Sky and Telescope - January 2018 - 69

rian, which ceased to be a living language soon after 2000 BC.
The most ancient zodiac constellations are probably the
Bull, the Lion, and the Scorpion. Neolithic art and religious
iconography are rich in images of those creatures, though
it's difﬁcult to discern which of these, if any, were meant to
be explicitly astronomical. In any case, the star patterns of
Taurus and Scorpius are sufﬁciently similar to actual bulls'
heads and scorpions that it is a safe bet that those constellations were conceived of during the Neolithic. Around 7000
BC, numerous bulls'-heads and bulls'-horns were sculpted of
clay plaster on walls and benches (altars?) in what seem to
have been ceremonial rooms in the Neolithic town excavated
at Çatal Hüyük in modern southern Turkey. Whether or not
these objects were thought to have astronomical relevance
is impossible to say; but such a culture would have had a
natural inclination to see the star pattern of our Taurus as
representing a bull's head.

The Northern Zodiac

THE M ORG A N LIBR A RY & M USEU M

The presence in MUL.APIN of Sipa-zi-an-na (Orion) and Šu-gi
(Perseus), groups that are not on the ecliptic, is at ﬁrst sight
something of a puzzle. However, the Moon's path among the
stars is inclined 5° to the Sun's path, so the Moon sometimes
does approach southern Perseus and northern Orion. The
Sumerian prototypes of Perseus and his Scimitar - a wizard
with his curved wand - are described in a previous article
(S&T: May 2016, p. 24).
Though it's a northern constellation, Maš-tab-ba gal-gal,
the Great Twins (Gemini), was associated with the patron
deity of the southern skies, Enki, the water-god of the archaic
Sumerian city of Eridu. This association might hearken back
to the early 4th millennium BC, when Eridu was the cultural
center of Mesopotamia, and its patron deity presumably held
sway over most of the heavens. The Great Twins were envisioned as the Gatepost-Holders of Enki and shown as such on
numerous cylinder seals carved during the 3rd millennium
BC. These seals display the god enthroned, holding his sacred
Streaming Water-Jar, ﬂanked by two nude, wild-haired, frontally faced ﬁgures grasping buckled gateposts.
The same kind of nude, wild-haired ﬁgure is shown on
other cylinder seal designs that include Enki's Streaming
Water-Jar and was the prototype of the classical Aquarius.
Later Mesopotamian texts recommended that terracotta
plaques of these Gatepost-Holders, which they called talim
("Twins"), be buried in the corners of courtyards as protection against evil inﬂuences and demonic intruders.

Virgo and Her Ear of Grain
As its appearance on the "In the Path of the Moon" list suggests, the celestial Ear of Grain, the classical Spica, also has
Mesopotamian roots. The original meaning of the Sumerian
word ab-sín was "furrow": The Sumerians thought of the
ecliptic as a celestial plow-furrow and our Alpha Virginis as
a seed-grain planted in in it. Planting scenes, some of them
clearly astronomical, were quite frequent in Mesopotamian

p EVOLVING TWINS This seal impression shows the enthroned water
god Enki receiving his double-faced vizier, Isimud. The pair is flanked by
the Twin Gatepost-Holders, the prototype(s) of Gemini. Enki holds his
Streaming Water-Jar, which eventually would evolve into Aquarius.

cylinder seal designs of the mid-3rd millennium BC, so it's
reasonably certain that the celestial Ear of Grain was in the
sky by that time.
Though not explicitly included in the table of constellations "In the Path of the Moon," other sections of MUL.APIN
refer to a celestial "Great Lady," Nin-mah, and locate her in
the same area of the sky as the Ear of Grain. Nin-mah was
one of the Sumerian epithets for the famous fertility goddess
Ishtar (Sumerian Inanna), forerunner of the Greek Aphrodite. Thus the constellation Nin-mah was almost certainly
the predecessor of the classical Virgo.
As a fertility goddess, Nin-mah was accompanied in the
sky by two of her icons: the Ear of Grain, represented by
Alpha Virginis; and a Date Cluster represented by the Coma
Berenices Star Cluster. A mid-3rd millennium BC cylinder
seal design shows a winged Inanna/Ishtar holding her Date
Cluster and standing on a mountain range from behind
which the sun-god Utu is rising. To the right is Enki, patron
deity of the southern heavens, holding Corvus, the celestial Raven, in one hand; and to the left is Leo, the Lion (the
constellation west of Coma Berenices), as well as Enlil, patron
god of the northern skies. This cylinder seal design shows the
heavens as they would have appeared in the third millennium
BC at sunrise in early September, the time of year the highly
important date harvest began.
By the time the "rising Sun" cylinder seal was carved, the
balance-beam Scales that would become Libra were also in
the sky. The remains of such scales have been found during
excavations at Sumero-Babylonian sites, and at least three
mid-3rd millennium seal designs are known which show a
balance-beam scale with trays. One of these designs depicts
the scale being held over an altar in front of the enthroned
Sun-god, Utu. This could be interpreted as a reference to the
Sumerian god of Justice, Utu (Akkadian Shamash).

The Archaic Archer
The deity name Pa-bil-sag, which MUL.APIN applies to the
stars of the classical Sagittarius, was a throwback. During the
early 3rd millennium BC, Pa-bil-sag was the war-god of the
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Sky and Telescope - January 2018

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