Venus Tablet Of Ammisaduqa
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The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa (''
Enuma Anu Enlil Enuma Anu Enlil ( ,'' The Assyrian Dictionary'', volume 7 (I/J) – ''inūma'', The Oriental Institute, Chicago 1960, s. 160. ''When he gods Anu and Enlil'' .., abbreviated EAE, is a major series of 68 or 70 tablets (depending on the recension) ...
'' Tablet 63) is the record of astronomical positions for
Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...
, as preserved in numerous
cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sha ...
tablets dating from the first millennium BC. It is believed that this astronomical record was first compiled during the reign of King
Ammisaduqa Ammi-Saduqa (or Ammisaduqa, Ammizaduga) was a king, c. 1646–1626 BC according to the Middle Chronology dating, (or c. 1582–1562 according to the Short Chronology), of the First Dynasty of Babylon. Some twenty-one year-names survive for his reign ...
(or Ammizaduga), the fourth ruler after
Hammurabi Hammurabi (Akkadian: ; ) was the sixth Amorite king of the Old Babylonian Empire, reigning from to BC. He was preceded by his father, Sin-Muballit, who abdicated due to failing health. During his reign, he conquered Elam and the city-states ...
. Thus, the origins of this text could probably be dated to around the mid-seventeenth century BC (according to the
Middle Chronology The chronology of the ancient Near East is a framework of dates for various events, rulers and dynasties. Historical inscriptions and texts customarily record events in terms of a succession of officials or rulers: "in the year X of king Y". Com ...
) despite allowing two possible dates. The tablet gives the rise times of
Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...
and its first and last visibility on the horizon before or after sunrise and sunset (the
heliacal risings The heliacal rising ( ) or star rise of a star occurs annually, or the similar phenomenon of a planet, when it first becomes visible above the eastern horizon at dawn just before sunrise (thus becoming "the Morning Star (disambiguation)#Astronomy, ...
and settings of Venus) in the form of lunar dates. These positions are given for a period of 21 years.


Sources

This Venus tablet is part of ''
Enuma Anu Enlil Enuma Anu Enlil ( ,'' The Assyrian Dictionary'', volume 7 (I/J) – ''inūma'', The Oriental Institute, Chicago 1960, s. 160. ''When he gods Anu and Enlil'' .., abbreviated EAE, is a major series of 68 or 70 tablets (depending on the recension) ...
'' ("In the days of Anu and Enlil"), a long text dealing with
Babylonian astrology Babylonian astrology was the first known organized system of astrology, arising in the second millennium BC. In Babylon as well as in Assyria as a direct offshoot of Babylonian culture, astrology takes its place as one of the two chief means a ...
, which mostly consists of omens in the form of celestial phenomena. The earliest copy of this tablet to be published, a 7th-century BC
cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sha ...
, part of the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
collections, was recovered from the library at Nineveh. It was first published in 1870 by Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and George Smith as ''Enuma Anu Enlil'' Tablet 63, in "Tablet of Movements of the Planet Venus and their Influences" (''The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia'', volume III). As many as 20 copies of this text are currently on record, many of them fragmentary, falling into 6 groups. The oldest of these copies is believed to be Source "B", found at
Kish Kish may refer to: Geography * Gishi, Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan, a village also called Kish * Kiş, Shaki, Azerbaijan, a village and municipality also spelled Kish * Kish Island, an Iranian island and a city in the Persian Gulf * Kish, Iran, ...
in 1924. It was copied from a tablet written at Babylon while
Sargon II Sargon II (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "the faithful king" or "the legitimate king") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 BC to his death in battle in 705. Probably the son of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727), Sargon is general ...
was King of
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
between 720 and 704 BC.


Interpretation

Several dates for the original omens, as contained in the tablet, were proposed early in the 20th century. The following dates, corresponding to the High, Middle, Low and Ultra-Low Chronologies, were inferred for the beginning of the Venus positions: 1702 BC, 1646/1638 BC, 1582 BC and 1550 BC, respectively. The tablet's significance for corroborating
Babylonia Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state c. ...
n chronology was first recognised by
Franz Xaver Kugler Franz Xaver Kugler (27 November 1862 – 25 January 1929) was a German chemist, mathematician, Assyriologist, and Jesuit priest.. Kugler was born in Königsbach, Palatinate, then part of the Kingdom of Bavaria. He earned a Ph.D. in chemist ...
in 1912, when he succeeded in identifying the enigmatic "Year of the Golden Throne" ("Venus" tablet K.160) as potentially the 8th year of the reign of Ammisaduqa, based on one of his year names. Since then, this 7th-century BC copy has been variously interpreted to support several chronologies in the 2nd millennium BC. Many uncertainties remain about the interpretation of the record of astronomical positions of Venus, as preserved in these surviving tablets. Some copying corruptions are probable. Problems of atmospheric refraction were addressed by
Vahe Gurzadyan Vahagn "Vahe" Gurzadyan ( hy, Վահագն Գուրզադյան; born 21 November 1955) is an Armenian mathematical physicist and a professor and head of Cosmology Center at Yerevan Physics Institute, Yerevan , Armenia, best known for co-writi ...
in a 2003 publication. The entry for some years, notably 13 and 21 are not physically possible and are considered in error. Also, the tables used to calculate the heliacal rising of Venus assume a rate at which the earth is slowing, a rate which is not certain, causing "clock-time errors". David F. Lappin maintains that the best solution is 1483 BC for the positions, writing: "In summary, the 1483 BC Venus solution is among the better fits, with acceptable Venus data, and a superior match with attested 30-day months of Ammizaduga."
David Rohl The New Chronology is an alternative chronology of the ancient Near East developed by English Egyptologist David Rohl and other researchers beginning with ''A Test of Time: The Bible - from Myth to History'' in 1995. It contradicts mainstream ...
's New Chronology asserts that the best match on dates would be 1419 BC.


See also

*
Babylonian astronomy Babylonian astronomy was the study or recording of celestial objects during the early history of Mesopotamia. Babylonian astronomy seemed to have focused on a select group of stars and constellations known as Ziqpu stars. These constellations m ...
* Chronology of the ancient Near East *
Short chronology The chronology of the ancient Near East is a framework of dates for various events, rulers and dynasties. Historical inscriptions and texts customarily record events in terms of a succession of officials or rulers: "in the year X of king Y". Com ...


References


Further reading



H. Gasche, J. A. Armstrong, S. W. Cole, and V. G. Gurzadyan, Dating the Fall of Babylon: A Reappraisal of Second-Millennium Chronology, Mesopotamian History and Environment Series 2, Memoirs 4, Chicago: The Oriental Institute; Ghent: The University of Ghent, 1998 * V.G.Gurzadyan and D.A.Warburton, Akkadica, vol. 126, p. 195-197, 2005 * V.G.Gurzadyan, Astronomy and the Fall of Babylon, Sky & Telescope, vol. 100, no.1 (July), pp. 40–45, 2000

Stephen Langdon and John Knight Fotheringham, The Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga, University Press, 1928 *. The "fundamental edition", superseding Langdon et al. 1928 (Walker 1984). *Mitchell, Wayne A., “Ancient Astronomical Observations and Near Eastern Chronology”, Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum, vol. 3, pp. 7–26, 1990 *


External links


Venus tablet at British Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Venus Tablet Of Ammisaduqa 17th-century BC works 1870 archaeological discoveries First Babylonian Empire Babylonian astronomy Chronology Clay tablets Middle Eastern objects in the British Museum Library of Ashurbanipal Venus