..."lunar and solar observations had any PRACTICAL use whatsoever "
Yes. I suppose that is what we are both saying.
And yet, ancient thinking may not have made such a distinction between profane and sacred, or practical and ritual, etc. We are viewing things from a modern perspective.
The line between the profane aspect of these solar and lunar observations and the divine or the sacred is hard to delineate. For many people in the past, like for people in primitive societies nowadays, it may have been as 'practical' or as 'magical' to view the sun set behind a certain stone (and sigh) as the action of watching water boil.
