Elements by Demokritus and Nabu-shum-lishir Tablet.

Abstract

The article considers the hypothesis of similarity between atom and cuneiform sign. The author offers the arguments in favor of positive solution of two problems – the question of the Mesopotamian influence on early Greek philosophy (for example, Democritus) and the question of representing the elements in the Babylonian science of Persian period. The author compares the fragments of Democritus to the religious ideas of the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia and analyzes the data of a little-known cuneiform text, in which the primary elements of the universe compared with cuneiform characters and zodiac signs. The article concludes that the Babylonian idea of a three-element universe is more old than the Greek doctrine of the four elements, and the Greco-Indian idea of the atom has no equivalent in the Babylonian science.