Babylonian celestial science (1)

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Celestial science is the one cultural phenomenon through which Mesopotamian civilization had its broadest impact on other cultures. The astronomical achievement of Babylonia was well-known to Hellenistic Greek intellectuals, and their adaptation and incorporation of certain Babylonian astronomical concepts, parameters, and computational schemes assured a position for Babylonian civilization in the intellectual history of the West. Also known to Hellenistic Greeks, and through them Romans, Indians, Iranians, and Arabs, was that aspect of Babylonian astronomy which prognosticated human events from celestial phenomena, i.e., celestial divination, both public (omens) and private (horoscopes). A pre-hellenistic transmission from Mesopotamia to Egypt during the Persian empire also occurred, as evidenced by Demotic astrological texts (Parker 1959). As a consequence of these various stages and modes of transmission, the Egyptian, Greco-Roman and Indian astrological systems bear the traces of Babylonian tradition. As evidenced by these widespread inheritors of Babylonian astrology, a cultural transmission, facilitated by the Hellenistic oikoumene, effected the spread of Babylonian tradition via Greek astrology wherever it took hold. However, in the area of southern Mesopotamia, continuous preservation of Babylonian culture in cities such as Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha may have made direct contact possible between various population groups of the area during the late Seleucid, Parthian, even Sasanian periods.

Bibliography

Francesca Rochberg

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