Painting Babylonian – Constellations of Ancient Mesopotamia(22/11)

Organized by Ho Koon Nature Education cum Astronomical Centre (Sponsored by Sik Sik Yuen) & Hong Kong Space Museum

The roots of our modern constellations lay in the so-called Greek antiquity, when Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE conquered Babylon. The Babylonians were considered as the best astronomers of the ancient world. They had the best observations, the best mathematical algorithms, the best predictions – everything but a mechanical world model. With mere observations of the sky and the millennium project of so-called “Astronomical Diaries”, they found long-term rhythms in the positions of planets and sophisticated mathematical procedures to forecast almanac data and the seasonal weather. The lecture will focus on the Babylonian “images in the sky”, the constellation figures and their names, purposes as well as relations to every-day life in ancient Mesopotamia.

Date: 2024/11/22(FRI)
Time: 19:00 – 20:30
Venue: Lecture Hall, Hong Kong Space Museum
(10 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong)
Speaker: Dr. Susanne M. Hoffmann
(Visiting Scholar at University of Science and Technology of China, Chair of the International Astronomical Union Working Group on Star Names)
Cantonese Interpreter: Mr. Sze-leung Cheung
(Jockey Club Project Chief Project Officer, Ho Koon Nature Education cum Astronomical Centre, Sponsored by Sik Sik Yuen)
To be conducted in English, with Cantonese interpretation
Free admission on a first-come, first-served basis

 

 

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