Astronomers Revise Date of Ancient Greek-Persian Battle

A team of astronomer gumshoes has pinned down the date of an ancient Greek-Persian battle at Marathon that led to a long-distance run and the sport that survives today in its honor.

Analysis of lunar records show the 490 B.C. battle occurred not on the long accepted date of September 12, but a full month earlier, researchers said.

How important is a month for a professional runner more than 2,000 years ago? Apparently it's a matter of life and death.

According the Greek historian Herodotus, Plutarch and others, after the Greek army routed their Persian attackers at Marathon the long-distance runner Pheidippides sprinted the 26 miles (46 kilometers) back to Athens to announce the victory and warn of an attack from the sea, He then collapsed and died.

Having the run occur in August "makes it a little more plausible that he keeled over and died," said physics lecturer Russell Doescher, who worked on the study with team leader Donald Olson and colleague Marilynn Olson at Texas State University at San Marcos.

Temperatures in August can reach 102 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) along the Marathon route, which could lead to heat exhaustion or heat stroke in even the hardiest of athletes, researchers said. The average temperature of the route in mid-September is about 83 degrees Fahrenheit (28 degrees Celsius), a time when thousands of amateur runners successfully complete the run with non-fatal results.

"Because [the event] happened so long ago, there’s been a lot of confusion and debate about when it actually occurred," Doescher told SPACE.com. The research, which is detailed in the September issue of Sky & Telescope, is especially relevant to the upcoming 2004 Olympic games, where long-distance runners will retrace the famous trek on Aug. 29. That marathon, however, will start at 6:00 p.m. local time after the day’s peak temperatures. "I’m actually going to be paying attention to the marathon event in the Olympics now," Doescher said.

According to Olson, the Greek historian Herodotus provided precise descriptions of the phase of the moon in his account of the battle, a key tool used by later investigators to time the event.

But researchers now believe the Sept. 12 date originally set by German scholar August Boeckh in the 19th century, based on the Athenian lunar calendar, overlooked the importance of nearby Sparta.

Olson said the time of the Marathon battle and fatal run depends heavily on an earlier recorded trek by Pheidippides, when Athens city leaders dispatched the messenger to Sparta -- 150 miles (241 kilometers) away -- to plead for assistance in the defense of Greece. The Spartans promised help, though their army could not march until the next full moon six days away due to a religious festival.

Boeckh assumed the festival was Karneia in the Spartan month of Karneios, when warfare was prohibited for a week, then jumped to the Athenian calendar using previous connections between the two and determined the September date.

But the analysis, Oslon contends, should have been conducted wholly in Spartan lunar calendar, which -- although similar to the moon-based Athenian system -- began later in the year at the first new moon after the fall equinox. There were also 10 new moons instead of the typical nine separating the fall equinox of 491 B.C. and the summer solstice of 490 B.C., which caused the Spartan calendar to run a month ahead of Athens and led researchers to believe the Greek-Persian battle occurred in August.

Researchers said that while they had detailed accounts of lunar phases and dates of the Marathon battle by historians and ancient scholars, there were little Spartan records to rely on. Even those historians were themselves writing about history.

"In this case, we’re trying to say something definitive using very little definitive knowledge," Doescher said, adding that investigation was more challenging that others led by Olson, such as the team’s efforts to solve the mystery of Vincent van Gogh’s painting "Moonrise" last year. "I am amazed at how much of our history is astronomically oriented."

Thanks, I'll add this thread to GGG.

