The 'Enoch Zodiac' and Greco-Roman Zodiac Sundials

CHAPTER 4 The ‘Enoch Zodiac’ and Greco-Roman Zodiac Sundials

. . . the revolution of the heavenly bodies is evident on many grounds, but it is particularly evident from the phenomena of the sun-dial.1

4.1 Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to argue that the system of the ‘gates’ in the Aramaic Astronomical Book preserved at Qumran was part of widespread applied scientific knowledge in the Greek and Roman world. In particular, evidence will be presented from archaeology and texts from the ancient Mediterranean world that the arrangement of the sun’s ‘gates’ in 1 En. 72:2–34, appears in a substantial number of Greco-Roman zodiacal sundials as a cosmological paradigm, rather than as simply the listing of zodiac signs in an anti- clockwise direction. The case for the alignment between the ‘gates’ and zodiac signs was put forward in the previous chapter where it was argued that the gate numbers in 1 En. 72:2–34 represent zodiac signs in 4QAstronomical Enocha–d (4Q208–4Q211). The specific geometrical arrangement of the solar zodiac signs as correlated with the heavenly gates of 1 En. 72 will be referred to henceforth as the ‘Enoch Zodiac.’ The term ‘Enoch Zodiac’ is purely descriptive and does not imply that 4Q208 has historical priority over the earliest known Greek and Roman ‘Enoch Zodiac’ sundials now to be presented. To recap, Table 4.1, below, summarises the ‘Enoch Zodiac’ scheme. The month numbers correspond to the solar gate numbers described in 1 En. 72:2–34 and 4Q208–4Q211. As shall be shown, this scheme is also a basic inscriptional arrangement in Greek and Roman sundials. In the case of most of the sun dials surveyed in this chapter, the 12 zodiac signs that the sun traverses during the year are organised in numerical order from Gate 6 to Gate 1, in parallel pairs from the solstices, thereby agreeing with the ‘Enoch Zodiac’ scheme (see Figure 4.1). The summer solstice occurs in Gate 6, when the sun moves from Gemini into Cancer in June and July,

1 Strabo, Geography, Bk 1.1.20 (Jones, lcl).

Table 4.1 The ‘Enoch Zodiac’ from 1 En. 72:2–34

Gate Month Zodiac sign Zodiac sign Month Gate

6 iv Cancer Gemini iii 6 5 v Leo Taurus ii 5 4 vi Virgo Aries i 4 3 vii Libra Pisces xii 3 2 viii Scorpio Aquarius xii 2 1 ix Sagittarius Capricorn x 1

its northern-most and highest position in the sky. Gate 1 corresponds to the months of the winter solstice, December and January, when the sun moves from Sagittarius to Capricorn, is at its southern-most and lowest position of in the sky. In The Book of Luminaries Month i is aligned with Gate 4 “the great gate,” the spring, or vernal, equinox (1 En. 72:6).2 The zodiac dials are sun clocks as well as crude zodiac calendars that tell the month; the shadow cast by the sun varies according to the season of year, and the time of the day. The solstices and equinoxes as well as the hour of the day are often determined by the sun’s shadow usually by means of a gnomon. The dial imitates the curve of the earth’s surface (see Figs. 4.4.2, 4.4.3). The solstices and equinoxes and the months in between are marked on the surface on the dial as horizontal date curves, determined by the angle of the sun on the horizon at the solstices and the equinoxes. A straight east-west

2 Neugebauer, The ‘Astronomical’ Chapters, Translation, 6, Comment, 12, he notes that the increase in the length of daylight from 9 parts to 10 parts (1 En. 72:10) implies that the year begins at the vernal equinox, as in Babylonia. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2, 423, Comment to 1 En. 72:6. VanderKam observes: “The sun rises in the first month in the fourth gate, which is desig- nated ‘the great gate.’ There is no indication elsewhere that the gates were conceived as being of different in size, so the word ‘great’ ((ābiy) should have a nuance other than ‘large(r).’ Here it probably means ‘important,’ ‘notable,’ or the like, and labelling the fourth gate as notable/ great arises from the fact that the year begins with the sun emerging from it.” However, this chapter shows that in fact the fourth gate of Aries and Virgo is also the largest in the net- work of lines on the Mediterranean zodiac sundials. Although Gate 4 is the portal for the year beginning at the spring equinox, it is also the portal for Month VI, September-Virgo the autumn equinox. Therefore, the larger size of the Aries-Virgo area on the sundials should not be ruled out as a possible spatial and cosmological reference to Gate 4 when applied to ancient instruments that measure time in daylight hours at their geographical latitude.