Writing Science Before the Greeks: A Naturalistic Analysis of the Babylonian Astronomical Treatise Mul.Apin

The beginnings of written science have long been associated with classical Greece. Yet in ancient Mesopotamia, highly-sophisticated scientific works in cuneiform script were in active use while Greek civilization flourished in the West. The subject of this volume is the astronomical series MUL.APIN, which can be dated to the seventh century BCE and which represents the crowning achievement of traditional Mesopotamian observational astronomy. "Writing Science before the Greeks" explores this early text from the perspective of modern cognitive science in an effort to articulate the processes underlying its composition. The analysis suggests that writing itself, through the cumulative recording of observations, played a role in the evolution of scientific thought.