babylonian tablets employ it in a more complex, abstract manner.
The research was published in the journal Science.
(Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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