Definition:
[Source Texts of
Astrology] The Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and
Babylon: Vol II was published in London in 1900.
*Meaning unknown: possibly rust or
mildew.
,
Front page of: The Reports of the
Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon: Vol II. Published in
London in 1900, it was the work of R Cambell Thompson, assistant in the
Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities of the British Museum. Vol I -
not shown on this web set - consisted of the transliteration into the Roman
alphabet of the cuneiform inscriptions. Vol II - on this web site - contained
the translations into English.
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The translation of a Babylonian
astrological tablet of a Moon halo omen dating from more than two and a half
thousand years ago:. First, the cuneiform writing on the tablet is
carefully recorded. then it is transliterated into the Latin alphabet.
Finally, it is translated into English.
Stela of Ashurbanipal [king of Assyria, 669 -
631 BC]. Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh forms the majority of the
astrological tablets that have come down to us from Neo-Assyria. Ashurbanipal
is shown lifting up a large basket of earth for the ritual molding of the first
brick of a temple to Nabu, god of writing. British Museum ANE 90865.
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larger version. 32 kB.
Stela of Nabonidus, with astrological symbols
[Neo-Babylonian dynasty, 555 - 539 BC]. Nabonidus was the last king of the
Neo-Babylonian Empire, captured by Cyrus the Great when Babylon fell to the
Persians in 539 BC. British Museum ANE 90837.
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larger version. 72 kB. |
When do these
Astrological Records Date From?
The clay tablets covered
with cuneiform writing which make up this unique astrological record date from
before about 550 BC. They were found in the 19th century by archeologists
excavating the ruins of the city of Nineveh [modern day Mosul], capital of the
Neo-Assyrian empire, and the city of Babylon.
Babylon fell to Cyrus the
Great of Persia in 539 BC, marking the end of the city as an independent power
with its own king. [Cyrus is famous in biblical history for releasing the Jew's
from their Babylonian captivity.] The Neo-Assyrian capital, Nineveh, had in
turn fallen to the Neo-Babylonians seventy years earlier in 609 BC. These dates
give us the latest possible dates for the tablets, but some are perhaps as much
as a century older.
Is Babylonian
Astrology Before 550 BC the Same as Ours Today?
Though our astrology is a
direct descendent of Babylonian astrology [the name we give to Mesopotamian
astrology in general] the middle-period astrology of the Babylonians and
Assyrians - as shown by these records - is very different to what we have
today. Their astrology was wholly concerned by ittu, Akkadian for what
nowadays we would describe as omens.
* The Moon, not the Sun, was the
most important astrological object in their heavens. Most of their astrology
was concerned with aspects of the Moons appearance - its phases and calendar
appearances - or planetary and stellar conjunctions with the Moon.
*
However, the Babylonian astrologers believed many other aspects of the skies to
have some importance in divination: a halo around
the moon, clouds, storms, thunder,
earthquakes and eclipses, even curious births. This is a long way from the purely planetary
astrology of
Ptolemy's
Tetrabiblos seven centuries later - the astrology we still work with
today.
* The planets were truly Gods, not mere celestial bodies. What we
now call the planet Venus, was the Goddess Ishtar, for example,
and similarly Jupiter was Marduk, the chief Babylonian god.
*
Neither a 360º
Zodiac, nor 30º Zodiac
divisions were as yet used astrologically to describe the position of the
planets. [Cuneiform horoscopes, with planetary positions against a
Zodiac, do not appear before the
3rd century BC.] There is also no indication that the Babylonians had any
concept of a House.
*
However, many - though not all - of the Zodiac
Constellations we know today
had become fixed in astrologers minds, but these were those that lay on the
Path of the Moon, not the
Sun. Certain stars of these astrological
Constellations, notably
Regulus, in Leo, the Lion, had particular importance.
* Whereas
in modern astrology the placement of a planet in a sign is all important, this
concept seems unimportant to the Babylonians at this time. Conjunctions
of planets especially with the Moon were the key astrological
concepts.
* There was as yet almost no concept of natal astrology - no
astrologer tried to predict the future of an individual from his or her date of
birth - and therefore the standard horoscope as we know it today did not exist.
The first, very brief, one - a collection of natal planetary positions, without
any corresponding interpretation of them - is datable to 409 BC. Similarly, the
concept of Rising Sign did not yet exist - the first recorded horoscope
containing one dates to the first century BC.
* Astrology did not yet
exist as a personal aid; astrology concerned the king and the land but had
almost nothing to say about ordinary people. In fact, there did not seem to
have been the concept that astrology could say anything about ordinary
people.
* Astrologers made no long term predictions - they did not try
to predict anything over the period of years.
* Astrologers made very
short term predictions - events that would happen within days or
weeks.
* There seems to have been the concept that astrology was not
fate - otherwise what use would it have been? Astrology consisted of warnings -
omens - from the Gods. Armed with these warnings the predicted events could be
warded off by - usually the King - taking the right actions.
* Though
the Babylonians had charted the positions of many stars before 1000 BC, there
seems to have been no concept in the omens of predicting the movement of
planets against these stars. Instead, planetary astrology seems to have been
completely observational. The omens were based on interpreting what was
observed not predicting it. Perhaps - at this time - the Babylonians simply
lacked the ability to predict the positions of the planets against the
constellations.
* Similarly, it seems very likely that the Babylonians
at this time did not know where the Sun was against
the constellations, unless they could actually see this during in an Eclipse.
On the occasions where the Sun is mentioned in an
omen, it concerns the day time appearance of the Sun
- usually with respect to the Moon - not where it might lie against the stars
[had they been visible.]
* The Babylonians could, however, predict the
Sun's position relative to the
Moon's and hence to some extent Eclipses. [See for
example Omen 272.] Evidence from
records suggests that they did this by chronological tables of past
observations of Eclipses, which started consistently from the reign of King
Nabonassar of Assyria [747 - 732 BC]. [Incomplete ones exist from several
centuries earlier than that.] Patterns seen in the tables allowed them to
predict future eclipses.
* The Babylonians did not yet have the idea of
a Celestial Sphere of constellations against which the Sun's position could be charted. This notion of the
heavens did not appear until the time of the Classical Greeks. [The Babylonians
at this time also had not discovered that the Earth was spherical. They
considered the world to be flat, with the sky suspended above it.]
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