History of science

The Middle East

In the cradles of Western civilization in Egypt and Mesopotamia, there were two rather different situations. In Egypt there was an assumption of cosmic order guaranteed by a host of benevolent gods. But unlike China, whose rugged geography often produced disastrous floods, earthquakes, and violent storms that destroyed crops, Egypt was surpassingly placid and delightful. Egyptians found it difficult to believe that all ended with death; enormous intellectual and physical labour, therefore, was devoted to preserving life after death. Both Egyptian theology and the pyramids are testaments to this preoccupation. All of the important questions were answered by religion, so the Egyptians did not concern themselves overmuch with speculations about the universe. The stars and the planets had astrological significance in that the major heavenly bodies were assumed to “rule” the land when they were in the ascendant (from the succession of these “rules” came the seven-day week, after the five planets and the Sun and the Moon), but astronomy was largely limited to the calendrical calculations necessary to predict the annual life-giving flood of the Nile. None of this required much mathematics, and there was, consequently, little of any importance.

Mesopotamia was more ... (200 of 15,344 words)