A Late Babylonian Compendium of Calendrical and Stellar Astrology

Abstract

AbstractBM 36303+36326, BM 36628+36786+36817+37178+37197, and BM 36988 are three fragments of what was once a large, almost square tablet containing a compendium of astrological texts. The compendium, which dates to sometime after the invention of the zodiac in the late fifth century BCE, contains sections that concern astrological geography, business and the height of the river Euphrates, astrological medicine, the Dodecatemoria and Kalendertext schemes, and the first occurrence in Babylonian sources of the so-called astrological doctrine of the Terms, which is well known from later Greek and Latin sources. Most of the material in the compendium is presented in the form of associations between astronomical and/or calendrical data and terrestrial counterparts rather than as omens. Some parts of the compendium duplicate material known from other texts, suggesting that the text was compiled by a scribe as a handy resource for his own use.