similar schemes, but also includes star lists and omens.^12 It is known from texts dating
no earlier than the Neo-Assyrian period, but contains much material that is undoubt-
edly older. It has long been thought of as an early astronomical text, but again contains
nothing that would have permitted the scribes to know in advance when an astronomical
phenomenon would occur to even a moderate degree of accuracy. Its schemes are still
no more then elaborations based on fundamental ideal periods, such as 30 days for
the Moon, and 360 days for the Sun, idealisations that were common currency from
the beginning of the third millennium at least (Brown 2000 a: 106 ).
The symbol of an eight-pointed star is known from pre-historic times, and its
association with the goddess Inanna and thus Venus is assured from the mid-third
millennium onwards (Black and Green 1992 : 169 – 70 ). It can hardly be coincidence
that the shortest period in years after which Venus repeats one of its characteristic
phenomena is approximately eight. I would add, then, the eight-year synodic period
of Venus to the list of ideal periods known throughout the third millennium BC. A
related ideal pattern of Venus’s behaviour is attested in the second section of the
sixty-third tablet of Enu ̄ ma Anu Ellil, the first part of which records phenomena dating
to the reign of an Old Babylonian king (Brown 2000 : 249 § 9 ).
Attuned as we are to seeking antecedents to modern thinking, we tend to regard
the awareness on the part of the Mesopotamian scholars of the periodicity of the
heavens, their assignment to those periods of round and ideal numbers, and the
numerical elaboration therefrom, as in someway antecedent to our own exact science
of astronomy. We confuse, though, the potential of such ideal periods to make accurate
predictions with their intention, which, I argue, was instead to make the date and
or time of an observation interpretable (Brown 2001 ). The ideal periods served the
same purpose as the broad categories into which the visible phenomena of the heavens
were divided – the constellations of the ecliptic, the four colours, the four cardinal
directions, above and below, brightness and faintness, and so forth. Both reduced
what would otherwise have been an infinite number of variables in any observation
to a manageable few, all of which could be encoded with a particular value, and
thereby made the heavens interpretable: ‘If Nergal [meaning Mars] stands in [the
constellation] Scorpius; a strong enemy will carry off the land [an ill-boding
prognostication for the land, expressed as an enemy attack, since Nergal is associated
with “the enemy”]’ (Hunger 1992 : no. 502 : 11 ).
Intrinsic to this approach to the phenomena of the heavens, one that prevailed
from the earliest times to the end of the cuneiform tradition, was that the gods were
the sign-givers. This view is made explicit in many contexts, and is widely accepted
by modern scholars^13 and need not be justified here. I emphasise only that the particular
configurations of the heavens, whether the month was 29 or 30 days long, whether
lunar ‘opposition’ occurred on the fourteenth or not, whether Venus rose in month
X or Y, was bright or dim, when Mars entered Scorpius, and so forth, were treated
as expressions of the arbitrary will of the god in question, and were understood to
be indicative of his or her displeasure at mundane events. Being able to predict the
length of the next few lunations, for example, would thus instantly remove any sense
that the Moon god had decided, on the basis of current events, to leave a sign
indicating his approval or otherwise. Accurate prediction was, in essence, antithetical
to the theological basis underpinning Mesopotamian celestial divination.
— David Brown —