Hunger Hermann - The Babylonian astronomical compendium MUL. APIN

The Babylonian Astronomical Compendium MUL.APIN

MUL.APIN is the earliest surviving general work on astronomy in which a wide range of theoretical and practical information relating to the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets is presented. Hermann Hunger and John Steele have done us all an immense service in providing this up-to-date edition and accessible, yet accurate translation of a document of central importance for our understanding of the history of Mesopotamian astronomy, and more broadly of all pre-telescopic astronomy.

Alexander Jones, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, USA

MUL.APIN, written sometime before the eighth century bc , was the most widely copied astronomical text in ancient Mesopotamia: a compendium including information such as star lists, descriptions of planetary phases, mathematical schemes for the length of day and night, a discussion of the luni-solar calendar and rules for intercalation, and a short collection of celestial omens. This book contains an introductory essay, followed by a new edition of the text and a facing-page transliteration and English translation. Finally, the book contains a new and detailed commentary on the text. This is a fascinating study, and an important resource for anyone interested in the history of astronomy.

Hermann Hunger is Emeritus Professor of Assyriology at the University of Vienna, Austria.

John Steele is Professor of the History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity in the Department of Egyptology and Assyriology at Brown University, USA.

Scientific Writings from the Ancient and Medieval World

Series editor: John Steele, Brown University, USA

Scientific texts provide our main source for understanding the history of science in the ancient and medieval world. The aim of this series is to provide clear and accurate English translations of key scientific texts accompanied by up-to-date commentaries dealing with both textual and scientific aspects of the works and accessible contextual introductions setting the works within the broader history of ancient science. In doing so, the series makes these works accessible to scholars and students in a variety of disciplines including history of science, the sciences, and history (including Classics, Assyriology, East Asian Studies, Near Eastern Studies and Indology).

Texts will be included from all branches of early science including astronomy, mathematics, medicine, biology, and physics, and which are written in a range of languages including Akkadian, Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit.

Available titles:

The Foundations of Celestial Reckoning: Three Ancient Chinese Astronomical Systems
Christopher Cullen

The Babylonian Astronomical Compendium MUL.APIN
Hermann Hunger and John Steele

The Babylonian Astronomical
Compendium MUL.APIN

Hermann Hunger and John Steele

First published 2019
by Routledge
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2019 Hermann Hunger and John Steele

The right of Hermann Hunger and John Steele to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hunger, Hermann, 1942- author. | Steele, John M., author.

Title: The Babylonian astronomical compendium MUL.APIN / Hermann Hunger and John Steele. Other titles: MUL APIN

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2018. | Series: Scientific writings from the ancient and Medieval world | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018004804 (print) | LCCN 2018007133 (ebook) | ISBN 9781315168722 (ebook) | ISBN 9781351686822 (web pdf) | ISBN 9781351686815 ( epub) | ISBN 9781351686808 (mobi/kindle) | ISBN 9781138050471 (hardback : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Astronomy, Assyro-Babylonian. | Astronomy, Ancient. | StarsCatalogs.

Classification: LCC QB19 (ebook) | LCC QB19 .H8625 2018 (print) | DDC 523.802/16dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018004804

ISBN: 978-1-138-05047-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-16872-2 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK

Fragments of the Babylonian astronomical compendium known as MUL.APIN were first identified over one hundred years ago, but it was not until 1989 that a complete edition, with translation and study of the text, was published by H. Hunger and D. Pingree under the title MUL.APIN: An Astronomical Compendium in Cuneiform , Archiv fr Orientforschung Beiheft 24 (Horn: Berger & Shne, 1989). In the years since the publication of that volume, several new fragments of MUL.APIN have been identified. In addition, the publication of editions and studies of other works of early Babylonian astronomy that relate to MUL.APIN, as well as detailed studies of certain sections of MUL.APIN itself, has led to advances in our understanding of the text and its contents. With the earlier edition now being out of print, the time seems right to present an updated edition and translation of MUL.APIN, accompanied by a new study of its contents. The new edition incorporates several tablets of MUL.APIN that have been published since the 1989 edition, as well as a few previously unpublished tablets identified by ourselves.

Our work in both establishing the text of MUL.APIN and understanding its contents owes a large debt to the efforts of several scholars over the past century, in particular F. X. Kugler, E. Weidner, J. Schaumberger, B. L. van der Waerden, and D. Pingree. We also wish to record our sincere thanks to J. C. Fincke, who shared with us her article containing editions of several newly identified fragments and very generously provided us with photographs of all of the relevant tablets in the British Museum. She also drew H. Hungers attention to a procedure for drawing copies of tablets from photos, which was developed by C. Wunsch and which is used for the copies in this book. We are grateful to St. Maul and A. Htinen, who gave us access to tablets from Assur ahead of their publication. Previously unpublished tablets in the British Museum are published here by permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.