Origins of the ancient constellations: I. The Mesopotamian traditions
John H. Rogers. Journal of the British Astronomical Association 108(1), 1998, 9-28.
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The reference for the Mesopotamian iconography. It traces every zodiacal figure from the early pictograph seals through the boundary stones to MUL.APIN and the Greek sky-map, and it covers precisely the material an edition of MUL.APIN does not: which deity a figure represented, how it was pictured, and on which dated object. Read in full from the scan linked above before it was cited here. Characterise it when citing, as this site does with Brennan. Rogers is an astronomer synthesising Assyriological scholarship for astronomers, not an Assyriologist: his own sources are Hunger and Pingree's MUL.APIN edition, Gössmann's Planetarium Babylonicum, van der Waerden, and Black and Green. The paper is refereed, heavily cited, and explicit that it is offering inferences in places, which it marks with "I suggest" and "perhaps". Those marks are the author's own and should survive into any entry that uses the passage. A companion Paper II covers the Mediterranean and Greek traditions and is not held here.
Cited by
What it is cited for
Where an entry recorded why it leaned on this work, the reason is repeated here. A source cited well outside its own scope is visible in this list before it is visible anywhere else.
- Aquarius
- For Ea's iconography, the Seal of Adda, the boundary-stone fragments, MUL.APIN's name Gu.La, and the shift from two streams to a single vase.
- Aries
- For the farming-calendar figure MUL.LU.HUN.GA and three candidate mechanisms for its replacement by the Ram.
- Cancer
- For AL.LUL as the Crab, its Three Stars Each and MUL.APIN history, the later name Kushu, and the shrine of Anu as a possible divine counterpart to the rustic Crab.
- Capricorn
- For the seal of Ur, the boundary-stone attestations across the second millennium BCE, and the Ea association as original to the figure.
- Ea
- For Ea's iconography, the Seal of Adda, the goat-fish, the boundary-stone symbols and the winter-solstice grouping. Rogers is an astronomer synthesising the Assyriological editions, and is characterised as such wherever he is cited here.
- Gemini
- For the Babylonian twin gods Lugalgirra and Meslamta-ea and the Lesser Twins later combined with them, and for Rogers's report of Eratosthenes, Hyginus and Ptolemy naming the Greek Twins in sequence.
- Leo
- For Regulus as Sharru, the summer-solstice marker, Ishtar as a candidate origin, the Hydra iconography, and the two glosses of UR.GU.LA.
- Libra
- For Libra's origin as the Scorpion's two claws, the MUL.APIN line naming it "the horn of the Scorpion," the Aratus and Ptolemy usage of Chelai, and Julius Caesar's role in restoring the Balance as an independent figure.
- Pisces
- For the Swallow and Anunitum names, the resolution of MUL.KUN.MES as probably the Swallow's name, the DU.NU.NU gloss, and Rogers's own suggestion connecting the two streams of Ea to the fishes' postures.
- Sagittarius
- For Pabilsag and the recorded alternative name Nedu, the composite boundary-stone chimaera confirmed by two heads, two wings and two tails, and the satyr-to-centaur history of the Greek Archer.
- Scorpio
- For Scorpius originally including the stars that became Libra's claws, the MUL.APIN line naming Libra "the horn of the Scorpion," and the split dated to at least the Three Stars Each texts.
- Taurus
- For the Hyades as the bull's head and the Pleiades as its possible horn, and for the Bull of Adad pictographs.
- Virgo
- For the goddess Shala's identification in MUL.APIN, the quoted MUL.APIN description, the narrower original scope of "the Furrow," and the hedged suggestion connecting Shala's attributes to Ishtar.