Talk:Naburimannu

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Contents 1 Wikipedia Manual of Style: BC 2 Van der Waerden 3 VAT 4 Neugebauer critisism

[edit] Wikipedia Manual of Style: BC

Give me a break with these stupid B.C. or BC's, please. These are signs for civil or better Chrictian dates only. I don't know what is the right form to write here in. Do you have any international standard for that Mike? I think not. I found mostly periods within or perhaps I am already blind :-) I can write all dates in proleptic gregorian calendar if I want. How can you add days if you don't have a year 0? So don't speak by heart...
--XJam 2 Tuesday [2002.03.19] (0)

In wikipedia the years A.D. are listed without any trailing abbreviation (100), while the years B.C. are listed as 100 BC with no periods. If you want the periods to show (which I prefer), you type [100 BC|100 B.C.]. MichaelTinkler

Yes Mike you are probably right. I've checked this out through wikipedia. So I shall follow your piece of advice to write dates before the year 1 as you prefer. Yes, you have also noticed my "bad" English in articles on Nabu-rimanni and Kidinu. You should also consider these are my translations from scratch and you're freely to correct them as much as you like but let the contents remains untouched at least in reasonable limits because I've spent a lot of time getting them together. --XJam 2 Tuesday [2002.03.19] (1st ed.)

1. the year thing is not my preference - the method of writing years before 1 without periods is Wikipedia. Typeset-English prefers periods, which is why we have to type them like [1 BC|1 B.C.]. My preference has nothing to do with it.
2. On nomenclature, however, Michael is my preference. Please call me that.
3. I'm revising your English to make it English. I'm not changing your astronomy (I changed one 'angulat' to 'angular' because I'm figured you mistyped an adjacent character). Trust me on that.

MichaelTinkler

[edit] Van der Waerden

Is the "van der Waerden" to whom this article refers Bartel Leendert van der Waerden? If not, whom? In any event, it would be helpful to add a specific citation to van der Waerden's publication. —Finell (Talk) 01:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I got these citations from the book of Hermann Hunger and David Pingree: they quote papers and books on Babylonian astronomy by "van der Waerden, B.L." from 1940 to 1974; it looks like this is the mathematician mentioned in the Wikipedia article, but I find it odd that it does not mention anything of the apparently enduring and substantial work on early astronomy. I did not see the original papers.

Tom Peters 23:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Gotta be him. Bartel Leendert van der Waerden does mention his writing on science history, and an external link includes history of astronomy and ancient science among his writing topics. Finell (Talk) 19:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] VAT

To what source does VAT refer? —Finell (Talk) 04:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

VAT refers to the Vatican's collection of clay tablets (BM=British Museum etc.). Tom Peters 12:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Would it help to reference a guide to these citation forms, which are not familiar to the general reader? Is there one on Wikipedia that could be referenced? —Finell (Talk) 19:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I was mistaken. In Astronomical Cuneiform Textx, VAT is an abbreviation for Vorder-Asiatische Tontafelsammlung (Near-Asian Clay tablet collection) of the Staatliche Museen (National Musea) in Berlin. Tom Peters 22:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neugebauer critisism

Does Neugebauer criticize Schnabel's interpretation of tersitu? —Finell (Talk) 04:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes. He writes skeptically on interpreting it in his History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy part 2 IV A 4, 4.A "Schools and Astronomers" (pp. 611..12), and he quotes himself on tersitu for ACT pp.12..13 . But his main issue with Schnabel was that the latter maintained that Kidinnu had discovered pecession; he reportedly wrote a paper against it in Journal of the American Oriental Society 70 pp.1..8 (1950). Tom Peters 23:47, 22 August 2006 (UTC)