Electronic Resource
Oxford, UK; Malden, USA
:
Munksgaard International Publishers
Centaurus
47 (2005), S. 0
ISSN:
1600-0498
Source:
Blackwell Publishing Journal Backfiles 1879-2005
Topics:
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
Notes:
The Saros cycle of 223 synodic months played an important role in Late Babylonian astronomy. It was used to predict the dates of future eclipse possibilities together with the times of those eclipses and underpinned the development of mathematical lunar theories. The excess length of the Saros over a whole number of days varies due to solar and lunar anomaly between about 6 and 9 h. We here investigate two functions which model the length of the Saros found in Babylonian sources: a simple zigzag function with an 18-year period presented on the tablet BM 45861 and a function which varies with the month of the year constructed from rules found on the important procedure text TU 11. These functions are shown to model nature very well and to be closely related. We further conclude that these functions are the likely source of the Saros lengths used to calculate the times of predicted eclipses and were probably known by at latest the mid-sixth-century BC.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0498.2005.470301.x
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