Professor: So, the study of the stars, or astronomy, was important to some ancient civilizations. They used to look at the stars and keep track of their positions and how they moved. And they did this because knowledge of astronomy was useful to them in various ways. Studying the stars helped them accomplish other things they needed to do. So let’s talk about a couple of ways ancient civilizations used astronomy. First of all, some ancient civilizations used astronomy to help them with farming, or agriculture. Stars change their positions in the sky, of course. So, only certain stars are visible in any particular season. And when certain stars appeared in the sky, it was an indication that it was the right time of year to prepare the fields to plant crops. For example, ancient Egyptians used to watch out for one star that appeared early in the summer. When the star first appeared on the edge of the sky, the Egyptians would note summer was beginning and start preparing their fields for farming, digging ditches to carry water from rivers to the field.
Some ancient civilizations also used astronomy for navigation. They looked at the star and used their position to determine their location when they were traveling, especially when they were sailing on the ocean, when there weren’t many other landmarks they could use to navigate. For example, the Vikings who are from the far north, they spend a lot of time on the sea, sailing and they would look at one particular star, the Artemis in the sky, and depending on where the star was, they could tell how far north or south they were.
Using the examples of the Egyptians and the Vikings, explain two ways ancient civilizations used astronomy.
