Book Reviews 125

that, as the book has demonstrated, there is a very large archival record, which lets us
know “what he made, how he made it, whom he sold his products to, and also – very
unusually for a seventeenth-century cosmographer – how he sold them” (p. 297). The
book is enriched by appendices containing a number of systematic listings, including
Coronelli’s globes, maps and books, and 44 plates of varying quality but adequate for
their purpose.

Jim Bennett
Science Museum
jim.bennett@mhs.ox.ac.uk

Ancient Astral Sciences

The Circulation of Astronomical Knowledge in the Ancient World. Edited by John M. Steele (Brill
Publishers, Leiden, 2016). Pp. x + 585. ISBN 9789004315617.

The astral sciences offer outstanding opportunities for studying the circulation and trans-
formation of scholarly knowledge within and among ancient cultures. The present vol-
ume of 17 contributions results from a conference on these topics which was held at
Brown University in 2014. Six of the papers deal primarily with Mesopotamia, two with
Egypt, three with the Greco-Roman and Byzantine world, five with China, and one with
India. This review mainly deals with the Mesopotamian chapters. In the introduction,
John Steele calls attention to the widely different modes of transmission that underlie the
sources and to the methodological difficulties of determining whether similarities result
from a transfer of knowledge or from independent, parallel developments.
In Chapter 1, “The Brown School of the History of Science: Historiography and the
Astral Sciences,” Francesca Rochberg outlines the outstanding role of Brown University’s
Department of the History of Mathematics, now part of the Department of Egyptology
and Assyriology, in the historiography of the astral sciences and their transmission. In
Chapter 2, “Astral Knowledge in an International Age: Transmission of the Cuneiform
Tradition, ca. 1500–100 B.C.,” Matthew Rutz reviews the transmission of Mesopotamian
astral science during a period when cuneiform scribal practices spread from Mesopotamia
to Syria, Anatolia, the Levant, Egypt, and other regions. Star lists and celestial omen
texts were transmitted to some of these regions, but the degree to which the content was
understood and used in practice may vary widely. For the omen texts, Rutz proposes
three, successively more comprehensive modes of transmission: reception and local
reproduction, translation into a local language and/or script, and both of the former plus
innovation of content. The second type is commonly found in the Hittite sources, the
third type most prominently at Ugarit (Syria). In Chapter 3, “Traditions of Mesopotamian
Celestial-Divinatory Schemes and the 4th Tablet of Šumma Sin ina Tāmartišu,” Zachary
Wainer investigates the schemes whereby predictions were derived from lunar phenom-
ena. After identifying the various schemes in the 4th Tablet of Šumma Sin ina Tāmartišu,
a commentary to the main celestial omen series Enuma Anu Enlil, Wainer explores how
126 Journal for the History of Astronomy 49(1)

they were put to use in scholarly reports from the Neo-Assyrian period. He argues that
the schemes comprise a remarkably stable body of knowledge that was transmitted along
with, but separately from, the omen texts themselves.
John Steele in Chapter 4 discusses the circulation of astronomical knowledge between
Babylon and Uruk. At both sites, astronomical diaries and related texts were found, but
the number of such texts from Uruk is very small compared to Babylon. This raises the
question of whether they contain local observations or are they copies from Babylon.
The two extant diaries from Uruk lack historical events or other information that could
reveal the site of observation, and overlapping diaries from Babylon are not available.
Hence this question cannot be answered on the basis of these diaries. Nine excerpts with
lunar and planetary data were also found at Uruk. For A 3456, an excerpt with Mercury
observations for 196–180 B.C. partly overlapping diaries and Goal-Year texts from
Babylon are available. Steele demonstrates that the data on A 3456 agree so closely that
they must, at least for the larger part, originate from Babylon. Had they been observed at
Uruk, more deviations would be expected, but even clouds are reported identically for
the same date.
Almanacs and Normal Star Almanacs are represented by eight tablets from Uruk.
They contain predictions for a single year that were most likely compiled from a
Goal-Year text for the same year or, equivalently, from diaries preceding it by the
appropriate Goal-Year periods. In this case, there are pronounced differences, starting
with the layout, terminology, and selection of included phenomena. Steele compares
a Normal Star Almanac from Uruk, MLC 1860, which contains predictions for the
year SE (= Seleucid Era) 82 (230/229 B.C.), with an exemplar from Babylon for the
same year. The predictions are significantly different. Steele points out that the schol-
ars in Uruk might have used Goal-Year texts or diaries from Babylon with slightly
different data from the extant ones. Moreover, depending on the planet and the phe-
nomenon, corrections of a few days were applied to the dates after they were copied
from a Goal-Year text or diary. Perhaps the scholars in Uruk used different dates than
those used in Babylon. However, that could only explain why a phenomenon is pre-
dicted for a different date and not why a different distance to a Normal Star is pre-
dicted, which happens at least once in the two tablets compared by Steele. In that
case, it must either have been copied from a deviating report from Babylon or observed
locally in Uruk.
Further clues may be obtained by extending the comparison to Goal-Year texts and
diaries from Babylon. For instance, one Normal Star Almanac (A) from Uruk (MLC
1885)1 includes two predictions for Saturn for SE 133 that can be compared with a diary
(D) from Babylon2 for SE 133 – 59 = SE 74, 59 years being the Goal-Year period for
Saturn:

A obv. 3’: (Month III …). The 24th […]. This day, last part of the night, Saturn 4 cubits below
β Tauri.

