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Excerpt from 'Literature Review' chapter:

History of Science of the 4 periods in Ancient Civilisation

...... Mesopotamian astronomy permitted agricultural society to develop a calendar. As a result, crop growing and harvesting were optimized in a way that had never been seen before. By combining astronomical observations with astute agronomy, a number of inferences were made that completely revolutionized the way even primitive agriculture and the resulting technologies of irrigation, crop rotation, storage, and even pre-planning harvests occurred. The astute astronomical observations of the Mesopotamians are still used today by scientists. Moreover, they influenced Western concepts of a seven-day week, a lunar month, and a solar year, in addition to the names of the planets (Scofield)
At the time, no separation between astronomy and astrology was made; both were part of the same science. The study of the stars produced both facts (seasons, chronology, etc.) and spiritual omens. Some 1,500 years later, Al-Batani used the collected horoscope and omen information to calculate the Earths axis, citing it as being 54.5 arc-seconds per annum. The value currently estimated by scientists is 49.8 arc-seconds per annum. Clearly, then, the Mesopotamians information was amazingly accurate; decisively influencing the forthcoming Greek, Indian, Islamic, and Western sciences (Aaboe 2142)......