Ancient Astronomy And Celestial Divination

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Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination

Noel M. Swerdlow
Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination Book PDF

Author : Noel M. Swerdlow
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : History
ISBN : 0262194228

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Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination by Noel M. Swerdlow Pdf

This volume presents recent work on Babylonian celestialdivination and on the Greek inheritors of the Babyloniantradition.In the ancient world, the collection and study of celestial phenomena and the intepretation of their prophetic significance, especially as applied to kings and nations, were closely related sciences carried out by the same scholars. Both ancient sources and modern research agree that astronomy and celestial divination arose in Babylon. Only in the late nineteenth century, however, did scholars begin to identify and decipher the original Babylonian sources, and the process of understanding those sources has been long and difficult. This volume presents recent work on Babylonian celestial divination and on the Greek inheritors of the Babylonian tradition. Both philological and mathematical work are included. The essays shed new light on all of the known textual sources, including the omen series Enuma Anu Enlil, which contains omens from as far back as the early second or even third millennium, and the earliest personal horoscopes, from about 400 B.C., as well as the Astronomical Diaries, ephemerides, and other observational and mathematical texts. One essay concerns astronomical papyri that confirm the extensive transmission of Babylonian methods into Greek; a study of Ptolemy's lunar theory suggests that Ptolemy relied more on his own observations than previously thought; and an analysis of Theon's commentary on Ptolemy's Handy Tables shows that Theon explicated their meaning both conscientiously and competently.ContributorsAsger Aaboe, Alan C. Bowen, Lis Brack-Bernsen, John P. Britton, Bernard R. Goldstein, Gerd Graßhoff, Hermann Hunger, Alexander Jones, Erica Reiner, F. Rochberg, N. M. Swerdlow, Anne Tihon, C. B. F. Walker

In the Path of the Moon

Francesca Rochberg
In the Path of the Moon Book PDF

Author : Francesca Rochberg
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 469 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2010
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 9789004183896

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In the Path of the Moon by Francesca Rochberg Pdf

"In the Path of the Moon" offers a collection of essays concerning Babylonian celestial divination. It investigates various aspects of cuneiform celestial omens, horoscopes, and astronomy and their wide-ranging influences on later Hellenistic science and philosophy.

The Heavenly Writing

Francesca Rochberg
The Heavenly Writing Book PDF

Author : Francesca Rochberg
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2004-09-27
Category : History
ISBN : 1139455850

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The Heavenly Writing by Francesca Rochberg Pdf

In antiquity, the expertise of the Babylonians in matters of the heavens was legendary and the roots of both western astronomy and astrology are traceable in cuneiform tablets going back to the second and first millennia BC. The Heavenly Writing, first publsiehd in 2004, discusses the place of Babylonian celestial divination, horoscopy, and astronomy in Mesopotamian intellectual culture. Focusing chiefly on celestial divination and horoscopes, it traces the emergence of personal astrology from the tradition of celestial divination and the use of astronomical methods in horoscopes. It further takes up the historiographical and philosophical issue of the nature of these Mesopotamian 'celestial sciences' by examining elements traditionally of concern to the philosophy of science, without sacrificing the ancient methods, goals, and interests to a modern image of science. This book will be of particular interest to those concerned with the early history of science.

Poetic Astronomy in the Ancient Near East

Jeffrey L. Cooley
Poetic Astronomy in the Ancient Near East Book PDF

Author : Jeffrey L. Cooley
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 407 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2013-03-12
Category : History
ISBN : 9781575066936

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Poetic Astronomy in the Ancient Near East by Jeffrey L. Cooley Pdf

Modern science historians have typically treated the sciences of the ancient Near East as separate from historical and cultural considerations. At the same time, biblical scholars, dominated by theological concerns, have historically understood the Israelite god as separate from the natural world. Cooley’s study, bringing to bear contemporary models of science history on the one hand and biblical studies on the other hand, seeks to bridge a gap created by 20th-century scholarship in our understanding of ancient Near Eastern cultures by investigating the ways in which ancient authors incorporated their cultures’ celestial speculation in narrative. In the literature of ancient Iraq, celestial divination is displayed quite prominently in important works such as Enuma Eliš and Erra and Išum. In ancient Ugarit as well, the sky was observed for devotional reasons, and astral deities play important roles in stories such as the Baal Cycle and Shahar and Shalim. Even though the veneration of astral deities was rejected by biblical authors, in the literature of ancient Israel the Sun, Moon, and stars are often depicted as active, conscious agents. In texts such as Genesis 1, Joshua 10, Judges 5, and Job 38, these celestial characters, these “sons of God,” are living, dynamic members of Yahweh’s royal entourage, willfully performing courtly, martial, and calendrical roles for their sovereign. The synthesis offered by this book, the first of its kind since the demise of the pan-Babylonianist school more than a century ago, is about ancient science in ancient Near Eastern literature.

