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Mesopotamian Astrology MESOPOTAMIAN ASTROLOGY CNI PUBLICATIONS 19 MESOPOTAMIAN ASTROLOGY An Introduction to Babylonian and Assyrian Celestial Divination BY ULLA KOCH-WESTENHOLZ THE CARSTEN NIEBUHR INSTITUTE OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES MUSEUM TUSCULANUM PRESS . 1995 . UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN © 1995 by Ulla Koch-Westenholz & Museum Tusculanum Press Cover design: Thora Fisker Layout: Ole Klitgaard Set in Adobe Garamond 11,5/13 Printed in Denmark by Special-Trykkeriet Viborg a-s ISBN 87 7289 287 0 ISSN 0902 5499 Published with the support of Statens humanistiske Forskningsrdd (The Danish Research Council for the Humanities) Museum Tusculanum Press Njalsgade 92 DK-2300 Copenhagen S Denmark CONTENTS Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 9 The Astronomical Background 22 Chapter 2 A BRIEF HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIAN ASTROLOGY . 32 The Third Millennium 32 The Old-Babylonian Period 36 The Middle Period 41 The Peripheral Areas 44 The First Millennium 51 Chapter 3 THE NEO-ASSYRIAN PERIOD 54 The Sources 54 Dramatis Personae 56 Chapter 4 THE RECEIVED TRADITION 74 Chapter 5 THE WORKING PRINCIPLES 97 The Moon 99 The Sun 113 The Weather, Earthquakes 115 The Planets and Fixed Stars 115 Jupiter 120 Saturn 122 Venus 125 Mercury 127 Mars 128 The Fixed Stars 130 Chapter 6 PRACTICE 137 A Case Study 140 Chapter 7 ROYAL INSCRIPTIONS 152 Chapter 8 THE PERSIAN AND SELEUCID PERIODS 162 Appendix A: Reports Written on March 15th 669 B.0 180 Appendix B: The Great Star List 187 Appendix C: List of Babylonian Star Names 207 Bibliography 209 List of Abbreviations 220 FOREWORD This book is intended to se rve as a general introduction to Mesopotamian astrology, both its outward phenomena and its inner structure. It is my aim that it may be of interest and use to researchers in fields outside of Assyriology, such as theologians, classical scholars, and anthropologists. Nevertheless, I hope that even the specialists on Mesopotamian astrology may find something of value in my work. I have tried to sketch the history of traditional astrology in Mesopota- mia, from its origins in the third millennium to its transformation during the latter half of the fIrst millennium; but the main emphasis has been placed on the Neo-Assyrian period, especially on the period of the Sargonid kings, since this is the time when classical Babylonian astrology seems to have been at the height of its importance. Anyway, it is the best documented period. The scholarly literature has been utilized, as far as I could, up to 1993; but the oversights may cover a century or even more. I have not been able to take fully into account S. Parpola, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars, SAA 10 (1993) and Die Rolle der Astronomie in den Kulturen Mesopotamiens, Grazer Morgenländische Studien 3 (1993). I wish to express my warmest gratitude to Drs. Mogens Trolle Larsen, Simo Parpola and Aage Westenholz, who read through earlier versions of the book and offered many insightful comments, advice, and encourage- ment. The publication of this book was made possible by a grant from the Danish Research Council for the Humanities. Copenhagen, August 1994 Ulla Koch- Westenholz CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Divination is a well-nigh universal phenomenon, found in some form or other in practically all human societies, modern and ancient. It is potentially a rich source for the social and moral values', as well as the intellectual endeavour, of many a culture — a source that in the case of Mesopotamia has only been partially tapped. The classifIcation of divinatory genres in use today 2 is basically the same as the one introduced by Cicero (or his source) to describe Hellenistic divination. Cicero distinguished between "artificial" and "natural" divination (De divinatione 1.11, 2.26). "Natural" divination is direct, inspired communications from the gods that "the mind seizes from without", e.g. dreams and oracles. "Artificial" divination includes every- thing where "computation and constant observation" is necessary to ascertain the gods' will. Bottéro applies the same distinction to Babylonian divination under the terms: divination inspirée and déductive. 3 While inspired divination certainly is attested in Ancient Mesopotamia, it appears to have been of minor importance, 4 and the bulk of our sources, the omen compendia, concerns deductive divination. In the following, I shall deal exclusively with the latter. See P. M. Peek, "The Study of Divination, Present and Past", African Divination Systems, Ways of Knowing (1991) p. 1 ff. 2 For a survey and critique, see Devisch (1985). 