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BM 76829: A small astronomical fragment with important implications for the Late Babylonian Astronomy and the Astronomical Book of Enoch

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Abstract

BM 76829, a fragment from the mid-section of a small tablet from Sippar in Late Babylonian script, preserves what remains of two new unparalleled pieces from the cuneiform astronomical repertoire relating to the zodiac. The text on the obverse assigns numerical values to sectors assigned to zodiacal signs, while the text on the reverse seems to relate zodiacal signs with specific days or intervals of days. The system used on the obverse also presents a new way of representing the concept of numerical ‘zero’ in cuneiform, and for the first time in cuneiform, a system for dividing the horizon into six arcs in the east and six arcs in the west akin to that used in the Astronomical Book of Enoch. Both the obverse and the reverse may describe the periodical courses of the sun and moon, in a similar way to what is found in astronomical texts from Qumran, thus adding to our knowledge of the scientific relationship between the two cultures.

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Notes

  1. We publish this fragment by the courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.

  2. For the project “The Great Star List and Related Texts: Astronomy, Mysticism, and Learned Knowledge in the Ancient Near East” funded by the Israel Science Foundation. See also Horowitz (in press).

  3. Beginning with the first sign Aries would demand that the list ended with the 12th sign Pisces at our obv. 7′, the last surviving line on the obverse of the fragment, leaving space for a number of lines at the bottom of the original tablet unaccounted for.

  4. This would have been a problem for the early history of the zodiac rather than for the later and thus seems to confirm our hypothesis of the early fourth-century BCE date for the fragment as given in Sect. 2.2.

  5. For the stellar Paths of Anu, Enlil, and Ea as bands crossing the sky from east to west rather than arcs along the horizon as argued earlier by Pingree and Reiner see Horowitz (2014, pp. 11–15) with further bibliography.

  6. The true synodic month is approximately 29.53 days, and the sidereal month is approximately 27 1/3 days.

  7. For Wise (1994), who assumes a 364-day year, there are four 31-day long months. At the end of these months, 3 days will be added to the general pattern.

  8. Since the sidereal month is shorter than the synodic month, the dates in which the moon correlates to a specific zodiacal sign shift along the year.

  9. The present fragment is not thick enough to be from a large enough tablet to allow for sections for all 12 months, but could give an excerpt from such a full system for a month or season.

  10. For this usage in the second millennium BCE see Horowitz (2014, p. 227).

  11. Hørup (2002, pp. 293–294), previously said that initial and final zeros are never marked in cuneiform at all.

  12. Or Glossenkeil—53—nim.

  13. See e.g., Ossendrijver (2012, pp. 18–19), who describes all Glossenkeile as gam sign.

  14. See Sachs (1952, p. 148) and Neugebauer (1955, p. 418) reference to ACT 813 rev. III 14, 14 (section 28).

  15. The case of 3, 0, 6 is to be interpreted 3,0 (180 degrees) = 6 danna (geometric leagues of 30° each).

  16. See e.g., the hand copy of ACT 122, LBAT 66 obv. ix 13 (initial + final), × 10–11 (final), rev. v 14 (initial + final), 19 (medial).

  17. With reference to additional examples noted by M. Sigrist.

  18. Neugebauer (1955: 477a) takes this for Akkadian ul išī, which could be translated “it does not have (a value),” while Ossendrijver (2012, p. 18) footnote 100 gives it as ul ibašši. Neither CAD B 144b nor AHw 112b give tuk as a standard sumerogram for bašû. Therefore, nutuk-ši should rather be rendered as ul irašši “it has not acquired (a value),” as is commonly used in omen texts and elsewhere.

  19. Neugebauer (1955, p. 197).

  20. For lal interpreted as increasing latitude and referring to “near the ascending node” in the context of eclipse magnitudes see Steele (2000, p. 128).

  21. Al-Rawi and George (1991–92, p. 55).

  22. E.g. Ossendrijver (2012, p. 18) footnote 101 with reference to text 52 Ri9; Pearce–Wunsch (2014, pp. 118–119) text no. 15 line 19 (zero date dates assessed).

  23. See Aaboe–Sachs (1966, p. 6b) for Text A (BM 36300+) rev. iv 22 and vi 14, where riq (i.e., the sign ṢU) is written where initial zero is expected.

  24. In a mathematical text, see Friberg (2007, p. 269) with reference to MS 3052 § 1d (transliteration pp. 267–268) line 16.

