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For thousand of years stargazers and astronomers have made maps and imagined models of the heavens. The first astronomers whose records we can still find were the Ancient Egyptians and the Chinese. In 1990 a Chinese star map painted on the roof of a tomb was uncovered. The map is over 2,000 years old and may have been painted by the emperor’s court astrologer. Although the Chinese were first-class observers they were not scientists. They did not attempt to explain what they saw. The Chinese saw events in the natural world mirroring those in human society; both were intricate and could not be predicted in advance. They believed that nature is far too complicated for us to understand and it is pointless to try. The Chinese Universe was a magical place in which the idea that nature is governed by general laws played no part. ASTRONOMY AND REL IGION Although observations of the sky played a big part in their lives, the Egyptian astronomers took us no further towards an understanding of what moved the Universe. They may have produced one of the most advanced calendars in the Chapter THE CELESTIAL SPHERES

ancient world, more than 4,500 years ago, but their view of the Universe was based on religion rather than on science. The Ancient Egyptians believed the Sun was the god Ra crossing the sky in his rowing boat, for example. In the Near East the Babylonians, living in what is now Iraq, drew up a remarkable series of astrological charts over 3,000 years ago. Among Over hundreds of years, ancient astronomers in Mesopotamia kept track of the movement of stars and planets in order to predict eclipses or calculate the dates of important events. Their observations were recorded on clay tablets such as the one pictured here.