Within the Babylonian tradition of astronomy there have been two genres of texts: There are mathematical astronomy texts, which mostly consist of tables recording or calculating various statistics about the behavior of heavenly bodies. These texts themselves do not deal with the interpretation or prognostication of the events they record. The second type of document is the 'non-mathematical' astronomy text, which are mostly omens? involving astronomical events.
List of topics:
Month | Logogram | Month Name |
---|---|---|
I | bar | Nisannu |
II | gu4 | Aiaru |
III | sig | Simanu |
IV | szu | Duzu |
V | izi | Abu |
VI | kin | Ululu |
VII | du6 | Taszritu |
VIII | apin | Arahsamna |
IX | gan | Kislimu |
X | ab | T,ebetu |
XI | ziz2 | Szabat,u |
XII | sze | Adaru |
In addition, two intercalary months were used as needed. One was placed after month six, and written kin-2-kam (denoted here VI2), and the other after month twelve, written dirig or dir-sze (denoted XII2).
Modern Name | Cuneiform designation | Greek Symbol |
---|---|---|
Aries | hun | |
Taurus | mul2 | |
Gemini | masz | |
Cancer | kuszu2 | |
Leo | a | |
Virgo | absin | |
Libra | rin2 | |
Scorpius | gir2-tab | |
Sagittarius | pa | |
Capricorn | masz2 | |
Aquarius | gu | |
Pisces | zib |
Years were denoted by whole numbers starting from…