Science in the ancient world
Science in the ancient world encompasses the earliest history of science from the protoscience of prehistory and ancient history to late antiquity. In ancient times, culture and knowledge were passed through oral tradition. The development of writing further enabled the preservation of knowledge and culture, allowing information to spread accurately.
The earliest scientific traditions of the ancient world developed in the Ancient Near East, with Ancient Egypt and Babylonia in Mesopotamia. Later traditions of science during classical antiquity were advanced in ancient Persia, Greece, Rome, India, China, and Mesoamerica. Aside from alchemy and astrology that waned in importance during the Age of Enlightenment, civilizations of the ancient world laid the roots of modern sciences.
Ancient Near East and North East Africa
Mesopotamia
Around 3500 BC, in Sumer, the Mesopotamian people began preserving some observations of the cosmos with extremely thorough numerical data.Mathematics
has demonstrated evidence of ancient writing forms. It was recorded in the 18th century BC on the Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet known as Plimpton 322. The columns of numbers in the tablet generates several Pythagorean triples such as and.Astronomy
Babylonian astronomy was "the first and highly successful attempt at giving a refined mathematical description of astronomical phenomena." According to the historian Asger Aaboe, "all subsequent varieties of scientific astronomy, in the Hellenistic world, in India, in Islam, and in the West—if not indeed all subsequent endeavour in the exact sciences—depend upon Babylonian astronomy in decisive and fundamental ways".Scribes recorded observations of the cosmos such as the motions of the stars, the planets, and the Moon on clay tablets. The cuneiform style of writing revealed that astronomers used mathematical calculations to observe the motions of the planets. Astronomical periods identified by Mesopotamian scientists remain widely used in Western calendars: the solar year and the lunar month. Using data, Mesopotamians developed arithmetical methods to compute the changing length of daylight during the year, and to predict the Lunar phases and planets along with eclipses of the Sun and Moon.
Only a few astronomers' names are known, such as Kidinnu, a Chaldean astronomer and mathematician. Kiddinu's value for the solar year is in use for modern calendars. Hipparchus used this data to calculate the precession of the Earth's axis. Fifteen hundred years after Kiddinu, Al-Battani used the collected data and improved Hipparchus' value for the precession. Al-Batani's value, 54.5 arc-seconds per year, compares well with the current value of 49.8 arc-seconds per year. Astronomy and astrology were considered to be the same thing, as evidenced by the practice of this science in Babylonia by priests. Mesopotamian astronomy became more astrology-based later in the civilisation, studying the stars in terms of horoscopes and omens.
Archaeology
Following the Late Bronze Age collapse, the practice of various sciences continued in post–Iron Age Mesopotamia. For instance, in the nascent history of archaeology, king Nabonidus of the Neo-Babylonian Empire was a pioneer in the analysis of artifacts. Foundation deposits of king Naram-Sin of the Akkadian Empire dated circa 2200BC were discovered and analyzed by Nabonidus around the 550BC. These deposits belonged to the temples of Shamash the sun god and the warrior goddess Annunitum in Sippar, and Naram-Sin's temple to the moon god in Harran, which were restored by Nabonidus. Nabonidus was the first known figure in history to make an attempt at dating archaeological artifacts found at excavated sites, though his estimates were inaccurate by hundreds of years.Egypt
Neolithic inhabitants constructed Nabta Playa megalithic structures, in Aswan located in Upper Egypt. These structures served to coordinate astronomical observations, religious practices and alignment with solar patterns and annual flooding cycles. These practices have been linked with the emergence of cosmology in Old Kingdom Egypt.Archaeological evidence has suggested that the Ancient Egyptian counting system had origins in Sub-Saharan Africa. Also, fractal geometry designs which are widespread among Sub-Saharan African cultures are also found in Egyptian architecture and cosmological signs.The Ishango bone, according to scholar Alexander Marshack, may have influenced the later development of mathematics in Egypt as, like some entries on the Ishango bone, Egyptian arithmetic also made use of multiplication by 2; this however, is disputed.
Significant advances in ancient Egypt included astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. Egypt was also a centre of alchemical research for much of the Western world.
