The Babylonian astronomical diaries are a collection of Babylonian cuneiform texts written in Akkadian language that contain systematic records of astronomical observations and political events, predictions based on astronomical observations, weather reports, and commodity prices, kept for about 600 years, from around 652 BCE to 61 BCE.
The commodity prices are included for six items (barley, dates, mustard (cuscuta), cress (cardamom), sesame, and wool) for particular dates. [1] [2]
Currently, most of the surviving several hundred clay tablets are stored in the British Museum.
The are classified as the third category of Babylonian astronomical texts, alongside ACT and GADEx, sometimes called “non-ACT” by Otto Neugebauer.
It is suggested that the diaries were used as sources for the Babylonian Chronicles.
The Babylonians were the first to recognise that astronomical phenomena are periodic and to apply mathematics to their predictions. [3] The oldest known significant astronomical text is Tablet 63 of the Enûma Anu Enlil collection, the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, which lists the first and the last visible risings of Venus over a period of about 21 years. It is the earliest evidence that planetary phenomena were recognised as periodic.
The systematic records of ominous phenomena in astronomical diaries began during the reign of Nabonassar (747–734 BC), when a significant increase in the quality and frequency of astronomical observations occurred. That allowed, for example, the discovery of a repeating 18-year Saros cycle of lunar eclipses. [4]
Very few of the tablets are complete, and some are in an extremely fragmentary state. Where no date formula survives, it is often possible to date them based on the astronomical observations recorded. The surviving tablets range in date from the mid-7th to the 1st century BCE, but the vast majority date between 400 and 60 BCE.
Diaries usually cover periods of four to six months, divided into monthly sections. Daily astronomical observations form the bulk of each section. At the end of each month, the Diaries report the river level of the Euphrates; the market exchange values of several commodities in Babylon, and sometimes selected historical events such as warfare, disease outbreaks, visits from kings or officials, and cultic activities.
The Diaries contain no explicit indications of purpose, but since they exhibit significant parallelism with prognostic material, it is likely that they were connected to some extent with divination. There are also parallels in content and phrasing between the Diaries and the Late Babylonian Chronicles.
In addition to the evidence they offer about Babylonian astronomy, the Diaries are the main contemporary source for the political history of Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylonia, while their records of commodity values provide exceptionally detailed and extensive economic data.
There are several historical claims that the Diaries are the exclusive historical source, however some are met with skepticism by scholars and historians.
Translations of the Diaries are published in multivolume Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia, edited by Abraham Sachs and Hermann Hunger. [1] [2] [9]
Hipparchus was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician. He is considered the founder of trigonometry, but is most famous for his incidental discovery of the precession of the equinoxes. Hipparchus was born in Nicaea, Bithynia, and probably died on the island of Rhodes, Greece. He is known to have been a working astronomer between 162 and 127 BC.
The history of astronomy focuses on the contributions civilizations have made to further their understanding of the universe beyond earth's atmosphere. Astronomy is one of the oldest natural sciences, achieving a high level of success in the second half of the first millennium. Astronomy has origins in the religious, mythological, cosmological, calendrical, and astrological beliefs and practices of prehistory. Early astronomical records date back to the Babylonians around 1000 BCE. There is also astronomical evidence of interest from early Chinese, Central American and North European cultures.
Nabu-ri-man-nu was a Chaldean astronomer and mathematician.
Kidinnu was a Chaldean astronomer and mathematician. Strabo of Amaseia called him Kidenas, Pliny the Elder called him Cidenas, and Vettius Valens called him Kidynas.
The saros is a period of exactly 223 synodic months, approximately 6585.321 days, or 18 years plus 10, 11, or 12 days, and 8 hours, that can be used to predict eclipses of the Sun and Moon. One saros period after an eclipse, the Sun, Earth, and Moon return to approximately the same relative geometry, a near straight line, and a nearly identical eclipse will occur, in what is referred to as an eclipse cycle. A sar is one half of a saros.
The Old Babylonian Empire, or First Babylonian Empire, is dated to c. 1894–1595 BC, and comes after the end of Sumerian power with the destruction of the Third Dynasty of Ur, and the subsequent Isin-Larsa period. The chronology of the first dynasty of Babylonia is debated; there is a Babylonian King List A and also a Babylonian King List B, with generally longer regnal lengths. In this chronology, the regnal years of List A are used due to their wide usage.
