Book Review: Eclipse Reckoning in Antiquity: Chasing Shadows: Mathematics, Astronomy, and the Early History of Eclipse Reckoning

Abstract

ECLIPSE RECKONING IN ANTIQUITY Chasing Shadows: Mathematics, Astronomy, and the Early History of Eclipse Reckoning. Clemency Montelle (The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 201 1). Pp. xii + 408. $75. ISBN 978-0-8018-9691-0.Of the many celestial phenomena, surely eclipses of the Moon and Sun have, across the centuries, attracted the most attention, not only from casual observers, but also from astronomers. Today eclipses are objects of popular fascination, but in early Antiquity they were often extremely sinister omens, leading, for example, to the appointment of a substitute king who would suffer the anticipated evil consequences. No doubt this intense civil interest in eclipses enhanced whatever motivation the king's astronomers already had to make accurate eclipse predictions, and the result was the beginning of combining observations and mathematics to create science as we know it. This story, and many more like it, of the cultural and scientific impact of eclipses on civilizations ranging across Mesopotamia, Greece, India, and the Islamic empire, is the subject of this excellent book. In the great majority of cases, and to the credit of the author, these stories are usually based directly on the ancient source texts themselves.Eclipses are relatively complex phenomena, and thus when writing about them it is impossible, not to mention undesirable, completely to avoid complications, for example, the effect of parallax. In particular, if your goal is to understand the details of the prediction of eclipses in astronomical cuneiform texts or the Almagest, to the level that you can do the calculations yourself, then you will need to consult more specialized works such as Otto Neugebauer's History of ancient mathematical astronomy. But if your goal is to understand in broad terms both the mathematics of eclipses and their cultural impacts, and the transmission of all this material across multiple cultures for roughly two millennia, then you will be well served by this book, which strikes a useful balance in delivering the mathematical details in a way that is broadly accessible, in no small part due to the generous inclusion of many drawing and figures, and by the inclusion of rich and detailed discussions of the cultural backgrounds and impacts. Even if you don't know much about astronomy, chap. 2 explains the rudiments of eclipses and will give you the necessary background to understand most of the book.Individual chapters are then devoted to each major culture. …