In the shadow of the Moon
book mentioned in article
At 8.45 on the morning of 15 April 136 BC, Babylon was plunged into darkness when the Moon passed in front of the Sun. An astrologer, who recorded the details in cuneiform characters on a clay tablet, wrote: "At 24 degrees after sunrise-a solar eclipse. When it began on the southwest side, Venus, Mercury and the normal stars were visible. Jupiter and Mars, which were in their period of disappearance, became visible. The Sun threw off the shadow from southwest to northeast." If present-day astronomers use a computer to run the movements of the Earth, Moon and Sun backwards from their present positions, like a movie in reverse, they find something very odd. The total eclipse of 15 April 136 BC should not have been visible from Babylon at all. The zone of totality should have passed over the Spanish island of Mallorca, 48.8 degrees west of Babylon-a difference of more than one-eighth of a complete rotation of the Earth, or 3.25 hours. The only explanation is that the planet's rotation has slowed since 136 BC, making the day longer. Of course, there are many other records of the ancients observing cosmic events, from supernovas to comets, but the value of these sightings to modern science is limited. Reports of eclipses, however, are in a class of their own. If the Earth has accumulated a change in orientation equivalent to an eighth of a turn in just over 2000 years, then we can infer that the day has lengthened by an average of a few milliseconds a century. This is an extraordinarily precise figure to deduce from historical records. In fact, it is without precedent.
Varsity Online
Cambridge scientist Dr Leslie Morrison, from the Royal Greenwich Observatory, and Professor Richard Stephenson, from the University of Durham, have discovered that the world is spinning at a faster rate than people had expected. Compared to records taken between 700 BC and 1000 AD, the scientists found that a day is now 42.5 milliseconds longer - much less than predicted. It is though effects from the last Ice Age have caused a flattening of the Earth's poles, making it spin faster.
Solar eclipse
translated by Google and AltaVista
[www.nzz.ch/dossiers/dossiers1999/sonnenfinsternis/sonne990811hc.html]
On 15 April in the year 136 BC it became darker and darker in the course of the in the morning in the metropolis Babylon, until suddenly the sunlight shrank completely from the sky: The new moon had shifted itself between earth and sun and for minutes the Himmelsgestirn had completely covered. The total solar eclipse was observed by the Babylonian astronomers in all details... If one lets the astronomical film run backwards, one comes likewise to the solar eclipse from 15 April 136 BC. If one feeds the computer the values of the present angular speed and movements of earth, moon and sun, however a strange result results for that historical darkness: It should have taken place not in Babylon, but in the Spanish Mallorca. A geographical error of nevertheless an eighth of an earth revolution, which equals a delay of 3.25 hours on the cosmic timetable... [In] 1695 Edmond Halley concluded from the data the fact that the moon in the course of the centuries circled faster and faster around the earth and had continued to hit therefore the shadow of the moon at the point in time of a passed darkness somewhat east on the globe than due to a later darkness had to be expected... [In 1787] Pierre Simon de Laplace... postulated [that] the moon moves not faster, but the earth turns more slowly... Delaunay assumed a braking action by tides, as the tidal bulge moving from Moon's gravitation constantly in opposite direction for rotation over the earth's surface restrains the globe... Moon's gravitation distorts the flexible globe in the course of the month...The fact that a solar eclipse sets on the earth's surface a rapidly moving shadow label of at the most 250 kilometers width, makes it an event singularly precise in time and space. By the analysis as much as possible certifications of historical sun darkness would like to quantify Stephenson and Morrison also subtle modifications of the earth rotation in the course of thousands of years... Beside the Babylonian recordings, which cover the period of 700 BC to 75 AD, the Chinese data of 720 BC... From the data Stephenson and Morrison calculated a middle increase of the daily length [during the past] 2500 years by 1.7 milliseconds per century... A slow oscillation is still puzzling with one period of 1000 years.
Solar eclipse
by Thomas de Padova
translated by Google and AltaVista
[www2.tagesspiegel.de/archiv/1999/08/03/ak-ws-na-42876.html]
The British researchers Richard Stephenson of the University of Durham and Leslie Morrison, formerly at the Royal Greenwich observatory in Cambridge, determined up to one second exactly, when the darkness must have achieved which place of the earth in the year 136 before Christ. And they came to an astonishing result: The solar eclipse at that time could have been observed according to the calculations not at all in Babylon, but approximately 50 degrees further west with Mallorca... Stephenson and Morrison checked so far approximately 300 historical recordings at the computer... The fact that the earth turns... ever more slowly [means that] while the earth is braked, the velocity of the moon increases. It becomes faster and creeps [away by the centimeter]. Scientists of the satellite station of the federal office for cartography and geodesy in cell in the Bavarian forest transmit laser pulses again and again to the moon. Astronauts of Apollo 11 left a mirror there which reflect the laser beams... The measurements prove that the moon recedes about four centimeters from the earth every year.

Historical Eclipses and Earths Rotation
F. Richard Stephenson

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·
	Gods Graves Glyphs	Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
·Dogpile · Archaeologica · LiveScience · Archaeology · Biblical Archaeology Society · · Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·


GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe

Note: this topic is from 7/22/2004. A re-ping, apropos given that we're getting a solar eclipse today. :') Thanks freedom44. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.