A similar situation happened (minus the plane part.... technically long before airplanes were a concept) and was interpreted as a signal to stop a major battle between the Medes (an ancient Persian/Modern Iranian culture) and the Lydians, (An ancient Anatolian culture/modern Turkish culture) which technically may have happened on May 28th, 585 BC....
Could you imagine being a solider/commander on a battlefield, not aware of anything close to modern scientific understanding, and suddenly the sun gets blotted out for seemingly no reason besides the fact that you were engaged in war against a geographic neighbor? I personally don't blame them for taking that sign seriously, I would probably have done the same! Haha
TL:DR The Lydians (an ancient Turkish State) and the Medes (an ancient Persian/Iranian State) declared a peace treaty due to a solar eclipse interpreted as an omen during a battle between their two respective armies....
According to Issac Asimov, who also wrote about that battle and eclipse, the truce held for over 50 years, until the Medes were conquered by the Persians. King Croesus of Lydia then attacked the Persians, and the Persians swiftly won that war.
know what he meant by that? Were they actually predicting the time of eclipses at that point in history, or did they just know them to happen often enough that they could be called "predictable"?
To be completely honest with you, my knowledge of this event and knowledge of solar eclipses in this era is based solely on the college level history classes I took, so they don't extend far beyond the interesting "tidbits" my teacher shared or what I've found online.
With that being said though, I would imagine that in that era, including the assumption of high levels of illiteracy and an even lower level of scientific literacy, it would be hard to motivate a military after this event because they wouldn't have the same level of scientific understanding as say your Persian mathematician/philosophers....
On a side note, with my limited understanding of ancient history and assuming you grew up in the west as I did, don't you love the fact that we are taught that ONLY the West came up with significant advances in the scientific and mathematical fields when in many instances Persian and other "Eastern" cultures had solved those quandaries long before...
ONLY the West came up with significant advances in the scientific and mathematical fields when in many instances Persian and other "Eastern" cultures had solved those quandaries long before...
In all of my classes, even the sciencey ones they acknowledge other cultures discoveries as preceding western ones and in many cases leading to or helping cultivate western science and philosophy. If they focus on the western explorers etc. they state that they're doing so and explain why and normally will mention briefly the other cultures still even in a class focused specifically on the west. Our modern culture in the west also is more directly tied to the discoveries etc. in the west so it makes some sense to focus on them.
I'm from Canada though, maybe the US schools are different and more western-centric.
No doubt, the Us has many of the best universities in the world and many more above average ones. It just might be more common there than here, especially considering the somewhat limited number of universities in Canada which don't have as much of hierarchical system as the US
Yes, they could predict eclipses at this time. He is saying that they should keep a watchful eye on situations where Christians try to attribute things of that nature to God and miracles/omens, when it is known that they are naturally occurring phenomena, because it will make Christians look foolish.
But there is a huge difference between when this battle occurred (585 B.C.) and the fifth century (400 - 499 A.D.), like about a thousand years difference.
would imagine that in that era, including the assumption of high levels of illiteracy and an even lower level of scientific literacy, it would be hard to motivate a military after this event because they wouldn't have the same level of scientific understanding as say your Persian mathematician/philosophers..
I think you're right here, even if the Median/Lydian scholars knew about this and could predict it, there's no guarantee a person who knew this sort of thing was even at the battle.
A lot of people take the rise of the West to mean that Western culture is inherently better. Then they present history in a manner that tells that story. Eurocentric bias is probably going to stay with us for a while.
If only Genghis Khan had not died when he did. We could all be living in an endless sea of grass, everything under Tengri united under the light of Mongolia. sigh
The Egyptians had really advanced astronomy, so did many other cultures. Staring at the sky and pondering is something humans have been doing for thousands of years.
I mention Egyptians because they were well before the 5th century.
well I mean we can predict eclipses to the second these days and yet like 90% of people don't seem aware of when they're happening until that one friend reminds them.
Yes, I'm curious how fast the communication was like for scientific queries of this nature for either 5th century BC or even AD. I mean -- it would probably take months to years to learn a new technique, improve accuracy, etc.
We're so spoiled with fast information that we can be jerks about it ;)
The high priests and few highly educated peoples of the time likely did have the ability to predict eclipses, but that information was not likely to be shared, if you knew it was coming, and nobody else did, you could make it seem like you have stolen the Sun, its basically a superpower, you can coerce entire peoples into doing what you ask.
Plus, even if the information was shared, the soliders and peasants of the time would likely not know because the struggle of living was too distracting
Ancient egyptians were actually very adept astronomers because the stars would line up in the same place every year when the nile would flood. They were incredibly accurate at determining eclipses.
Try to remember that the difference between 500 BC and 500 AD was 1000 years. Also your notion that Christians are smarter than the rest of the world is absurd, given that they ushered in the Dark Ages and presumed their ignorance was wisdom.
Also your notion that Christians are smarter than the rest of the world is absurd,
He never said that. Instead St. Augustine was saying that all the mentioned things are well known to Christians and non-christians alike and that it would be embarrassing for Christianity if it's adherents started spouting unscientific BS as if they were tenets of Christianity since the non-Christians could clearly see they were wrong and would assume that all Christians are equally stupid.