Nabû-nāṣir was the king of Babylon from 747 to 734 BC. He deposed a foreign Chaldean usurper named Nabu-shuma-ishkun, bringing native rule back to Babylon after twenty-three years of Chaldean rule. His reign saw the beginning of a new era characterized by the systematic maintenance of chronologically precise historical records. Both the Babylonian Chronicle and the Ptolemaic Canon begin with his accession to the throne. He was contemporary with the Assyrian kings Aššur-nirarī V and Tiglath-Pileser III, the latter under whom he became a vassal, and the Elamite kings Humban-Tahrah I and Humban-Nikaš I.
The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa is the record of astronomical positions for Venus, as preserved in numerous cuneiform tablets dating from the first millennium BC. It is believed that this astronomical record was first compiled during the reign of King Ammisaduqa, the fourth ruler after Hammurabi. Thus, the origins of this text could probably be dated to around the mid-seventeenth century BC despite allowing two possible dates.
Lunar theory attempts to account for the motions of the Moon. There are many small variations in the Moon's motion, and many attempts have been made to account for them. After centuries of being problematic, lunar motion can now be modeled to a very high degree of accuracy.
Babylonian mathematics is the mathematics developed or practiced by the people of Mesopotamia, as attested by sources mainly surviving from the Old Babylonian period to the Seleucid from the last three or four centuries BC. With respect to content, there is scarcely any difference between the two groups of texts. Babylonian mathematics remained constant, in character and content, for over a millennium.
Babylonian astronomy was the study or recording of celestial objects during the early history of Mesopotamia. The numeral system used, sexagesimal, was based on sixty, as opposed to ten in the modern decimal system. This system simplified the calculating and recording of unusually great and small numbers.
Babylonian astrology was the first known organized system of astrology, arising in the second millennium BC.
MUL.APIN is the conventional title given to a Babylonian compendium that deals with many diverse aspects of Babylonian astronomy and astrology. It is in the tradition of earlier star catalogues, the so-called Three Stars Each lists, but represents an expanded version based on more accurate observation, likely compiled around 1000 BCE. The text lists the names of 66 stars and constellations and further gives a number of indications, such as rising, setting and culmination dates, that help to map out the basic structure of the Babylonian star map.
Enuma Anu Enlil (𒌓𒀭𒈾𒀭𒂗𒆤𒇲U4 AN.na dEN.LÍL.lá, lit.When [the gods] Anu and Enlil [...]), abbreviated EAE, is a major series of 68 or 70 tablets (depending on the recension) dealing with Babylonian astrology. The bulk of the work is a substantial collection of omens, estimated to number between 6500 and 7000, which interpret a wide variety of celestial and atmospheric phenomena in terms relevant to the king and state.
Astronomical chronology, or astronomical dating, is a technical method of dating events or artifacts that are associated with astronomical phenomena. Written records of historical events that include descriptions of astronomical phenomena have done much to clarify the chronology of the Ancient Near East; works of art which depict the configuration of the stars and planets and buildings which are oriented to the rising and setting of celestial bodies at a particular time have all been dated through astronomical calculations.
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Hyspaosines was the founder of Characene, a kingdom situated in southern Mesopotamia. He was originally a Seleucid satrap installed by king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, but declared independence in 141 BC after the collapse and subsequent transfer of Seleucid authority in Iran and Babylonia to the Parthians. Hyspaosines briefly occupied the Parthian city of Babylon in 127 BC, where he is recorded in records as king (šarru). In 124 BC, however, he was forced to acknowledge Parthian suzerainty. He died in the same year, and was succeeded by his juvenile son Apodakos.
Dodecatemoria are subdivisions of the twelve signs of the Zodiac into a further twelve parts each. These can be said to form a "micro-zodiac" of 144 dodecatemoria, each corresponding to 2.5° of the ecliptic. In an alternate usage, the dodecamorion refers to a point on the ecliptic reached by the addition of twelve times a given number of degrees within a sign, either to the original degree, or to the beginning of the sign.
Lis Brack-Bernsen is a Danish and Swiss mathematician, historian of science, and historian of mathematics, known for her work on Babylonian astronomy. She is an extraordinary professor of the history of science at the University of Regensburg.
One comprises what we have called "Saros Cycle Texts," which give the months of eclipse possibilities arranged in consistent cycles of 223 months (or 18 years).