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===Tablet 1===
===Tablet 1===
[[File:2babGLobes.jpg|thumb|The Babylonian globe (no matter whether or not it existed physically) would have been divided in three paths of the gods Ea (south), Anu (±17° around the equator) and Enlil (northern cap, all declinations >17°). These three gods have their "seats" among the stars, represented by the constellations [[Cancer (constellation)|Cance]]<nowiki/>r and Iku ([[Pegasus (constellation)|Pegasus]]). ]]
[[File:2babGLobes.jpg|thumb|The Babylonian globe (no matter whether or not it existed physically) would have been divided in three paths of the gods Ea (south), Anu (±17° around the equator) and Enlil (northern cap, all declinations >17°). These three gods have their "seats" among the stars, represented by the constellations [[Cancer (constellation)|Cance]]<nowiki/>r and Iku ([[Pegasus (constellation)|Pegasus]]). ]]
The first tablet is the most important resource for any potential reconstruction of the Babylonian star map<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite book|last=Hoffmann|first=Susanne M.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/992119256|title=Hipparchs Himmelsglobus : ein Bindeglied in der babylonisch-griechischen Astrometrie?|date=2017|isbn=978-3-658-18683-8|location=Wiesbaden|oclc=992119256}}</ref> as its various sections locate the constellations in relation to each other and to the calendar. Tablet 1 has six main sections:
The first tablet is the most important resource for any potential reconstruction of the Babylonian star map<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Hoffmann|first=Susanne M.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/992119256|title=Hipparchs Himmelsglobus : ein Bindeglied in der babylonisch-griechischen Astrometrie?|date=2017|isbn=978-3-658-18683-8|location=Wiesbaden|oclc=992119256}}</ref> as its various sections locate the constellations in relation to each other and to the calendar. Tablet 1 has six main sections:


* All the major stars and constellations are listed and organised into three broad divisions according to celestial latitude allocating each star to three paths:
* All the major stars and constellations are listed and organised into three broad divisions according to celestial latitude allocating each star to three paths:
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** the southern path of [[Ea (Babylonian god)|Ea]] containing 15 stars or constellations,
** the southern path of [[Ea (Babylonian god)|Ea]] containing 15 stars or constellations,
:Most of these stars and constellations are further attributed to a variety of Near Eastern deities.<ref>[https://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/blibintheblob/mulapin.html&date=2009-10-25+13:42:58 Mul-Apin by Gavin White]</ref>
:Most of these stars and constellations are further attributed to a variety of Near Eastern deities.<ref>[https://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/blibintheblob/mulapin.html&date=2009-10-25+13:42:58 Mul-Apin by Gavin White]</ref>
:The path of Anu is considered as a belt around the celestial equator with a width of roughly ±17° that is divided in twelve equal parts of 30° length, representing ideal months.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Schaumberger|first=Johann|url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/sternkunde-und-sterndienst-in-babel-assyriologische-astronomische-und-astralmythologische-untersuchungen/oclc/4084718|title=Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel; assyriologische, astronomische und astralmythologische Untersuchungen,|last2=Kugler|first2=Franz Xaver|date=1935|publisher=Aschendorff|location=Münster in Westfalen|language=German|oclc=4084718}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Waerden|first=B. L. Van Der|url=https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789001931025|title=Science Awakening I|date=1975|publisher=Springer Netherlands|isbn=978-90-01-93102-5|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":2" />
:The path of Anu is considered as a belt around the celestial equator with a width of ±17° that is divided in twelve equal parts of 30° lengh, representing ideal months.
* The heliacal rising dates of 34 stars and constellations are given according to the 360-day ‘ideal’ calendar year.
* The heliacal rising dates of 34 stars and constellations are given according to the 360-day ‘ideal’ calendar year.
* Lists of stars and constellations that rise and set at the same time.
* Lists of stars and constellations that rise and set at the same time.

Revision as of 11:11, 23 August 2021

One of the two clay tablets on which the text is written. This exemplar shows that the tablet is unusally huge (as large as a sheet of paper) and the text is written in two columns.