Mesopotamian Astrology

Ulla Susanne Koch
Mesopotamian Astrology Book PDF

Author : Ulla Susanne Koch
Publisher : Museum Tusculanum Press
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 1995
Category : History
ISBN : 8772892870

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Mesopotamian Astrology by Ulla Susanne Koch Pdf

This book is intended to serve as a general introduction to Mesopotamian astrology, both its outward phenomena and its inner structure.

Hellenistic Astronomy

Alan C. Bowen,Francesca Rochberg
Hellenistic Astronomy Book PDF

Author : Alan C. Bowen,Francesca Rochberg
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 783 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2020-02-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9789004400566

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Hellenistic Astronomy by Alan C. Bowen,Francesca Rochberg Pdf

In Hellenistic Astronomy: The Science in Its Contexts, renowned scholars address questions about what the ancient science of the heavens was and the numerous contexts in which it was pursued.

A Scheme of Heaven: The History of Astrology and the Search for our Destiny in Data

Alexander Boxer
A Scheme of Heaven The History of Astrology and the Search for our Destiny in Data Book PDF

Author : Alexander Boxer
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2020-01-14
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780393634853

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A Scheme of Heaven: The History of Astrology and the Search for our Destiny in Data by Alexander Boxer Pdf

An illuminating look at the surprising history and science of astrology, civilization’s first system of algorithms, from Babylon to the present day. Humans are pattern-matching creatures, and astrology is the universe’s grandest pattern-matching game. In this refreshing work of history and analysis, data scientist Alexander Boxer examines classical texts on astrology to expose its underlying scientific and mathematical framework. Astrology, he argues, was the ancient world’s most ambitious applied mathematics problem, a monumental data-analysis enterprise sustained by some of history’s most brilliant minds, from Ptolemy to al-Kindi to Kepler. Thousands of years ago, astrologers became the first to stumble upon the powerful storytelling possibilities inherent in numerical data. To correlate the configurations of the cosmos with our day-to-day lives, astrologers relied upon a “scheme of heaven,” or horoscope, showing the precise configuration of the planets at a particular instant in time as viewed from a particular place on Earth. Although recognized as pseudoscience today, horoscopes were once considered a cutting-edge scientific tool. Boxer teaches us how to read these esoteric charts—and appreciate the complex astronomical calculations needed to generate them—by diagramming how the heavens appeared at important moments in astrology’s history, from the assassination of Julius Caesar as viewed from Rome to the Apollo 11 lunar landing as seen from the surface of the Moon. He then puts these horoscopes to the test using modern data sets and statistical science, arguing that today’s data scientists do work similar to astrologers of yore. By looking back at the algorithms of ancient astrology, he suggests, we can better recognize the patterns that are timeless characteristics of our own pattern-matching tendencies. At once critical, rigorous, and far ranging, A Scheme of Heaven recontextualizes astrology as a vast, technological project—spanning continents and centuries—that foreshadowed our data-driven world today.

Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-astrology

David Brown
Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy astrology Book PDF

Author : David Brown
Publisher : Brill
Page : 346 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Architecture
ISBN : UVA:X004595788

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Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-astrology by David Brown Pdf

Pliny wrote of Babylon that "here the creator of the science of astronomy was". Excavations have shown this statement to be true. This book argues that the earliest attempts at the accurate prediction of celestial phenomena are indeed to be found in clay tablets dating to the 8th and 7th centuries BC from both Babylon and from Nineveh. The author carefully situates this astronomy within its cultural context, treating all available material from the relevant period, and also analysing the earlier astrological material and the later well-known ephemerides and related texts. A wholly new approach to cuneiform astral concerns emerges - one in which both celestial divination and the later astronomy are shown to be embedded in a prevailing philosophy dealing with the ideal nature of the early universe, and in which the dynamics of the celestial divination industry that surrounded the last Assyrian monarchs account for no less than the first recorded "scientific revolution". This work closely adheres to the original textual sources, and argues for the evolution on the basis of the needs of the ancient scholars and the internal logic of the divinatory and predictive systems employed. To this end, it offers, for the first time, a Mesopotamian contribution to the philosophy, and not only the history, of science.

