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The Shape of the Cosmos According to Cuneiform Sources

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Margaret Huxley
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Extract

Texts stating in plain words the opinions of ancient Mesopotamian scholars concerning the shape of the universe have proved elusive, and consequently the question of whether they believed the sky to be flat or domed has never been settled. In 1975 Professor Lambert summarized the comments of earlier scholars on this topic and noted that textual support for the concept of a vault of heaven was lacking in cuneiform sources known to him at that time. Since then, the topic has elicited comment, but no serious attempt to assemble evidence in support of one view or another. In this paper I propose to bring together evidence from a range of sources and argue that in ancient Mesopotamia the sky was thought to be a rotating sphere with a polar axis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , July 1997 , pp. 189 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1997

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References

1 Lambert, W. G., “The cosmology of Sumer and Babylon”, in Ancient Cosmologies, ed. Blacker, C. and Loewe, M. (London, 1975), pp. 61–2 (henceforth AC)Google Scholar.

2 A cosmic model in which the various levels were flat-topped cylinders, stacked one on another was suggested by Livingstone, A., Mystical and Mythological Explanatory Works of Babylonian and Assyrian Scholars (Oxford, 1986), p. 81 (henceforth MMEW)Google Scholar.

3 The translation used is from Lambert, W. G., AC, p. 61 Google Scholar. The same text was also discussed by Oppenheim, A. L., “Man and nature in Mesopotamian civilization”, in The Dictionary of Scientific Biography, XV, pp. 640–1Google Scholar. For a parallel text, see Livingstone, A., MMEW, p. 83 Google Scholar.

4 George, A. R., “Sennacherib and the Tablet of Destinies”, Iraq, XLVIII (1986), pp. 134, 136 Google Scholar.

5 For photographs of the “Mappa Mundi”, see Oates, J., Babylon (London, 1979), p. 34, Fig. 16Google Scholar; Lambert, W. G., AC, p. 57, Pl. 15Google Scholar.

6 Heimpel, W., “The sun at night and the doors of heaven” JCS, XXXVIII/2 (1986), pp. 127–51Google Scholar.

7 Oates, J., Babylon, p. 34 Google Scholar.

8 This passage suggests that there had been speculation about the thickness of the sky. Gilgamesh required twelve double-hours to traverse the tunnel. The bēru is one double-hour, and also the distance a man can walk in one double-hour; by modern estimates the bēru is about ten miles, making the tunnel about 120 miles in length. See “bēru” in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (henceforth CAD).

9 Weidner, E., “Eine Beschriebung des Sternenhimmels aus Aššur”, AfO, IV (1927), pp. 73–85 Google Scholar.

10 Observations of the stars were used as an aid to regulating the calendar; as early as the beginning of the third millennium B.C. Mesopotamian observers had been watching the heavens with sufficient acuity to be aware that the Morning Star and the Evening Star were manifestations of the same planet. This is known from pictographic temple records from archaic Uruk, which mention offerings made to Morning Inanna and Evening Inanna, linking the goddess with both aspects of Venus. See Szarzyńska, K., “Offerings for the goddess Inana in archaic Uruk”, Rev. d’Assyr., XXXVII/1 (1993), p. 8 Google Scholar.

11 The course of later Greek debate on the subject is a possible analogy. In brief, the majority of Greek commentators assumed a revolving heaven, but with some dissenting voices, for as early as the sixth century B.C. Pythagoras taught that the earth revolved around a central fire. In the third century B.C. Aristarchus of Samos suggested that the earth rotates on its axis while revolving around the sun, and as late as the second century A.D. Claudius Ptolemy, still grappling with the problem, concluded from his own calculations that a revolving heaven was the more plausible alternative.

12 See CAD, “M” Pt I, p. 283 Google Scholar.

13 Reiner, E., Babylonian Planetary Omens, Pt 2 Google Scholar, Enūma Anu Enlil Tablets 50–51 (Malibu, 1981), Text III, 28cGoogle Scholar.

14 Reiner, E., “The uses of astrology”, JAOS, CV/4 (1985), p. 594 Google Scholar.

15 George, A. R., Iraq, XLVIII (1986), p. 136 Google Scholar.

16 van der Waerden, B. L., “Babylonian astronomy II; the thirty-six star names”, JNES, VIII (1949), p. 10 Google Scholar; Idem, Science Awakening, ii (Leiden, 1974), p. 62 Google Scholar; Rochberg-Halton, F., “Stellar distances in early Babylonian astronomy: a new perspective on the Hilprecht text (HS229)”, JNES, XLII/3 (1983), p. 210, note 3Google Scholar.

17 The division of the stars among the three celestial Roads of Enlil, Anu and Ea was not unique to the “astrolabe” texts, but was well-known in cuneiform sources. Lists of the stars and constellations belonging to each of the three Roads were given in the mul-apin texts; see n. 18.

18 Hunger, H. and Pingree, D., MULAPIN, an Astronomical Compendium in Cuneiform, AfO, Beiheft 24 (Vienna, 1989)Google Scholar. Pingree suggests a compilation date of c. 1000 B.C. for these tablets.

19 Horowitz, W., “Two new ziqpu-star texts and stellar circles”, JCS, XLVI (1994), p. 89 Google Scholar.

20 Rochberg-Halton, F., “TCL 6 13: mixed traditions in late Babylonian astrology”, ZA, LXXVII (1987), pp. 207–28Google Scholar.

21 Heimpel, W., JCS, XXXVIII/2 (1986), pp. 127–51Google Scholar.