Sky and Telescope - January 2018 - 68

Zodiac History

Given the importance of the lunar calendar to the ancient
Mesopotamians, it isn't surprising that MUL.APIN doesn't
itemize the stars and constellations along the path of the
Sun, but rather catalogs those "In the Path of the Moon" (see
the table on page 67). This list includes 18 stars and stargroups, or six more than we ﬁnd in the modern solar zodiac,
and none are associated with speciﬁc, individual months.
Virtually all of the 12 Graeco-Roman zodiacal constellations
appear in this catalog in some form, seven explicitly so. Two
of the star groups, Pa-bil-sag and GU-LA, served as prototypes
for the classical conceptions: Pa-bil-sag was envisioned as
an Archer-Centaur and GU-LA as a Water-Pourer holding a
Streaming Water-Jar. It would seem, then, that the GraecoRoman 12-constellation solar zodiac resulted from a process of selection from this Mesopotamian ur-catalog of an
18-constellation lunar zodiac. That winnowing, as mentioned
above, was done by Babylonian astronomers and astrologers
during the 5th century BC, when Babylonia was under control of the Sun-worshipping Persians.

started with lúHun-gá, predecessor of the modern constellation Aries. The Pleiades were just west-northwest of the vernal
equinox during the 3rd millennium BC and would have risen
in the morning twilight around the time of the equinox. That
they head the list suggests that it was ﬁrst compiled in the 3rd
millennium BC. This is consistent with the fact that the vast
majority of the list's star and constellation names are in Sume-

Earliest Ecliptic Constellations
The antiquity of the list of constellations "In the Path of the
Moon" is indicated by its lead star-group, MUL.MUL, the
Greek Pleiades. At the time the surviving tablets of MUL.
APIN were inscribed, around 700 BC, the vernal equinox was
in the middle of the classical constellation of Aries. Given the
importance of the vernal equinox for the Mesopotamian lunar
calendar, had the constellation list actually been compiled
around the time it was inscribed, it undoubtedly would have
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JA N UA RY 2 018 * SK Y & TELESCOPE

p NEOLITHIC CATTLE The settlement of Çatal Hüyük, which dates to
c. 7500-5700 BC, consisted of rectangular mud-brick houses, arranged
such that access was available only through roof openings. Inside many
of these single-story dwellings were rooms ornamented with colorful
pigments, animal heads, bucrania (bovine skulls), and horns embedded in
stylized bulls' heads or attached to benches and pillars.

TA BLE T: © THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH M USEU M; TR A NSCRIPT: E. A . WA LLIS BUDG E, CUNEIFOR M TE X TS FR OM
BABY LONIAN TABLE TS, &C., IN THE BR ITISH MUSEUM (1912); DR AWING: DE AGOSTINI PICT URE LIBR A RY / G E T T Y IM AG ES

p ANCIENT ASTRONOMICAL TEXT Left: Unearthed from the ruins of an Assyrian palace in southern Iraq, this clay tablet, composed in the Akkadian language and inscribed in cuneiform, displays the opening lines of MUL.APIN. The full text of MUL.APIN, known from several larger tablets, contains a wealth of astronomical information, including the names of the major stars and constellations; the heliacal rising dates of important stars; lists
of stars and constellations that rise, culminate, or set at the same time; and methods for determining the positions and movements of the Sun, Moon,
and planets. Right: Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge of the British Museum published this transcription of the reverse side of the MUL.APIN tablet in
1912. Though broken, enough of this and other tablets remain to allow archaeologists like Budge to decipher the names of the important stars "In the
Path of the Moon." The relevant section is highlighted on the transcription above.

Sky and Telescope - January 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky and Telescope - January 2018