D obv. 10’: (Month III …). [Night of the 2]7th, […], last part of the night, Saturn 4 cubits below
β Tauri.
Book Reviews 127

Given the identical distances, the prediction in A could originate from D if a correction
of −3 days were applied. The actual correction that was applied to Saturn’s 59-year
period is badly known, but one would expect c. −15 days for Normal Star passages.3
Unless the scholars made an unusually large error, it seems more likely that A was not
copied from D. Nevertheless, the same difference of −3 days underlies the other Saturn
phenomenon:

A obv. 9’: (Month V …). Night of the 3rd, last part of the night, Saturn 6 fingers (SI) above ζ
Tauri.

D rev. 8-9: (Month V …). Night of the 6th, […] last part of the night, […] Sa[turn ] 3 fingers
(U) [above ζ Tau]ri.

In this case, the distances are different and their units are also expressed differently, the
logogram SI being used in A versus U in D, which makes it very unlikely that the prediction
in A derives from D. Hence both cases may support the assumption of a local production of
diary-type reports, as I have argued elsewhere,4 but the evidence remains inconclusive. A
detailed comparison between the (Normal Star) Almanacs from Uruk and the Goal-Year
texts and diaries from Babylon might provide a more definite answer. In the area of math-
ematical astronomy, there is less of a discrepancy between Babylon and Uruk, and there is
no doubt that even the most complex lunar algorithms were understood and used in both
cities. Steele presents convincing arguments that the two main families of algorithms, sys-
tems A and B, were both created in Babylon, from where they spread to Uruk.
Chapter 5, “The Micro-Zodiac in Babylon and Uruk: Seleucid Zodiacal Astrology,” by
M. Willis Monroe and Chapter 6, “Virtual Moons over Babylonia: The Calendar Text
System, Its Micro-Zodiac of 13, and the Making of Medical Zodiology,” by John Wee deal
with micro-zodiac texts and calendar texts, respectively – two related genres of Late
Babylonian astral medicine. All of these texts emerged after the end of the fifth century B.C.
in the wake of the introduction of the zodiac. In the micro-zodiac tablets, a zodiacal sign and
the corresponding month is divided into 12 micro-intervals, each of which is associated with
certain medical ingredients, ritual instructions, and other content. In the calendar texts, simi-
lar ingredients, instructions, and other content are provided for each day of an ideal month.
Both genres testify to complex transformations and interactions of originally distinct bodies
of Babylonian astronomical, astrological, medical, and ritual knowledge. Monroe explores
how these processes are reflected in the layout of the micro-zodiac tablets.
Babylonian astral medicine was constructed around two numerical schemes, known as
the dodekatemoria and calendar text schemes. In the former, an ideal lunar position is
assigned to each day, starting with 13° Aries on day 1 of month I and proceeding from there
with a daily motion of 13°. Analogously, the calendar text scheme involves a daily shift of
277°, starting from 7 Capricorn on day 1 of month X. As shown by Brack-Bernsen and
Steele,5 the latter scheme can be derived from the former by reinterpreting the lunar posi-
tions as dates and vice versa and by reshuffling the resulting sequence according to the
dates. Since dates of the ideal year are equivalent to ideal solar positions, the positions in
the calendar text scheme are formally produced by the following correspondences: date in
ideal year = position of ideal sun (month = sign, day = degree) → date when ideal moon
128 Journal for the History of Astronomy 49(1)