Architecture, engineering, and mathematics
Ancient Egyptian geometry was a necessary outgrowth of surveying to preserve the layout and ownership of farmland, which was flooded annually by the Nile. The 3–4–5 right triangle and other rules of thumb served to represent rectilinear structures, including architecture such as post and lintel structures.Writing
served as the basis for the Proto-Sinaitic script, the ancestor of the Phoenician alphabet from which the later Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Cyrillic alphabets were derived. The city of Alexandria retained preeminence with its library, which was damaged by fire when it fell under Roman rule, being destroyed before 642. With it, a large amount of antique literature and knowledge was lost.Medicine
The Edwin Smith Papyrus is one of the first medical documents still extant, and perhaps the earliest document that attempts to describe and analyse the brain: it might be seen as the very beginnings of modern neuroscience. However, while ancient Egyptian medicine had some effective practices, it was not without its ineffective and sometimes harmful practices. Medical historians believe that ancient Egyptian pharmacology was largely ineffective. Nevertheless, it applies the following components: examination, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis, to the treatment of disease, which display strong parallels to the basic empirical method of science and according to G. E. R. Lloyd played a significant role in the development of this methodology. The Ebers papyrus also contains evidence of traditional empiricism.According to a paper published by Michael D. Parkins, 72% of 260 medical prescriptions in the Hearst Papyrus had no curative elements. According to Parkins, sewage pharmacology first began in ancient Egypt and was continued through the Middle Ages. Practices such as applying cow dung to wounds, ear piercing and tattooing, and chronic ear infections were important factors in developing tetanus. Frank J. Snoek wrote that Egyptian medicine used fly specks, lizard blood, swine teeth, and other such remedies which he believes could have been harmful.
Ancient Nubia
Medicine
Nubian mummies studied in the 1990s revealed that Kush was a pioneer of early antibiotics.Tetracycline was being used by Nubians, based on bone remains between 350 AD and 550 AD. The antibiotic was in wide commercial use only in the mid 20th century. The theory states that earthen jars containing grain used for making beer contained the bacterium streptomyces, which produced tetracycline. Although Nubians were not aware of tetracycline, they could have noticed that people fared better by drinking beer than just consuming the grain itself. According to Charlie Bamforth, a professor of biochemistry and brewing science at the University of California, Davis, "They must have consumed it because it was rather tastier than the grain from which it was derived."
Mathematics
Based on engraved plans of Meroitic King Amanikhabali's pyramids, Nubians had a sophisticated understanding of mathematics as they appreciated the harmonic ratio. The engraved plans are indicative of much to be revealed about Nubian mathematics. The ancient Nubians also established a system of geometry which they used in creating early versions of sun clocks. During the Meroitic period in Nubian history, the Nubians used a trigonometric methodology similar to the Egyptians.Persia
In the Sasanian Empire, great attention was given to mathematics and astronomy. The Academy of Gondishapur is a prominent example in this regard. Astronomical tables date to this period, and Sassanid observatories were later imitated by Muslim astronomers and astrologers of the Islamic Golden Age. In the mid-Sassanid era, an influx of knowledge came to Persia from the West in the form of views and traditions of Greece which, following the spread of Christianity, accompanied Syriac language. In the Early Middle Ages, Persia became a stronghold of Islamic science. After the establishment of Umayyad and Abbasid states, many Iranian scholars were sent to the capitals of these Islamic dynasties.Greco-Roman world
The legacy of classical antiquity included substantial advances in factual knowledge, especially in anatomy, zoology, botany, mineralogy, geography, mathematics and astronomy. Scholars advanced their awareness of the importance of certain scientific problems, especially those related to the problem of change and its causes. In the Hellenistic period, scholars frequently employed the principles developed in earlier Greek thought: the application of mathematics and deliberate empirical research.Scientific practices
In classical antiquity, the inquiry into the workings of the universe took place both in investigations aimed at practical goals, such as calendar-making and medicine, and in abstract investigations known as natural philosophy. The ancient people who are considered the first scientists may have thought of themselves as "natural philosophers", as practitioners of a skilled profession, or as followers of a religious tradition.Scientific thought in classical antiquity became tangible beginning in the 6th centuryBC in the pre-Socratic philosophy of Thales and Pythagoras. Thales, the "father of science", was the first to postulate non-supernatural explanations for natural phenomena such as lightning and earthquake. Pythagoras founded the Pythagorean school, which investigated mathematics and was the first to postulate that the Earth is spherical.
In about 385BC, Plato founded the Academy. Aristotle, Plato's student, began the "scientific revolution" of the Hellenistic period culminating in the 3rd and 2nd centuries with scholars such as Eratosthenes, Euclid, Aristarchus of Samos, Hipparchus, and Archimedes. Plato and Aristotle's development of deductive reasoning was particularly useful to later scientific inquiry.