The Babylonian Theory of the Planets

N. M. Swerdlow
The Babylonian Theory of the Planets Book PDF

Author : N. M. Swerdlow
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 265 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2014-07-14
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781400864867

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The Babylonian Theory of the Planets by N. M. Swerdlow Pdf

In the second millennium b.c., Babylonian scribes assembled a vast collection of astrological omens, believed to be signs from the gods concerning the kingdom's political, military, and agricultural fortunes. The importance of these omens was such that from the eighth or seventh until the first century, the scribes observed the heavens nightly and recorded the dates and locations of ominous phenomena of the moon and planets in relation to stars and constellations. The observations were arranged in monthly reports along with notable events and prices of agricultural commodities, the object being to find correlations between phenomena in the heavens and conditions on earth. These collections of omens and observations form the first empirical science of antiquity and were the basis of the first mathematical science, astronomy. For it was discovered that planetary phenomena, although irregular and sometimes concealed by bad weather, recur in limited periods within cycles in which they are repeated on nearly the same dates and in nearly the same locations. N. M. Swerdlow's book is a study of the collection and observation of ominous celestial phenomena and of how intervals of time, locations by zodiacal sign, and cycles in which the phenomena recur were used to reduce them to purely arithmetical computation, thereby surmounting the greatest obstacle to observation, bad weather. The work marks a striking advance in our understanding of both the origin of scientific astronomy and the astrological divination through which the kingdoms of ancient Mesopotamia were governed. Originally published in 1998. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Circulation of Astronomical Knowledge in the Ancient World

Anonim
The Circulation of Astronomical Knowledge in the Ancient World Book PDF

Author : Anonim
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 595 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2016-04-18
Category : History
ISBN : 9789004315631

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The Circulation of Astronomical Knowledge in the Ancient World by Anonim Pdf

The Circulation of Astronomical Knowledge in the Ancient World explores the ways in which astronomical knowledge circulated between different communities of scholars over time and space, and what was done with that knowledge when it was received.

Babylonian Horoscopes

Francesca Rochberg
Babylonian Horoscopes Book PDF

Author : Francesca Rochberg
Publisher : American Philosophical Society
Page : 182 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 0871698811

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Babylonian Horoscopes by Francesca Rochberg Pdf

Emerging for the first time in the 5th cent. B.C., horoscopes reflect the application of the idea and practice of celestial divination to the life of the individual. Whereas an omen focuses on a single astronomical phenomenon, the horoscope takes into account the positions of the moon, sun, and five planets at the moment of a birth. As such, Babylonian horoscopes presuppose the concept of the ecliptic and a methodology for obtaining the positions of heavenly bodies when they are not observable. This is the first complete edition of the extant cuneiform horoscopes -- with transcription and philological and astronomical commentary. This study offers a systematic description of the documents as a definable class of Babylonian astronomical/astrological texts.

Astrology in Ancient Mesopotamia

Michael Baigent
Astrology in Ancient Mesopotamia Book PDF

Author : Michael Baigent
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2015-07-17
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 9781591432227

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Astrology in Ancient Mesopotamia by Michael Baigent Pdf

A detailed study of the earliest forms of astrology in Mesopotamia and their far-reaching hermetic influences from the Renaissance to the present day • Reveals the roots of modern astrology in the Babylonian science of omens, which was concerned not with individuals but with the state and king • Explores Mesopotamian mythology as it relates to the planets and to astrology • Traces the hermetic transmission of this knowledge over the centuries from Mesopotamia to Egypt to Renaissance Italy Among the many significant discoveries excavated from Assyrian king Ashurbanipal’s royal library in Nineveh were tablets documenting the development of Mesopotamian astrology, now recognized as the earliest astrological science. Drawing upon translations of the Nineveh library tablets as well as many other ancient sources, Michael Baigent reveals the roots of modern astrology in the Babylonian science of omens. He explains how astrology in the Babylonian and Assyrian empires was concerned not with individuals but with the king and the state. He shows that by the first dynasty of Babylon, around 1900 to 1600 BC, astrology had become a systematic discipline, the preserve of highly trained specialists intent upon interpreting omens from the movements of planets and stars. He explores Mesopotamian mythology as it relates to the planets and to astrology as well as to Mesopotamian religion, magic, and politics--for the mythology of Babylon and Assyria served the state and thus changed as the state changed. He shows how this ancient form of astrology uniquely represents both Sun and Moon as masculine entities and Saturn (Ninurta) as the principle of order imposed on chaos. He examines the connections between ancient astrology and the symbolism of Western religions, such as how the “Greek” or “Templar” cross may symbolize the Babylonian god Nabu, now known as Mercury. Tracing the hermetic transmission of this knowledge over the centuries from Mesopotamia to Egypt to Florence, Baigent reveals how the religious and magical aspects of early Babylonian cosmological speculation played a significant role in the Renaissance, influencing prominent figures such as Cosimo de Medici, Marsilio Ficino, and Botticelli.

