Why, if the world is going metric and everything has to be counted in tens or hundreds, does an hour have 60 minutes or a minute 60 seconds? Or why does a circle have 360 degrees instead of something even, like 100 or 1,000? If you want to point the finger, blame it on the Babylonians.
The Babylonians used a number system based on 60, and such was their rising influence from the second millennium BC in the area historically known as Mesopotamia that this sexagesimal system came into common and widespread use. Remnants of this counting system survive to this day, dictating what our watches and compasses report and at this stage who would want to give them up?
The empire built by the Hammurabi dynasty between the Tigris and Euphrates with Babylon as its great capital was also central in the development of one of the great "modern" sciences, astronomy. The Babylonians put great store in what the sun, moon and stars did above them on a daily basis, looking for celestial omens that could warn of impending wars, droughts, famines or bumper harvests.
Of particular interest to them was the most spectacular astronomical event of them all, a total solar eclipse. In reality a solar eclipse is little more than the moon getting in the way of the daytime sun and casting a shadow on the Earth, but this belies the sheer spectacle of a total eclipse when day becomes night and our life-giving star does a disappearing act.
The Babylonians reasoned that any earthly occurrence that might flow from such a powerful and dramatic event must also be dramatic - and probably dangerous. From their perspective, eclipses of this kind were rare, so it was necessary to be ready for such an event.
They wanted to take the unpredictability out of life and they attempted to do so by prognosticating via the heavens. Happily for us, they decided to retain their extensive records of this work on nearly indestructible tablets of baked and hardened clay, building an astronomical inventory of information that over centuries was assembled and stored in massive libraries.
Thousands of tablets were eventually buried after the sack of the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh, but the tablets were dug out late last century by local entrepreneurs who put them up for sale in the market stalls of old Baghdad. The British Museum in turn bought up all it could find and now holds more than 130,000 clay tablets which contain records of astronomical observations made over centuries in Assyria and Babylonia.
One group of 70 tablets sparks the interest of modern astronomers in particular. They deal with lunar and solar eclipses; conjunctions of the planets and the movement of comets; and attempts by the Babylonians to interpret the meaning hidden in these astral danger signs. While this work began as astrology and the predictive effort remained important, Babylon's star-gazers decided that the only way to understand was to catalogue the movement of the planets, sun and moon and this they did in elaborate and meticulous detail.
By cataloguing the heavens they identified celestial cycles, developed accurate calendars and identified reference points for navigation. They came to grips with the phases of the moon the positions of the planets and learned how to predict their positions. All this was done more than 3,000 years ago without the aid of a single computer.
Their efforts bordered on the quasi-religious, as pointed out in P.J. McEvoy's fine work, Eclipse: The Science and History of Nature's Most Spectacular Phenomenon. They believed themselves surrounded by evil spirits and used charms, incantations and prayer to keep themselves safe from the depredations of wrathful gods. "This was not idle superstition, but an important part of Babylonian philosophy," writes McEvoy. "They believed that their very destiny was in the hands of the gods. They also believed, surprisingly, that their destiny was negotiable."
Top of the list in terms of celestial omens was their obsession with eclipses. Understand an eclipse and predict when it might come and you had a way to get around what the gods might throw at you, or you could at least try to talk them out of it, through supplication or sacrifice.
What the Babylonians started in divination, the warlike Assyrians continued after their conquest of Mesopotamia and Old Babylon in the early part of the first millennium BC. They accumulated clay tablets in their own capital Nineveh and continued the astrological/astronomical work, but applied their military organisation and discipline to systematic observation. "Thus began a programme of heavenly omen collection previously unknown in the ancient world," writes McEvoy.
The Assyrians in turn gave way after their defeat by the Chaldeans who rebuilt Babylon and still the observations continued, raised to a higher plane of care and accuracy. Old records were discarded, although the skills and techniques were not, and so began an even more systematised practice of record-keeping and recording. The Chaldeans recorded almost 400 solar eclipses and more than 830 lunar eclipses over an unbroken period of observation that lasted for nearly 800 years, with the most recent records dated about 75 AD.
