Professor Dr Lis Brack-Bernsen

Lis Brack-Bernsen is distinguished for important contributions to the field of the Babylonian astronomy, many of which were financed as research projects by the DFG. She recognized the importance of the time interval, observed by the Babylonians, between rising and setting of sun and full moon. She could show how the period of the moon velocity could be derived from such Babylonian observations. For this task, Babylonian observations as well as astronomical back calculations and model calculations were utilized.
Similarly, she was able to reconstruct how the data, which were gathered on the „Goal-Year“ clay tablets, could be used to predict the characteristic time intervals between rising and setting of sun and full moon. The reconstruction became confirmed through the important procedure text TU 11, that was edited and published in collaboration with the assyriologist Hermann Hunger. Analyses of early astronomical texts let her recognize theoretical concepts, which combined with computer simulated data enabled her to reconstruct many Babylonian astronomical prediction methods.