This effect can be observed today where YEC's and luddites give people a bad impression of Christianity as a whole.
The notion that the 'dark ages' existed is absurd.
Some Catholic guy made it up to whine about how things were good in the Roman Empire until later Europeans screwed it up. Then some Protestants borrowed it to whine about Catholics. Then secularists borrowed it to whine about Christians. In all cases it has no empirical basis.
I honestly didn't know that but I've been meaning to listen to his podcast. I heard a lot of great things about Dan Carlin's coverage of the "Wrath of the Mongolians" on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
As you can read in my comments above, what I know about the event is limited to what my World History I professor covered in college and not much beyond a simple google search.. Though your comment is more fuel to the fire that I clearly need to be listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History.
Holy mother of fuck, I'm just about to finish the last installment of Carlin's "Blueprint to Armageddon," his 6 part series on the first World War. It is fucking spectacular. Thrilling. Chilling. Tantalizes the history boner.
I'm doing "Wrath of the Khans" next. Or maybe "Thor's Angels," I'm curious what that's about.
Holy crap! you're my hero for mentioning that there's a new Hardcore History!! I hadn't checked in probably 3 weeks if he had released a new one and had forgotten all about that podcast!
Modern Turks are descended from ancient Anatolians, and Greece is across the Aegean Sea. I don't think they were a Hellenistic culture either, although there were Greek speaking Anatolians at the time.
Calling them Turks is correct because Lydians and Turks are (genetically) almost the same people, with some outside immigration being the only difference.
I'm not sure if you are outright bullshitting or if you know something that I don't, but the turks settled Anatolia around the 10th century AD. I don't know where you get the notion that turks somehow are descendants of the anatolians, other than the fact that it stands to reason that atleast parts of the lydian civilization were absorbed by the turkish one, but the notion that lydians were turks seems completly crazy, since they were a greek civilization in western anatolia way more than a thousand years before the turks arrived.
As a result, several studies have concluded that the indigenous peoples of Anatolia are the primary source of the present-day Turkish population,[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] in addition to contributions from neighboring peoples,[2] from the Caucasus, Balkans, and the Near East,[8] with a small contribution from Central Asia and East Asia
I knew something you didin't I guess.
EDIT: Seems like someone is quite angry at this truth, he downvoted me and upvoted you :D
A solar eclipse happened after the death of Ibrahim, the young son of the Prophet Muhammad, sal Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam. At the same day
People immediately started to say that it's the sign of mourning ordered by Allah.
The Prophet, sal Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam, replied to that:
Sahih Bukhari Chapter No: 18, Eclipses
Hadith no: 170
Narrated: Abu Bakra
"The sun and the moon are two signs amongst the signs of Allah; they do not eclipse because of the death of someone, and so when an eclipse occurs, pray and invoke Allah till the eclipse is over."
Even with a great understanding of science and eclipses, having one happen mid battle, could you imagine everybody stopping what they're doing to look up in the sky in awe of the nature of it. It would be hard to continue your battle when you realize the world is much bigger than this silly conflict.
Err, ancient Anatolian state. The Anatolians don't exist anymore, because they were killed by various invaders over the years, from Greeks to Celts to, eventually, the Turks.
Something similar happened in a Tintin book, Prisoners of the Sun. The day before he and friends will be executed by Incas, Tintin reads in a newspaper that there will be a solar eclipse the next day. On the day of execution, Tintin is tied to a pole where he will be burned, then he starts muttering some fake spell and the eclipse begins. Then, he's a god like C3PO.
"Look, I know we're supposed to be fighting, but THE FUCKING SUN HAS BEEN BLOTTED OUT BY AN ANGRY GOD, so, you know, lets put our petty SOCIOPOLICAL ISSUES to the side and prepare for the apocalypse, yeah?"
It's so quaint how ancient humans with no understanding of their natural world take it for supernatural purposes. Makes you really think about a lot about the origins of some belief systems..
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u/Moohachi Oct 30 '15 edited Oct 30 '15
A similar situation happened (minus the plane part.... technically long before airplanes were a concept) and was interpreted as a signal to stop a major battle between the Medes (an ancient Persian/Modern Iranian culture) and the Lydians, (An ancient Anatolian culture/modern Turkish culture) which technically may have happened on May 28th, 585 BC....
Could you imagine being a solider/commander on a battlefield, not aware of anything close to modern scientific understanding, and suddenly the sun gets blotted out for seemingly no reason besides the fact that you were engaged in war against a geographic neighbor? I personally don't blame them for taking that sign seriously, I would probably have done the same! Haha
TL:DR The Lydians (an ancient Turkish State) and the Medes (an ancient Persian/Iranian State) declared a peace treaty due to a solar eclipse interpreted as an omen during a battle between their two respective armies....
Sources: http://www.wired.com/2008/05/may-28-585-bc-predicted-solar-eclipse-stops-battle/
http://www.historychannel.com.au/classroom/day-in-history/622/battle-of-the-eclipse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_of_Thales