Editing History of science (section)

===Mesopotamia===
{{Further|Babylonian astronomy|Babylonian mathematics|Babylonian medicine}}
[[File:Divinatory livers Louvre AO19837.jpg|thumb|upright=0.6|Clay models of animal livers dating between the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries BCE, found in the royal palace at [[Mari, Syria|Mari]] in what is now Syria]]
The ancient Mesopotamians had extensive knowledge about the [[Chemical property|chemical properties]] of clay, sand, metal ore, [[bitumen]], stone, and other natural materials, and applied this knowledge to practical use in manufacturing [[pottery]], [[faience]], glass, soap, metals, [[lime plaster]], and waterproofing. [[Metallurgy]] required knowledge about the properties of metals. Nonetheless, the Mesopotamians seem to have had little interest in gathering information about the natural world for the mere sake of gathering information and were far more interested in studying the manner in which the gods had ordered the [[universe]]. Biology of non-human organisms was generally only written about in the context of mainstream academic disciplines. [[Animal physiology]] was studied extensively for the purpose of [[divination]]; the anatomy of the [[liver]], which was seen as an important organ in [[haruspicy]], was studied in particularly intensive detail. [[Animal behavior]] was also studied for divinatory purposes. Most information about the training and domestication of animals was probably transmitted orally without being written down, but one text dealing with the training of horses has survived.<ref name="McIntosh2005"/>

====Mesopotamian medicine====
The ancient [[Mesopotamia]]ns had no distinction between "rational science" and [[Magic (paranormal)|magic]].<ref name="Farber1995">{{Cite book|last=Farber|first=Walter|date=1995 |chapter=Witchcraft, Magic, and Divination in Ancient Mesopotamia|title=Civilizations of the Ancient Near East|volume=3|location=New York City, New York|publisher=Charles Schribner's Sons, MacMillan Library Reference USA, Simon & Schuster MacMillan|pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780684192796/page/1891 1891–1908]|isbn=978-0-684-19279-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780684192796/page/1891 |access-date=12 May 2018}}</ref><ref name="Abusch">{{cite book |last=Abusch|first=Tzvi|title=Mesopotamian Witchcraft: Towards a History and Understanding of Babylonian Witchcraft Beliefs and Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Slhv-0ewLHwC|location=Leiden, The Netherlands |publisher=Brill|year=2002|isbn=978-90-04-12387-8|page=56|access-date=7 May 2020|archive-date=3 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803051833/https://books.google.com/books?id=Slhv-0ewLHwC|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Brown">{{cite book|last=Brown|first=Michael|date=1995|title=Israel's Divine Healer|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KCzmNKnLqMkC|location=Grand Rapids, Michigan|publisher=Zondervan|isbn=978-0-310-20029-1|page=42|access-date=7 May 2020|archive-date=3 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803054328/https://books.google.com/books?id=KCzmNKnLqMkC|url-status=live}}</ref> When a person became ill, doctors prescribed magical formulas to be recited as well as medicinal treatments.<ref name="Farber1995"/><ref name="Abusch"/><ref name="Brown"/><ref name="McIntosh2005">{{cite book|last1=McIntosh|first1=Jane R.|title=Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspectives|date=2005|publisher=ABC-CLIO|location=Santa Barbara, California, Denver, Colorado, and Oxford, England|isbn=978-1-57607-966-9|pages=273–276|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9veK7E2JwkUC&q=science+in+ancient+Mesopotamia|access-date=3 October 2020|archive-date=5 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210205162758/https://books.google.com/books?id=9veK7E2JwkUC&q=science+in+ancient+Mesopotamia|url-status=live}}</ref> The earliest medical prescriptions appear in [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]] during the [[Third Dynasty of Ur]] ({{circa}} 2112 BCE – {{circa}} 2004 BCE).<ref>{{cite journal |title=Medicine, Surgery, and Public Health in Ancient Mesopotamia |first=R D. |last=Biggs |journal=Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies |volume=19 |number=1 |year=2005 |pages=7–18}}</ref> The most extensive [[Babylonia]]n medical text, however, is the ''Diagnostic Handbook'' written by the ''ummânū'', or chief scholar, [[Esagil-kin-apli]] of [[Borsippa]],<ref name="Stol-99">{{cite book|last=Heeßel|first=N. P.|date=2004|chapter=Diagnosis, Divination, and Disease: Towards an Understanding of the ''Rationale'' Behind the Babylonian ''Diagnostic Handbook''|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p6rejN-iF0IC&q=Diagnostic+Handbook|title=Magic and Rationality in Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman Medicine|editor1-last=Horstmanshoff|editor1-first=H.F.J.|editor2-last=Stol|editor2-first=Marten|editor3-last=Tilburg|editor3-first=Cornelis|series=Studies in Ancient Medicine|volume=27|location=Leiden, The Netherlands|publisher=Brill|isbn=978-90-04-13666-3|pages=97–116|access-date=12 May 2018|archive-date=3 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803060925/https://books.google.com/books?id=p6rejN-iF0IC&q=Diagnostic+Handbook|url-status=live}}</ref> during the reign of the Babylonian king [[Adad-apla-iddina]] (1069–1046 BCE).<ref>Marten Stol (1993), ''Epilepsy in Babylonia'', p. 55, [[Brill Publishers]], {{ISBN|978-90-72371-63-8}}.</ref> In [[East Semitic]] cultures, the main medicinal authority was a kind of exorcist-healer known as an ''[[Asipu|āšipu]]''.<ref name="Farber1995"/><ref name="Abusch"/><ref name="Brown"/> The profession was generally passed down from father to son and was held in extremely high regard.<ref name="Farber1995"/> Of less frequent recourse was another kind of healer known as an ''asu'', who corresponds more closely to a modern physician and treated physical symptoms using primarily [[folk remedies]] composed of various herbs, animal products, and minerals, as well as potions, enemas, and ointments or [[poultices]]. These physicians, who could be either male or female, also dressed wounds, set limbs, and performed simple surgeries. The ancient Mesopotamians also practiced [[prophylaxis]] and took measures to prevent the spread of disease.<ref name="McIntosh2005"/>

