Ethiopic Astronomy & Computus

by Otto Neugebauer

Ethiopic Astronomy and Computus is one of the seminal works of the late Otto Neugebauer. It is still the only detailed work for the English reader on the astronomical/calendar aspect of the Book of Enoch and the calculations of Easter and other movable Christian feasts in the Ethiopian Tewahido Orthodox Church. The material here investigated originates from two different classes of the primitive astronomy of the Book of Enoch on the one hand, and the cleverly arranged Computus of the church calendar on the other. These two groups of sources are separated from each other not only chronologically but also the Book of Enoch was composed in the last centuries B. C. in the Palestinian area (also represented in the Qumrân archives) while the Computus reflects conditions centuries later within Alexandrian Christianity. from the Introduction

274 pages, Paperback

Published January 22, 2016

About the author

Otto Eduard Neugebauer was an Austrian-American mathematician and historian of science who became known for his research on the history of astronomy and the other exact sciences in antiquity and into the Middle Ages. By studying clay tablets he discovered that the ancient Babylonians knew much more about mathematics and astronomy than had been previously realized. The National Academy of Sciences has called Neugebauer "the most original and productive scholar of the history of the exact sciences, perhaps of the history of science, of our age."

Neugebauer fought in WW1 in the Austrian army, and was imprisoned as a POW after the war. Refusing to sign a loyalty oath to the new Nazi government of Germany he immigrated to the United States in 1939 joining Brown University, where he spent most of his career.

from wikipedia.