3 Bottéro (1974), p. 87 ff. 4 So-called "prophecies" and "oracles" are known primarily from Old Babylonian Mari and Eshnunna, see most recently D. Charpin, "Le contexte historique et géographique des prophéties dans les textes retrouvés à Mari", Bulletin of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies 23 (1992), p. 21 ff; M. deJong Ellis, "The Goddess Kititum Speaks to King Ibalpiel", MARIS (1987), p. 235 ff. Considering that both Mari and the Diyala region were under heavy Amorite influence, the relative importance of direct communica- tions from the gods through inspired "prophets" may reasonably be regarded as West Semitic tradition. Some of the messages sound almost like the Old Testament in Akkadian, e.g., the one from Adad of Aleppo to Zimri-Lim edited by J.-M. Durand, MARI (1993), p. 43 f. 9 INTRODUCTlON Within this deductive divination, it is practical to distinguish between two genres, provoked and unprovoked omens.' Provoked omens are actively sought by ritual, e.g. extispicy and lecanomancy; unprovoked divination is the interpretation of occurrences that, so to say, appear without being asked for, e.g. astrology. It should be noted that both provoked and unprovoked omens are interpreted according to known rules — there is no place within the systematized divination for the inspired oracle, or the ad- hoc spectacular event. It is true that ominous signs from astrology and extispicy are valid also when seen in dreams (Oppenheim Dreambook p. 205), but the rules for their interpretation are the standard ones. Our distinction between provoked and unprovoked divination does indeed correspond in some measure to ancient reality. The two divinatory disciplines were practiced by different experts: the barû, diviner, whose main field was provoked omens, extispicy and lecanomancy, and the tupšarru; scribe/scholar, whose expertise included unprovoked omens and exorcism. Some of the latter even bore the prestigious title tupšar Enuma Anu Enlil (see below, Chapter 3). The unprovoked omens are also often said to belong to the field of the äšipu, exorcists — the scribes of EAE known from late Uruk (see chapter 8) were sometimes also exorcists or descendants of the exorcist Ekur-zakir or the kalû Sin-leqe-unninni. 3 The Assyrian astrologers also attest to the close relation of the two disciplines. Further, the distinction should not distract us from the basic similarities of the divinatory practices in their basic theory, interpretative principles and schemata. The basic theory is that event y correlates with sign x: if x appears then y is its correlate. The interpretative principles are rarely set forth as such, but some rules are made explicit in the last chapter of the liver divination series (multäbiltu)4 and to some extent also in the This distinction is applied by many writers, e.g., Meissner (1925) ll p. 246 ff; Finkelstein, PAPS 107 (1963) p. 464 fn. 10, using different terminology. Starr, for example, uses impetrita and oblativa (1990, p. xxxii). 2 Ungnad, AfO 14 p. 251. Unprovoked omens are included in the compendium of the exorcist attributed to Esagil-kin-apli, see KAR 44 r16. 3 Neugebauer, ACT p. 13 ff. 4 Cf. U. Jeyes (1991-92) p. 36 ff. 1 0 INTRODUCTION astrological commentaries like Summa Sin ina tamartišu (see p. 105 f0. A simple rule that is common to all kinds of Babylonian divination is of almost mathematical rigour: within the same omen, a good sign combined with a good sign has a good prediction; good combined with bad means bad; bad combined with bad means good. Expressed algebraically, the rule is also familiar to us: + + = +; + — = —; — — = +. An often quoted example of this rule is found in the astrological texts: if a well-portending planet is bright: favourable (+ + = +); if it is faint: unfavourable (+ — = —), if an ill-portending planet is bright: unfavourable (— + = —); if it is faint: favourable (— — = +). But the rule might also be illustrated from texts of extispicy or lecanomancy as early as Old Babylonian. The provoked omens are signs deliberately sought to answer specific questions formally addressed to the gods. By their very nature, such signs are always sent by gods. Unprovoked omens may likewise be regarded as willed divine communications or they may be seen as "signs" (ittu) without any sender, like our black cat crossing the street, or what we would call "symptoms". This ambivalence between a theistic and a mecha- nistic world view permeates much of Babylonian thought and is duly reflected in the astrological texts. The concluding paragraph of the last tablet of the lunar (eclipse) section of the series Enuma Anu Enlil states all the omens contained in the preceding tablets to be "answers of Sin" (see below p. 990. The stars and planets were the celestial manifestations of gods, but also seem to have been gods in their own right (e.g. Saturn, see below p. 1240. Sometimes evil omens from a planet were seen as the expression of anger of the god whose celestial image the particular planet was (e.g., LAS 268, Jupiter = Marduk), so that particular god had to be appeased. In this way, messages could be sent directly from a god to the king, as in SAA 8 27 where Ištar-šum-ereš interprets auspicious Venus omens as an expression of the love Ištar holds for the king.
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