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.
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