35. Circular Reckoning

A detailed study of lagtime (See frame 20, Lagtime) by Fatoohi et al led to remarkable findings. The authors searched the Diaries and found 136 records that register an observed lagtime. Analysis of the records determined that the time difference between the observed lagtime (by Babylonian astronomers) and the computed lagtime (by Fatoohi et al) is less than 16 minutes, except for only 9 records.

The computations involved a massaging of the data. The question arises: Is the excellent match between Babylonian observations and modern computation due to a circular reckoning?