Greek influence on Babylonian astronomy?

Abstract

Astronomy in Babylonia during the first millennium BC developed out of a long tradition of observing and interpreting the sky into a science that was both observational and theoretical. It is well established that these developments influenced the practice of astronomy in neighbouring cultures in the Indus valley, Egypt and the Greco-Roman world. However, it is less clear whether there was any significant input from foreign cultures into the development of Babylonian astronomy. In this paper I examine the evidence for possible traces of Greek influence on Babylonian astronomy during the late first millennium BC. In particular,I discuss two possible cases of Greek influence that have been proposed in recent years: the naming of certain zodiacal signs and a value for the length of the year found on a Babylonian text that may be based upon Greek observations of summer solstices.