Assyrians The people living on the right bank of the
Tigris River at Assur, modern Kileh Shergat, in northern
Iraq. The Assyrian Empire began at Assur, possibly by a
ruler called Nemrod, spread into the mountains of
Niphates c. 1270 B.C.E., and lasted until 740 B.C.E. Baby-
lon fell to the Assyrians c. 1260 B.C.E., and northern Syria
felt the Assyrian presence. The first known true king was
Bel-bani. About 1450 B.C.E., after Egyptian supremacy,
Assyria began a second period of advancement, entering
Zagros and Armenia. Syria fell to their advance, as well as
Phoenicia, Damascus, and Israel. The third period, c.
1100 B.C.E., was a time of further expansion. The Assyri-
ans conquered Egypt, Susiana, Cyprus, and the Mediter-
ranean and Persian Gulf regions. The expansion was
halted by the Scythian invasion, by Median resistance,
and by the power of Babylon. Nineveh, the last Assyrian
capital, fell c. 612 B.C.E.
Astarte This was a goddess originating in Syria and
brought into Egypt in the New Kingdom (1550–1070
B.C.E.). AMENHOTEP II (r. 1427–1401 B.C.E.) erected a
STELAhonoring her in GIZA. She was given the rank of a
daughter of the god RÉand was made a consort of SET.
Astarte served as the patroness of the pharaoh’s chariots
in military campaigns. She was depicted as a naked
woman wearing the atef,or bull’s horns. She had served
as a war goddess in Syria.
Asten (Astes) A deity who served as a companion of
the god THOTH, the patron of wisdom, in some lists he is
addressed as Astes.
astrology Apractice attributed to the ancient Egyp-
tians, highly dramatized in the modern world. The Egyp-
tians practiced a form of astrology, but it had little in
common with that of later eras. The Egyptians practiced
“astral-theology,” a formof divination that responded to
the astronomical observances of their day but held no
independent value.
The Egyptians were always anxious to equate human
endeavors with cosmic events as observed in the night
sky, and much of their writings and teachings about the
spirit of MA’ATwere concerned with a need to mirror the
divine order demonstrated by the heavenly bodies. Horo-
scopes, in the modern sense of the word, were not known
by the Egyptians before the fall of the New Kingdom.
They did not have the traditional signs of the zodiac or
the concept of planetaryhouses. When the Egyptians did
learnabout horoscopes and the attendant lore, it was
from Mesopotamian and Hellenistic sources late in the
Ptolemaic Period. The Egyptians had other methods of
divination and fortune-telling, such as the mythological
CALENDARSthat dealt with lucky and unlucky days, espe-
cially as they pertained to births.
The true horoscope arrived on the Nile with the
Ptolemaic Period (304–30 B.C.E.). The Babylonian zodiac
and Greek interpretations replaced the Egyptian concept
of the heavens. The dekans associated with astrological
computations, however, had been depicted in the tomb of
SENENMUTin the reign of HATSHEPSUT(1473–1458 B.C.E.)
but had not been universally regarded.Astronomical Room See RAMESSEUM.astronomy The ancient Egyptian science of the stars
was prompted in the early eras by the demands of agricul-
ture. Because the harvest seasons and the fertilization of
the fields and orchards depended upon the annual inunda-
tion of the Nile, the priests of the formative years of Egypt’s
history began to chart the heavenly bodies and to incorpo-
rate them into a religious tradition that would provide
information about the Nile and its patterns of inundation.
There was a fascination with celestial activities, as
evidenced by tomb inscriptions of the Old Kingdom
(2575–2134 B.C.E.) and the First Intermediate Period
(2134–2040 B.C.E.), which continued into later eras and
was elaborated in the Ptolemaic time. These inscriptions
contained lists of the divisions of the sky, called dekans
by the Greeks. The dekans were the so-called 12 hours of
the night, represented by pictures. Each dekan was per-
sonified and given a divine attribute. NUT, an important
sky goddess of Egypt, was associated with the inscrip-
tions and their depictions. As the goddess of the heavens,
the celestial bodies were incorporated into her body.
Certain priests, designated as the “Keepers of Time,”
watched the nightly movement of the stars. They were
required to memorize the order of the fixed stars, the
movements of the moon and the planets, the rising of the
moon and the sun, as well as their setting times, and the
orbits of the various celestial bodies. Such learned indi-
viduals were then ready to recite this information in
counsel and to provide details about the changes taking
place in the sky in any given season.
One set of stars known to the temple astronomers
was called the Ikhemu-Seku,the “Stars That Never Fail.”
These were the polar stars that remained fixed in the
night sky and were much venerated as special souls hav-
ing attained true bliss. The second set of stars, actually
planets, were the Ikhemu-Weredu, the “Never Resting
Stars,” which followed distinct orbits in the night sky.
There is no information as to whether the Egyptians
made a true distinction between the planets or the stars.
Both sets of “stars” were believed to accompany the
SOLAR BOATon its nightly voyage.
The stars noted were Sirius the Dogstar, called SOPDU
or Sopdet, considered the true symbol of the coming
inundation of the Nile, signaling the rising of the river;
Orion, called Sah,the “Fleet-Footed, Long-Strider”; Ursa
Major (Great Bear or Big Dipper), called Meskhetiu.Alsoastronomy 57