Rising Time Schemes in Babylonian Astronomy

John M. Steele
Rising Time Schemes in Babylonian Astronomy Book PDF

Author : John M. Steele
Publisher : Springer
Page : 109 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2017-03-20
Category : Science
ISBN : 9783319552217

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Rising Time Schemes in Babylonian Astronomy by John M. Steele Pdf

This revealing work examines an approach from ancient astronomy to what was then a particularly important question, namely that of understanding the relationship between the position in the ecliptic and the time it takes for a fixed-length of the ecliptic beginning at that point to rise above the eastern horizon. Schemes known as “rising time schemes” were used to give lengths of the celestial equator corresponding to each of the twelve zodiacal signs which make up the ecliptic. This book investigates the earliest known examples of these schemes which come from Babylonia and date to the mid to late first millennium BC. Making an important contribution to our knowledge of astronomy in the ancient world, this volume includes editions and translations of all of the known Babylonian rising time texts, including several texts that are identified for the first time. Through a close examination of the preserved texts it has been possible to reconstruct the complete Babylonian rising time scheme. This reconstruction is unprecedented in its completeness, and it is also now possible to situate the scheme within a genre of Babylonian astronomy known as schematic astronomy which presents theoretical descriptions of the astronomical phenomena. The unique discoveries and fresh explorations in this book will be of interest to historians of ancient astronomy, scholars of Babylonian history and those investigating the origins of scientific thought.

The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture

Karen Radner,Eleanor Robson
The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture Book PDF

Author : Karen Radner,Eleanor Robson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 838 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2011-09-22
Category : History
ISBN : 9780191617614

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The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture by Karen Radner,Eleanor Robson Pdf

The cuneiform script, the writing system of ancient Mesopotamia, was witness to one of the world's oldest literate cultures. For over three millennia, it was the vehicle of communication from (at its greatest extent) Iran to the Mediterranean, Anatolia to Egypt. The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture examines the Ancient Middle East through the lens of cuneiform writing. The contributors, a mix of scholars from across the disciplines, explore, define, and to some extent look beyond the boundaries of the written word, using Mesopotamia's clay tablets and stone inscriptions not just as 'texts' but also as material artefacts that offer much additional information about their creators, readers, users and owners.

Ancient Astronomy

Clive L.N. Ruggles
Ancient Astronomy Book PDF

Author : Clive L.N. Ruggles
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 549 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2005-10-21
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781851096169

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Ancient Astronomy by Clive L.N. Ruggles Pdf

An authoritative introduction to the fascinating topic of archaeoastronomy—ancient peoples' understanding and use of the skies. Ancient Astronomy: An Encyclopedia of Cosmologies and Myth draws on archaeological evidence and oral traditions to reveal how prehistoric humans perceived the skies and celestial phenomena. With over 200 entries, it offers a number of ways to approach ancient astronomy, from key examples and case studies worldwide (Stonehenge; Mexican and Egyptian pyramids; Chaco Canyon, New Mexico; the Nazca lines in Peru) to general themes (cosmologies, calendars, ancient ideas of space and time, origin myths), to fundamental concepts and methods (how the sky has changed over the centuries, how to survey a site), and to the field's most frequently asked questions (How did ancient peoples navigate the ocean using the stars? How does astrology relate to ancient astronomy? Can ancient sites be dated astronomically?) By revealing the astronomical significance of some of the world's most famous ancient landmarks and enduring myths and by showing how different themes and concepts are connected, Ancient Astronomy: An Encyclopedia of Cosmologies and Myth brings a unique authoritative perspective to an area too often left to speculation and sensationalism.