A large number of cuneiform tablets from ancient Babylonia containing astronomical texts are preserved. It is on the basis of these texts that we can attempt to reconstruct the history of Babylonian astronomical practice. In order to do so, the individual astronomical texts themselves must be understood. This essay discusses three different types of explanation of an astronomical text that are part of this process: a philological explanation, a technical explanation, and a historical explanation. It argues that a full understanding of any text can be achieved only once all three types of explanation have been provided.

中文翻译：

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解释巴比伦天文学

保存了大量包含天文文本的古代巴比伦楔形文字片。正是在这些文本的基础上，我们可以尝试重建巴比伦天文实践的历史。为了做到这一点，必须理解各个天文文本本身。本文讨论了作为这一过程一部分的天文文本的三种不同类型的解释：语言学解释、技术解释和历史解释。它认为只有在提供了所有三种类型的解释后，才能完全理解任何文本。