reaches that position = position of ideal sun (sign = month, degree = day). In a calendar text,
both pairs of numbers are listed for each day of a month, usually as bare numbers without
any indication that they are dates or positions. However, Wee discusses an unusual calendar
text, LBAT 1586+1587, in which the moon is explicitly said to stand in the positions that
shift by 277° from day to day (p. 152). Wee rightly points out that this does not correspond
to the (ideal) moon and therefore explains these statements in terms of a “(virtual) moon,”
an imaginary counterpart to the ideal moon, constructed in analogy to the nearly reciprocal
relation that exists between 13 and 277 in the Babylonian sexagesimal notation. However,
it is not entirely clear that these numbers were generally interpreted as positions of (a mani-
festation of) the moon, because this is not apparent in the other calendar texts. In fact, some
calendar texts, e.g. VAT 7815, also report for each day a third pair of numbers correspond-
ing to the ideal moon’s position from the dodekatemoria scheme. This may speak against
the assumption that the moon was simultaneously considered to be located at another “vir-
tual” position. Another concept underlying these texts is the micro-zodiac, which is usually
understood to be a division of each sign into 12 intervals of 2.5° that are named after the
signs, starting from the main sign, so that, for instance, Gemini of Gemini is the first micro-
sign of Gemini. Wee proposes the coexistence of a second micro-zodiac comprising 13
fixed intervals of 2° or 3° with a total length of 30°. This results in a convincing explanation
as to why in some calendar texts some positions are not assigned to the expected microsign
but to an adjacent one.
In Chapter 11, “Mesopotamian Lunar Omens in Justinian’s Constantinople,” Zoë
Misiewicz reassesses the transfer of celestial divination from Mesopotamia to the Greek
world on the basis of the “moon book” of the byzantine scholar John Lydus (sixth century).
In 1911, Bezold and Boll viewed this composition as a prime example of such a transfer.
Misiewicz recounts their arguments and subjects them to a critical analysis. By avoiding
the selective, cherry-picking approach of Bezold and Boll and by developing a comprehen-
sive, contextual interpretation of the moon book, Misiewicz succeeds in formulating a less
naive and more sophisticated model of the relationship between Mesopotamian and Greek
divination that could serve as an example for other investigations.
This volume can be warmly recommended to anyone interested in the transmission
and transformation of ancient science in general, and astral science in particular.

Mathieu Ossendrijver
Humboldt University
mathieu.ossendrijver@hu-berlin.de

Notes
1. H. Hunger, Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia: Volume VII. Almanacs and
Normal Star Almanacs (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,
2014), p. 57.
2. H. Hunger and A. Sachs, Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia. Volume
2: Diaries from 261 B.C. to 165 B.C. (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften, 1989), p. 237.
3. J. Gray and J. Steele, “Studies on Babylonian Goal-Year Astronomy II,” Archive for History
of Exact Sciences, 63, 2009, pp. 611–33.
Book Reviews 129

4. M. Ossendrijver, “Astral Science in Uruk during the First Millennium BCE: Libraries,
Communities and Transfer of Knowledge,” in M. van Ess (ed.), Uruk: Altorientalische Metropole
und Kulturzentrum (Colloquia der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 8), in press.
5. L. Brack-Bernsen and J. Steele, “Babylonian Mathemagics,” in C. Burnett, J. P. Hogendijk,
K. Plofker and Y. Yano (eds), Studies in the History of the Exact Sciences in Honour of David
Pingree (Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2004), pp. 95–125.

“Science” in the Cuneiform World

Before Nature: Cuneiform Knowledge and the History of Science. Francesca Rochberg (University of
Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 2016). Pp. 369. US$55. ISBN 9780226406138.

Francesca Rochberg has frequently written about ancient Near Eastern culture and its
relation to what is nowadays called “science,” e.g., in her book The Heavenly Writing
(Cambridge 2004). The present work broadens her explorations of the philosophical
implications of “history of science.”
She refers by “the cuneiform world” to the “corpus of the Babylonian and Assyrian
literati, the scholarly specialists in bodies of knowledge relating to the phenomena”
(p. 1). In this world, no concept of “nature,” as in Western culture, existed, and there was
no word for it. Since science is frequently seen as presupposing a nature which it is trying
to explain, the question of whether the Mesopotamian corpus of knowledge can be con-
sidered science has to be addressed, beginning in Chapter 1.
Chapter 2, entitled “Old Ideas about Myth and Science,” examines H. Frankfort et al.’s
The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient
Near East (Chicago 1946) in its own historical context. It can today be seen as inadequate
in explaining those ways of thought, mainly because it neglected the vast corpus of the
Mesopotamian scribes’ engagement with physical phenomena and relied only on mytho-
logical texts. The contrast between “mythopoeic thought” and “science” is expression of
the worldview of the authors rather than a heuristic tool. The idea of “nature” in The
Intellectual Adventure was not useful, Rochberg concludes, for an historical analysis. A
new historiography will aim to integrate cuneiform texts into the history of science.
Chapter 3 begins with Akkadian terms for “knowledge” and what they may mean
exactly in relation to the different corpora of texts maintained by the scribes. Most impor-
tant was the knowledge of omens. Rochberg describes various types of omens and their
development, with special attention to those derived from the heavens. This particular
knowledge then led to what we call astronomical texts, i.e. those dealing with observa-
tion and prediction of phenomena in the sky. These texts influenced the later history of
astronomy outside of Mesopotamia.
Chapter 4 concerns the understanding of norms and ideals and of deviations from
them, embedded in the various forms of divination. A central concept is the “sign”;
observed phenomena were seen as signs and had to be interpreted by means of textual
compendia which were the tools of divinatory science. Signs are seen as communications
from the gods, as warnings of impending danger. The indicated dangers were not una-
voidable fate; they could be averted by the so-called namburbi rituals.