MUL.APIN (𒀯𒀳) is the conventional title given to a Babylonian compendium that deals with many diverse aspects of Babylonian astronomy and astrology. It is in the tradition of earlier star catalogues, the so-called Three Stars Each lists, but represents an expanded version based on more accurate observation, likely compiled around 1000 BCE.[1] The text lists the names of 66 stars and constellations and further gives a number of indications, such as rising, setting and culmination dates, that help to map out the basic structure of the Babylonian star map.

The text is preserved in a 7th-century BCE copy on a pair of tablets, named for their incipit, corresponding to the first constellation of the year, MULAPIN "The Plough", identified with stars in the area of the modern constellations of Cassiopeia, Andromeda and Triangulum according to the compilation of suggestions by Gössmann[2] and Kurtik[3].

Date

The earliest copy of the text so far discovered was made in 686 BCE; however the majority of scholars now believe that the text was originally compiled around 1000 BCE.[4][5][6] The latest copies of Mul.Apin are currently dated to around 300 BCE.

The astrophysicist Bradley Schaefer and the astronomer Teije de Jong computed that the dates of the heliacal risings and settings in these tablets fit in the region of Assur at around the year 1370 BCE (Schaefer)[7] or roughly the epoch between 1400 and 1100 BCE (de Jong)[8].

Watson and Horowitz[5] have shown that the text style changes from low to high complexity from one list to the other. Therefore, it is well possible that List 1 is older than List 2-4 and List 5.

Parts

The text runs to two tablets and possibly a third auxiliary tablet, and is organised as follows:

Table I – Description of Static Sky
List 1 I i 1 to I ii 35 catalog of asterisms (inventory of the sky)
List 2 I ii 36 to I iii 12 dates of heliacal rises in the Babylonian calendar
List 3 I iii 13 to I iii 33 simultaneous rises and settings
List 4 I iii 34 to I iii 48 time intervals between heliacal risings
List 5 I iv I to I iv 30 ziqpu-asterisms
List 6 I iv 31 to I iv 39 asterisms in the path of the Moon

Table II – Changes in the Sky

List 1 II i 1 to II i 8 motion of planets in the lunar path
List 2 II i 9 to II i 24 determining cardinal points of the year
List 3 II i 25-37 and II i 68-71 heliacal risings and wind direction
List 4 II i 38 to II i 67 planets – visibilities
List 5 II ii 1 to II ii 20 intercalary rules
List 6 II ii 21 to II ii 42 shadow lengths of the sundial
List 7 II ii 43 to II iii 15 water clock
List 8 II iii 16 to II iv 12 omens

Tablet 1

The Babylonian globe (no matter whether or not it existed physically) would have been divided in three paths of the gods Ea (south), Anu (±17° around the equator) and Enlil (northern cap, all declinations >17°). These three gods have their "seats" among the stars, represented by the constellations Cancer and Iku (Pegasus).

The first tablet is the most important resource for any potential reconstruction of the Babylonian star map[8][9] as its various sections locate the constellations in relation to each other and to the calendar. Tablet 1 has six main sections:

  • All the major stars and constellations are listed and organised into three broad divisions according to celestial latitude allocating each star to three paths:
    • the northern path of Enlil containing 33 stars or constellations
    • the presumably equatorial path of Anu containing 23 stars or constellations, and
    • the southern path of Ea containing 15 stars or constellations,
Most of these stars and constellations are further attributed to a variety of Near Eastern deities.[10]
The path of Anu is considered as a belt around the celestial equator with a width of roughly ±17° that is divided in twelve equal parts of 30° length, representing ideal months.[11][12][9]
  • The heliacal rising dates of 34 stars and constellations are given according to the 360-day ‘ideal’ calendar year.
  • Lists of stars and constellations that rise and set at the same time.
  • The number of days between the risings of various stars and constellations.
  • The stars and constellations that rise and culminate at the same time.
  • The stars on the path of the moon, being the major constellations close to the ecliptic, which includes all the Babylonian forerunners to the zodiac constellations.

