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Ancient Civilisations that Studied Astronomy

Beeyond Ideas | December 20, 2025



In this video we’ll discuss some ancient civilizations that have brought significant impacts in our understanding of modern astronomy.

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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:08 Arab
1:58 Babylonia
3:18 China
4:23 Egypt
5:23 Greece
6:29 India

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SCRIPT:

1. #Arab civilisation
During the medieval period, scientists in the islamic world had made many contributions to astronomy. They updated the methods for measuring the movement of celestial bodies, and continued to develop models of the universe. Between the 8th and 10th century, Baghdad was a major centre for astronomy. During this time, scientists translated studies in Sanskrit, Greek and Pahlavi into Arabic for the first time.

By taking advantage of existing research, the medieval astronomers learned the methods to track the position of celestial objects. And at the time they were: the sun, the moon, and the five known planets. Since the islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, Arabic researchers learned about the passage of the sun and the moon in the sky.

2. Ancient #Babylonia
Their biggest accomplishment was undoubtedly this! The design and creation of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. But not only that, they also made major contributions in other fields. Astronomy had an important influence in Babylonian culture in which they developed a new empirical approach to science. Some scholars refer to it as the first scientific revolution in astronomy, as this way was later adopted and refined by the Greeks.

Because most of their studies are in the form of clay tablets, there are not many resources left from the Babylonian era that we could find today. But, according to a newly translated tablet, ancient Babylonian astronomers were the first to use a modern method, to track the path of Jupiter. Here’s how they did it.

Babylonian astronomers plotted a 60-day portion of Jupiter’s path across the sky on a graph, with time plotted on one axis and velocity on the other axis. So what is velocity multiplied by time? Exactly a distance. So the final figure that they got looked like a trapezoid, and the area under that curvature is the total distance that Jupiter travelled in 60 days.

3. Ancient China
With their flourishing history, ancient China also made important contributions to astronomy. They started observing stars and named them. A record of which has been found on bones, buried in the ground.

While the European continent experienced the Dark Ages, the thriving civilization in China, as well as those in Arabia and India, achieved major advances in science, astronomy and medicine. Chinese astronomers recorded 1600 observations, both solar and lunar eclipses from 750 BC.

We all might already be familiar with the first observation of Jupiter, this one by Galileo. But according to a recent paper, an ancient Chinese astronomer named Gan De, said.. “there was a small pink star beside the planet Jupiter. We, therefore, conclude that this is a satellite of Jupiter.” It is evident that Gan De had already seen satellites of Jupiter with his naked eyes. They knew about them 2000 years prior to Galileo.

4. Ancient #Egypt
Just like the other civilizations, the Egyptians studied the night sky by taking measurements from the stars. It was to accurately align their pyramids and sun temples with the earth’s four cardinal points. A great example is the Pyramid of Giza. Ancient Egyptians built huge obelisks, which probably also served as simple clocks. At night, people could estimate the time by observing the moon, or by observing the constellations.

The origins of our modern clocks can be traced back to ancient Egypt, 4000 years ago. They divided daytime and night time in 12 equal parts, which is how we got 12 hours for am and pm By about 1500 BC, Egyptians had abandoned star clocks in favor of clocks that measure time by the flow of water.

These water clocks had the advantage of working even when the sky was cloudy. Eventually these water clocks were adopted by many other cultures for time-keeping.

5. Ancient Greece
The development of astronomy by the Greek and specifically hellenistic astronomers, is considered to be a major phase. Greece gradually rose as a power around 800 B.C. It is strategically located at a crossroad for travellers, merchants, and armies. So ancient Greece was a centre of diverse ideas, brought together by many cultures.

The Greeks used mathematics to prove their predictions, and they didn’t only rely on supernatural explanations. One of their most important models was the geocentric model of the universe, which basically means that a spherical Earth was at the centre.

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Written by Beeyond Ideas

Comments

This post currently has 36 comments.

  1. @charlesscoggins3870

    December 20, 2025 at 11:45 pm

    Dude. God named the stars LONG BEFORE He Created Man, or the Earth for that matter ! Just because He didn't read you into His Plans doesn't mean that you get to take credit for His Handiwork!!! Why do all you young idiots think you're so smart? You've been fed a steady diet of BS your entire lives and based on nothing more than THAT you assume you're smarter than ANYONE?!? Jesus wept.

  3. @ኤኬ47

    December 20, 2025 at 11:45 pm

    They were works of others, translated in arabic, therefore the arabs contributed ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, but dark age of religious persecution and colonization.

  18. @Adam666____iChad

    December 20, 2025 at 11:45 pm

    The Rigveda is one of the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism, and scholars generally date its composition to between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE. The exact date of the Rigveda's composition is difficult to determine with precision because it was an oral tradition for many centuries before it was written down.

    There is no evidence to suggest that the Rigveda is 3000 BCE old or that it was composed near the Swaraswati river. The Swaraswati river, which is mentioned in the Rigveda, is believed to have dried up around 2000 BCE, which would place the composition of the Rigveda prior to this time. However, this is still much later than 3000 BCE

  22. @ranganathgowda369

    December 20, 2025 at 11:45 pm

    Indians astronomy was influenced by Greeks Lol it was a nice joke
    Not only you the hole world don't even have an idea what is really Vedas, jyotishya shastra, ganitha Shastra, vaimanika shastra ext…..

  26. @noelthomas5382

    December 20, 2025 at 11:45 pm

    6:15 + If Earth is moving around the sun, we would be observing the stars from different places along the orbit. Oh No no…!! They are farther away than they thought.
    HTF DOES THAT EXPLAIN THE CONSTANT STARS PATHS ETC? I'll go one further.. Supposedly, the sun is flying through space orbiting in the galaxy which is flying thru space in the universe. And yet…. THERE IS THIS CONSTANT, TIMELESS, UNCHANGING SKY WE SEE !!! DO YOU THINK WE ARE THAT STUPID?

  28. @nitishthakur4489

    December 20, 2025 at 11:45 pm

    Rig Veda is way older than all these civs. Rig veda talks about the Mighty Saraswati River that was in its prime 5-6000 BC ago, which is proven through geological studies and the evolution of Indo Saraswati civilisation around it.

  30. @Anonymous-hp1tg

    December 20, 2025 at 11:45 pm

    Saraswati river mentioned in Rig Veda existed at least 8000 years. Moreover, vedas are called "Shruti" which were passed orally before we started learning how to write.
    So, Information of Vedas are much much more older, no evidence so far but they are very old.

  31. @EGYPTIAN708

    December 20, 2025 at 11:45 pm

    I am Egyptian, Arab, and Muslim an I am proud of the information showninthevideo. Honestly, I am in love with you and the channel. Your content is amazingly outstanding ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

  36. @Sajit-Nair

    December 20, 2025 at 11:45 pm

    Translated Sanskrit. So Indian civilization had already established astronomy much before middle eastern civilization. The first should had been Indian civilization

Comments are closed.

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