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chapter 6.3 Star-Lists from the Babylonians to

Gerd Graßhoff

1 Introduction

Star-lists date back to the beginning of the second millennium bce in Mesopo- tamia, when they were used to classify groups of fixed stars relevant to the celestial omen series Enūma Anu Enlil. The names given to the stars by the Babylonians were for individual stars such as MUL.LUGAL (= Šarru or King), which is identifiable as Regulus, or for stars grouped into such as the True Shepherd of Anu (MUL.SIPA.ZI.AN.NA = Šitadallu), identified as . In , lists of stars seem to have a primarily classificatory function: MUL.APIN tablet I lists 60 stars in the “paths of Enlil, Anu, and Ea” plus an additional 6 circumpolar stars. There is also a list of cul- minating (ziqpu) stars that number 141 and the “gods in the path of the ” number 17.2 While the Babylonians focused on the risings and settings of the fixed stars, they never depicted or described the visual spectacle of the nightly motion of the stars on a rotating sphere. However, there was much interest in identify- ing the stars that rise and set on the horizon before sunrise and after sunset. During the course of a year, the appears to move across the sky, trac- ing the path of a great circle known as the zodiacal circle or . In the northern hemisphere, the inclination of this circle to the celestial equator leads the Sun to move higher above the horizon in summer than in winter, which is why the has seasons. Knowledge of the seasons was of great importance to the agriculturally based economies of the time, with its con- sequences for state taxes and thus everyday life. The so-called heliacal risings and settings of the stars allowed ancient astronomers to determine each day in a calendar year, solely on the basis of the first visible rising of a star before sunrise or its last visible setting after sunset, without the need of additional instruments. A star has the same longitude as the Sun only once a year, dur- ing which time it is not visible to the naked eye. As the Sun moves away

1 In the Late Babylonian Period, this list increased to 26 ziqpus. See chs 3.1 §3, p. 44; 7.2, p. 272. 2 see chs 5.1 §3, p. 174; 12.2 §2, p. 475.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004400566_025 star-lists from the babylonians to ptolemy 241 from the star, the star will rise at dawn just before the Sun and is thus vis- ible to the attentive observer for a few moments before the light of the ris- ing Sun drowns out the light of the star. This moment, the heliacal rising, was considered to be a sign of particular seasonal phenomena. Even the ear- liest civilizations—across all cultures—used the heliacal risings and settings, together with the azimuth of the rising Sun [see ch. 1 §4.3, p. 18] to establish agricultural and weather-guidelines. In the extensive literature of cuneiform omen-texts, additional factors, such as periodic planetary positions, or many terrestrial events, such as the behavior of animals or the observation of the exta of a sacrificed sheep, formed complex signs from which one could pre- dict important events that were relevant to kings, the state, and sometimes the individual. Thus, besides the position of the Sun in the zodiacal circle and the motions of the Moon, the long-term weather-patterns of the solar year, the different phases of the Moon, and the culminations of selected bright stars could all be used to establish the time at night. Only the brightest stars were named (such as and Regulus); other stars were classified by the constellations into which they had been grouped. In the first millennium bce, star-lists were used almost exclusively to forecast the seasons and for divination.

2 Mapping the Heavens

2.1 Aratus Over the centuries, constellations were used to describe celestial phenomena and this information was transferred in a similar manner to neighboring cul- tures. In the third century bce, Aratus (ca 315–240 bce) described the constel- lations in a poem, the influential Phaenomena, a medium through which stellar configurations could be easily memorized and communicated [see 10.1, p. 383]. The pictorial representations of the constellations had a mnemonic function and people were able to identify a group of stars through the use of just one word. Following the Babylonians, Greek astronomers had posited a central belt about the zodiacal circle, the , and divided this circle into 12 zodiacal signs of 30° each that is surrounded by northern and southern zones. Aratus’ poem, which is based on the writings of Eudoxus (408–355 bce), provides the names of constellations and their configurations at setting and rising without referring to specific stars. Each description of a concludes with the number of its stars. Aratus’ Phaenomena was followed by a compilation called the Diosemeia, in which Aratus links stellar phenomena with meteoro-