Even though the Babylonians used a luni-solar calendar, which added an occasional thirteenth month to the calendar, MUL.APIN, like most texts of Babylonian astrology, uses an ‘ideal’ year composed of 12 ‘ideal’ months each of which was composed of an ‘ideal’ 30 days. In this scheme the equinoxes were set on the 15th day of the first and seventh month, and the solstices on the 15th day of the fourth and tenth month.

Tablet 2

The second tablet is of greater interest to historians of science as it furnishes us with many of the methods and procedures used by Babylonian astrologers to predict the movements of the sun, moon and planets as well as the various methods used to regulate the calendar. The contents of tablet 2 can be summarised under ten headings as follows:

  • The names of the sun and the planets and the assertion that they all travel the same path as the moon.
  • Which stars are rising and which contain the full moon on the solstices and equinoxes in order to judge the disparity of the lunar and solar cycles.
  • Recommendations for observing the appearances of certain stars and the direction of the wind at the time of their first appearance.
  • Very approximate values for the number of days that each planet is visible and invisible during the course of its observational cycle.
  • The four stars associated with the four directional winds.
  • The dates when the sun is present in each of the three stellar paths.
  • Two types of intercalation scheme. One uses the rising dates of certain stars while the other uses position of the moon in relation to the stars and constellations.
  • The relative duration of day and night at the solstices and equinoxes, and the lengths of shadow cast by a gnomon at various times of the day at the solstices and equinoxes.
  • A basic mathematical scheme giving the rising and setting times of the moon in each month.
  • A selection of astrological omens.

There is some evidence that a third, and so far unrecovered, tablet was sometimes appended to the series. To judge from its opening line it started with a section of scholarly explanations of celestial omens.[13]

See also

References

  1. ^ John H. Rogers, "Origins of the ancient constellations: I. The Mesopotamian traditions", Journal of the British Astronomical Association 108 (1998) 9–28
  2. ^ Gössmann, Felix (1950). Planetarium babylonicum oder die sumerisch-babylonischen Stern-Namen (in German). Rom: Verlag des Päpstl. Bibelinstituts. OCLC 64870219.
  3. ^ Kurtik, Gennadiĭ.; Куртик, Геннадий. (2007). Zvezdnoe nebo drevneĭ Mesopotamii : shumero-akkadskie nazvanii︠a︡ sozvezdiĭ i drugikh svetil. Sankt-Peterburg: Aleteĭi︠a︡. ISBN 978-5-903354-36-8. OCLC 233980223.
  4. ^ Mul.Apin edited by Hunger & Pingree, page 9. Earlier scholars such as Papke and Van der Waerden posited a date around 2300 BCE, which has been criticised by Hunger & Pingree who opt for a date around 1000 BCE.
  5. ^ a b Watson, Rita; Horowitz, Wayne (2011-03-21). Writing Science before the Greeks: A Naturalistic Analysis of the Babylonian Astronomical Treatise MUL.APIN. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-20231-3.
  6. ^ HUNGER, HERMANN. STEELE, JOHN (2020). BABYLONIAN ASTRONOMICAL COMPENDIUM MUL.APIN. [S.l.]: ROUTLEDGE. ISBN 0-367-66618-9. OCLC 1178639315.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ "Astronomer traces Zodiac's time and place of birth". The Inquirer. 4 June 2007. Retrieved 2009-11-13.
  8. ^ a b de Jong, Teije (2007). "Astronomical dating of the rising star list in MUL.APIN". Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes. 97: 107–120. ISSN 0084-0076.
  9. ^ a b Hoffmann, Susanne M. (2017). Hipparchs Himmelsglobus : ein Bindeglied in der babylonisch-griechischen Astrometrie?. Wiesbaden. ISBN 978-3-658-18683-8. OCLC 992119256.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  10. ^ Mul-Apin by Gavin White
  11. ^ Schaumberger, Johann; Kugler, Franz Xaver (1935). Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel; assyriologische, astronomische und astralmythologische Untersuchungen, (in German). Münster in Westfalen: Aschendorff. OCLC 4084718.
  12. ^ Waerden, B. L. Van Der (1975). Science Awakening I. Springer Netherlands. ISBN 978-90-01-93102-5.
  13. ^ Mul.Apin edited by Hunger & Pingree pages 8-9.

External links