I sometimes watch those TV shows about ancient civilizations. They often talk about "astonishing" astronomy they used.<p>In reality, all they did was track the sun. This can be done simply by putting a vertical stick in the ground, and marking the path the tip of the stick traces in the ground. This way, the calendar and solstices can be accurately determined.<p>The shows will also talk about the "amazing" technology that enabled, say, a hole in a wall to shine on a statue for one special day a year. Again, rather simple to do using the same idea as the stick in the ground.<p>The third thing that annoyed me was their "incredible" astronomical knowledge in predicting eclipses. All that is is collecting observations over decades and then recognizing the pattern. There is no astronomical knowledge involved. They still had no idea what the sun, moon, and planets were, nor even the layout of the solar system.