====Astronomy and celestial divination====
[[File:-200 Sternenliste aus Uruk star list anagoria.JPG|thumb|Star list with distance information, [[Uruk]] (Iraq), 320-150 BCE, the list gives each constellation, the number of stars and the distance information to the next constellation in ells]]
In [[Babylonian astronomy]], records of the motions of the [[star]]s, [[planet]]s, and the [[moon]] are left on thousands of [[clay tablet]]s created by [[scribe]]s. Even today, astronomical periods identified by Mesopotamian proto-scientists are still widely used in [[Gregorian calendar|Western calendars]] such as the [[solar year]] and the [[lunar month]]. Using this data, they developed mathematical methods to compute the changing length of daylight in the course of the year, predict the appearances and disappearances of the Moon and planets, and eclipses of the Sun and Moon. Only a few astronomers' names are known, such as that of [[Kidinnu]], a [[Chaldea]]n astronomer and mathematician. Kiddinu's value for the solar year is in use for today's calendars. Babylonian astronomy was "the first and highly successful attempt at giving a refined mathematical description of astronomical phenomena." According to the historian A. 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."<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Scientific Astronomy in Antiquity |author=Aaboe, A. |journal=[[Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society]] |volume=276 |issue=1257|date=2 May 1974 |pages=21–42|doi=10.1098/rsta.1974.0007 |bibcode=1974RSPTA.276...21A |jstor=74272|s2cid=122508567 }}</ref>

To the [[Babylon]]ians and other [[Near East]]ern cultures, messages from the gods or omens were concealed in all natural phenomena that could be deciphered and interpreted by those who are adept.<ref name= "lindberg2007a"/> Hence, it was believed that the gods could speak through all terrestrial objects (e.g., animal entrails, dreams, malformed births, or even the color of a dog urinating on a person) and celestial phenomena.<ref name= "lindberg2007a"/> Moreover, Babylonian astrology was inseparable from Babylonian astronomy.

====Mathematics====
The Mesopotamian [[cuneiform]] tablet [[Plimpton 322]], dating to the 18th century BCE, records a number of [[Pythagorean triple]]ts (3, 4, 5) and (5, 12, 13) ...,<ref>[[Paul Hoffman (science writer)|Paul Hoffman]], ''The man who loved only numbers: the story of Paul Erdős and the search for mathematical truth'', (New York: Hyperion), 1998, p. 187. {{ISBN|978-0-7868-6362-4}}</ref> hinting that the ancient Mesopotamians might have been aware of the [[Pythagorean theorem]] over a millennium before Pythagoras.<ref>{{cite book|last=Burkert|first=Walter|author-link=Walter Burkert|date=1 June 1972|title=Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0qqp4Vk1zG0C&q=Pythagoreanism |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-53918-1|pages=429, 462|access-date=3 October 2020|archive-date=29 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180129145253/https://books.google.com/books?id=0qqp4Vk1zG0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Pythagoreanism&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiX4Y3W9bfXAhXBeSYKHfBxCG4Q6AEIMTAC|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Kahn|first=Charles H.|author-link=Charles H. Kahn|date=2001|title=Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans: A Brief History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GKUtAwAAQBAJ&q=Pythagoreanism&pg=PA72|location=Indianapolis, Indiana and Cambridge, England |publisher=Hackett Publishing Company|isbn=978-0-87220-575-8|page=32|access-date=3 October 2020|archive-date=31 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210331100347/https://books.google.com/books?id=GKUtAwAAQBAJ&q=Pythagoreanism&pg=PA72|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Riedweg|first=Christoph|date=2005|orig-year=2002 |title=Pythagoras: His Life, Teachings, and Influence|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A8ixyQJA7_MC&q=Pythagoras|location=Ithaca, New York|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=978-0-8014-7452-1|page=27|access-date=3 October 2020|archive-date=28 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220228161323/https://books.google.com/books?id=A8ixyQJA7_MC&q=Pythagoras|url-status=live}}</ref>