They defined the zodiac and its representational constellations, which are still used in unchanged form today. They collated rules for the prediction of lunar eclipses and also managed to discover that the planets and moon don't move at a single velocity but speed up and slow down as they orbit. All this was done without the aid of a satellite or a space telescope. They became so good at all this that they no longer needed to observe - they used arithmetic to calculate tables giving future positions of the sun, moon, planets and stars.
The political landscape changed and changed again, with the Persians and then the Greeks arriving to take things over, but still the observations continued. The merging of Greek and Babylonian astronomy led to a finding which, unfortunately was ignored. Aristarchus of Samos presented a radical new theory that day and night came as the Earth revolved on its axis once every 24 hours and that the Earth and the other planets revolved around the sun. This "ridiculous" notion was immediately rejected by most contemporary Greek philosophers who knew well that the patently big and heavy Earth couldn't possible orbit something as small and insubstantial as the sun, a notion that remained unchallenged for the next 2,000 years.
The Babylonian records remain of more than historical interest to this day. Dr F.R. Stephenson of Durham University in 1998 used a report by an astronomer-scribe of a solar eclipse seen over Babylon in 136 BC to measure how quickly the Earth's rotation rate is slowing. Initial 20th century calculations for how quickly the gravitational pull of the moon is slowing down our spin suggested an estimated 2.3 milliseconds a century, but using the Babylonian report he found that we are slowing down by only 1.7 milliseconds a century.
As the scientific study of astronomy matured, its apparent predictive power went right out the window. Telescopes, mathematical theories of planetary motion, relativity and gravity wave theories quickly took the romance and the claimed reliability out of divination via the stars. Only modern-day astrologers and their gullible adherents still make any claims about being able to predict the future by studying the placement of the planets and stars.
While there are still plenty of astronomical observers around the world, the commercial interests have come to dominate eclipse-watching, at least in terms of numbers involved. Getting tourists underneath solar eclipses is big business worth millions, and happily travel entrepreneurs, solar eclipses are relatively common, occurring every 18 months or so somewhere on our globe.
And happy are those communities lucky enough to be in the path of the solar eclipse which will cross Europe, the Middle East and on to India this August 11th. Their tourist infrastructure will be filled to overflowing, bringing a rich financial harvest and the possibility of happy customers returning for holidays.
The Cornwall and Devon tourist boards are expecting to see upwards of three million visitors crammed into their comparatively small piece of Britain. Romania, often left out of the regular tourist trail, has been gearing itself up for a bonanza as the eclipse's shadow tracks across eastern Europe. Two years' planning will see a concert by Pavarotti in Bucharest, side trips to Dracula's castle and visits to the mountains and the Black Sea - up to a million visitors are expected.
"We Romanians hope the eclipse will open a gate for our natal country to a better world. God has blessed Romania with the total solar eclipse," stated De Ovidiu Vaduvescu, an astronomer who is helping tour operators capitalise on the potential.
Ireland unfortunately is missing out on all this hard sell because the "path of totality" where the sun is completely blocked and the full shadow touches the Earth, falls more than 100 miles south of the Cork coastline, well out in the Celtic Sea. We will see 90 to 95 per cent of the solar disc covered by the moon, but only the Full Monty delivers the really dramatic effect of an eclipse.
So we won't be benefiting from a commercial wind-fall, although there are efforts to get Irish tourists into the area of totality. Special flights have been chartered which will circle under the eclipse as it passes over the Celtic Sea, and Irish Ferries is taking in the eclipse on its Rosslare/Cherbourg sailing on August 10th. The company has promised to look for clear skies and a dramatic view of the eclipse. Limited availability remains for foot passengers who only want to see the eclipse, but at last check there were no spaces for those wishing to return immediately and a short stay in France would be necessary.
Eclipse: The science and history of Nature's Most spectacular Phenomenon, by J.P. McEvoy, Fourth Estate Ltd, price £12.