is found on the walls of subterranean rock tombs dating to
the 12th century b.c.e. In this type, the year is subdivided
into 24 intervals of 15 days, also for a total of 360 days. Th ir-
teen stars are listed for every 15-day period, one for each of
the 12 hours of the night plus an additional star for what is
called the night’s “beginning.”
Th e fi rst type of star clock may be called “diagonal,” be-
cause stars shift exactly one position every 10 days in the table
of columns and lines every 10 days. Th e second type is then
“broken-diagonal.” Th is type is not laid out in tables, but if
one reconstructs the tables, the stars shift , on average, more
than one position for every 15-day period. Star clocks, found
only in tombs, have been interpreted both as calendars and
as clocks, but they may well be neither. It was customary to
adorn tombs with representations of what life had been like
on the earth, and therefore star clocks probably do not do
more than evoke the changing positions of the stars over the
course of a year. Th ey served for the deceased as a recollection
of what life had been like on the earth and of what it might
again be like in the aft erlife.
At a later period, from about 500 b.c.e. onward, Egyptian
astronomy began to exhibit the infl uence of Babylonian and
Greek astronomy. Horoscopes and zodiacs were imported
from Mesopotamia from about 100 b.c.e. onward. Among
astronomical texts dating to this time is the papyrus Carls-
berg 9, kept in Copenhagen. Th e text is written in Demotic,
which is a stage in the development of the Egyptian language.
Carlsberg 9 has oft en been called the only Egyptian math-
ematical-astronomical text, but the sole and simple aim of
the numbers in the text seems to be to distribute 145 lunar
months of 29 days and 164 lunar months of 30 days (which
total 9,125 days) over 25 Egyptian years of 365 days (which
also total 9,125 days) in a certain optimal pattern of alterna-
tion of 29-day and 30-day months.
It is a matter of controversy whether the Egyptian star
names can be successfully matched with modern stars. Some
believe they can. Others, including the present writer, believe
they cannot. But everyone agrees that the star named sopdet
in ancient Egypt refers to Sirius.
THE MIDDLE EAST
BY DAVID BROWN
Clay seals dating to the fourth millennium b.c.e. in Mesopo-
tamia depict stars with gods. Th e Sumerians identifi ed major
deities of their pantheon with the brightest heavenly bodies.
For example, Utu was the sun god, Nanna the moon god, and
Inana the planet Venus. Th e cuneiform script preserves the
close connection between gods and asterisms (stars or plan-
ets). Th e sign for “asterism” in cuneiform script consists of
three dingir signs, where dingir means “god” or “divinity.”
Th e dingir sign itself, meanwhile, depicts a star.
In later classical Sumerian literature Jupiter and Mars
are identifi ed with the gods Šulpae and Nergal. By about 1700
b.c.e. the Mesopotamians had identifi ed the fi ve planets now
Cuneiform tablet with observations of Venus, neo-Assyrian, seventh
century b.c.e., Nineveh, northern Iraq (© Th e Trustees of the British
Museum)126 astronomy: The Middle Eastknown as Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. In both
the Sumerian and the Akkadian languages the term for these
bodies means “wild sheep asterism,” rather picturesquely
designating the planets’ “wandering” nature against the back-
ground stars.
Th e Mesopotamians did not merely identify asterisms
with major gods but also treated them as agents of those
gods. Th ey believed that the behavior of the stars carried
messages the gods wished to impart to humankind, and
the decoding of these messages developed into an elaborate
art of “astral divination.” In other contexts some stars or
groups of stars were thought to rain down direct infl uence
and imbue substances or situations with special potency.
Th is concept, too, formed an important part of the intel-
lectual endeavor of some Mesopotamians, and we identify
it as “astral magic.”