B
Babylonian Astronomy (ca 1800 BCE – ca 100 CE)
A tradition of celestial divination, the oldest cuneiform record of which goes back to
ca 1800 BCE, produced systematic observation of the Moon, Sun, planets, and fixed stars.
In addition to celestial divination, early astronomical texts, such as the Astrolabes, a trad-
ition mainly concerning fixed stars originating in the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE
(Hunger and Pingree 50–57), reflect knowledge of the seasonal heliacal rising of fixed stars
as well as the change in the length of the day with the north-south progress of the Sun’s
rising over the eastern horizon in the course of an ideal year (12 30-day months). The
compendium “MUL.APIN,” composed ca 1000 BCE, systematizes astronomical phenom-
ena such as stellar risings, settings, and culminations, intervals of visibility between first and
last appearances of the superior planets, intervals of invisibility between last and first
appearances of the superior planets, as well as periods of visibility and invisibility between
synodic appearances of the inferior planets, and intercalation schemes based on the ideal
calendar. With recognition of the periodic nature of some of the ominous phenomena,
methods to predict such phenomena were developed, first within the 7th c. Neo-Assyrian
court, then after 500 BCE in the scribal centers of Babylo ̄n and Uruk.
Observational reports extant from 709–649 record phenomena considered ominous and
interpreted according to the canonical omen series Enu ̄ma Anu Enlil. The more comprehensive
Babylonian astronomical diaries contain systematic and continuous nightly observations
from the 7th to 1st cc., though evidence points to their origin already in the 8th c. Celestial
data focused on the Moon’s progress through the fixed stars, eclipses both lunar and
solar, planetary phenomena, meteors, comets, and various weather reports. The diaries
were utilized by P: for example, Alm. 9.7 dates observations of Mercury “according
to the Khaldaeans,” and gives positions by means of the cubit and the ecliptical stars used
in the diaries.
Late Babylonian astronomy was an exact science characterized by mathematical models
of the longitudinal progress of synodic lunar and planetary phenomena. These models
underlie the computation of lunar and planetary ephemerides, which tabulate the dates
and longitudes of the synodic phenomena. Hellenistic authors (e.g., S, P, and
V V) associated this science with the names K, S, and
N. Greek papyri from Roman Egypt, containing sequences of sexagesimal
numbers forming “zig-zag” and “step” functions with Babylonian astronomical parameters,
attest to the transmission of Babylonian astronomy to the Greeks. Babylonian predictive
methods were therefore fully integrated in Greco-Roman astronomy until the 5th c. CE,