  25. The terminus ante quem is determined according to the Dead Sea Scroll 4Q208, the earliest copy of the AB that was transcribed at the end of the third-century or beginning of the second-century BCE. For a summary of the debate on the paleographical and C14 dating of this scroll, see Ratzon (2015a). The terminus post quem relies on the AAB’s knowledge of the zodiac. See Brack-Bernsen and Hunger (1999), Ben-Dov (2008), Drawnel (2011), Ratzon (2014) and Jacobus (2014a, b). Three other copies of the Aramaic AB have survived among the Dead Sea Scrolls: 4Q209 dated to the end of the first-century BCE or beginning of the first-century CE. It contains an astronomical treatise similar to the one in 4Q208 and parts of 1 Enoch 76–79, 82, known from the Ethiopic version of the book; 4Q210 dated to the middle of the first-century BCE. It contains only parts of 1 Enoch 76–78 without the astronomical treatise found in 4Q208-9; 4Q211 dated to the first half of the first-century BCE. It does not contain any parallel to the Ethiopic version of 1 Enoch nor to the astronomical treatise, but it contains a section that was probably lost from the end of 1 Enoch 82, and a very fragmented section dealing with the stars.

  26. The relationship between Enochic and earlier Mesopotamian astronomy has been studied intensively. For a summary, see VanderKam 2008, pp. 965–978; Ratzon 2012, pp. 299–301; and note the bibliography given in the previous note.

  27. Ben-Dov (2008) demonstrates that while the Aramaic scroll discusses both spatial and temporal aspects of lunar theory together, the Ethiopic translation distinguishes between them and addresses each aspect in a separate chapter.

  28. For a possible Mesopotamian antecedent to this diagram, compare the Late Babylonian compass card from Uruk most recently discussed in Horowitz (2015), and the diagram on the reverse of the ziqpu-star fragment (BM 61677) in Horowitz and Al-Rawi (2001, p. 180).

  29. While only the Ethiopic version of the AB explicitly describes the gate system, the Aramaic version assumes and uses the same system, since every one of the gates is mentioned in Aramaic. See Ratzon (2015a, fn. 11).

  30. The Ethiopic version of the AB refers to one of the middle gates, the fourth gate, as “the big gate” (1 Enoch 72:6). The first commentators of 1 Enoch, Dillman (1853) and Charles (1912) explain that the gate is considered big compared to the windows surrounding it. In response Neugebauer (1985) asks why only the fourth gate is called big, if all other gates are also surrounded by windows. However, in his figures and computations, he refers to all the gates as equal in size (Neugebauer 1964), and so do other scholars (Albani 1994; Glessmer 1996). Barker (1989) and Brack-Bernsen and Hunger (1999) have proposed that the middle gates were larger. However, the term ‘big gate’ might not reflect astronomical considerations at all, but instead perhaps be understood from a more architectural perspective with the “great gate” being like the main gate of a city (Sumerian-Akkadian ká.gal = abullu “gate”) rather than ordinary gates ( = bābu “door, gate,” Sumerian gal = rabû “big, large.” For an astronomical example of ká.gal used in this way for thunder at 'The Gate of the Moon,' with no apparent observational inference see Hunger (1992: 74–75, no. 119: 5). For architectural themes in cosmography see e.g., Van Leeuwen (2010), and in relation to the Enochic gates see Barker (1989), Thiering (2004), and Nickelsburg and VanderKam (2012, p. 423). In any case, it is important to note that nowhere in 1 Enoch is the third gate, which is also a middle gate, referred to as big. Another issue is the fact that the adjective “big” is only mentioned in the Ethiopic version, and might be a later insertion.

  31. An exceptional is Wise (1994) who reads this text within the Qumran context and sees an underlying 364-day year.

  32. However, note the drawing of the zodiacal sign Virgo with a female figure, presumably the Virgin, in VAT 7847 + AO 6448 (see Weidner 1967, Tafel 9–10 and now Beaulieu–Frahm–Horowitz–Steele (2018, p. 99).

  33. The date of the beginning of annual astronomical cycle is not fixed in cuneiform astronomical texts. For example, some begin with the month of the Spring Equinox (Months III or IV) while others begin with the month of the Summer Solstice (Months IX or X). For the parallel Babylonian systems of placing the solstices and equinoxes in Month XII, III, VI, IX and/or Months I, IV, VII, X see e.g., Horowitz (2014, pp. 16–18).

Abbreviations

ACT:

See Neugebauer (1955)

A.H.:

Tell Abû Ḥabbah, modern name of ancient Sippar; abbreviation for the tablets found at Sippar in the British Museum registration books

BM:

Museum number of the British Museum, London

BRM IV:

A. T. Clay, Epics, Hymns, Omens and Other Texts, Babylonian Records in the Library of J. Piermont Morgan, Part 4. Yale University Press, New Haven 1923

LBAT:

Th. G. Pinches and J. N. Strassmaier, Late Babylonian Astronomical and Related Texts. Brown University Studies 18, Providence, Rhode Island: Brown University Press

TU:

F. Thureau-Dangin, Tablettes d’Uruk à l’usage des prêtres du Temple d’Anu au temps des Séleucides. Musée du Louvre: Textes cuneiforms tome VI (TCL VI), Paris: Paul Geuthner

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Fincke, J.C., Horowitz, W. & Ratzon, E. BM 76829: A small astronomical fragment with important implications for the Late Babylonian Astronomy and the Astronomical Book of Enoch. Arch. Hist. Exact Sci. 75, 349–368 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00407-020-00268-7

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