http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ mirrored file For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== *Illustration Gallery* *Astronomical Artefacts and Portraits, etc* The German assyriologist Carl Bezold. He was born at Donauwörth in Bavaria in 1859 and died in Heidelberg (Germany) in 1922. He lived in London (England) from 1888 to 1895 whilst engaged in preparing a catalogue of the British Museum tablet collections. His knowledge of assyriology was considered encyclopaedic. He was proficient in numerous ancient and modern languages including Chinese, Assyrian, Arabic, Syriac, English, French, and Italian. From 1886 to 1915 he was the editor of /Zeitschrift für Assyriologie/. In 1894 he was appointed Professor of Semitic Philology and Director of Oriental Seminars at the University of Heidleberg. He held this prestigous academic position until his death. He was a friend of both Johann Strassmaier and Franz Kugler. Whilst in London he was assisted by Strassmaier in the preparation of the /Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets of the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum/ (5 Volumes, 1889-1899). Kugler was involved in several years of self-training to learn cuneiform script. However, between 1900 and 1907, Kugler also, for 6 to 12 months, "formally" studied cuneiform philology in Heidelberg. It can be reasonably speculated that Kugler went to Carl Bezold at the University of Heidelberg for such. Bezold's 1911 pamphlet /Astronomie, Himmelsschau und Astrallehre bei den Babylonie/r strongly defended Kugler's chronology of Babylonian scientific astronomy and also his critique of Panbabylonism. An early study of Mul.Apin tablet 1 and the identification of Babylonian constellations with modern star groups. Carl Bezold, with the assistance of August Kopff and the participation of Franz Boll, examined the contents of BM 86378. The identification of 78 Babylonian constellations and star names is made. The 59-page pamphlet gives the transcription and (German-language) translation of BM 86378 and a detailed comparison of the results of Franz Kugler, Ernst Weidner, and August Kopff and Carl Bezold, in identifying the stars and constellations listed. The pamphlet is valuable in reproducing the particular cuneiform signs for all 78 constellations and star names investigated. Circa 1900 little was known with certainty regarding the identification of of Babylonian constellation names and star names. Though cuneiform script had been successfully deciphered for decades the meanings of numerous words either remained unknown or were incorrectly understood. The types of astronomical texts available circa 1900 were (1) late Babylonian observational texts (4th to 1st century BCE); (2) mathematical-astronomical texts (from the latest period of Babylonian astronomy); and (3) omina literature regarding celestial events and (4) a few lists of constellation/star names. The observational texts and mathematical-astronomical texts contained few names of celestial bodies - mostly the names of planets and the constellations of the zodiac. The type of information contained in the constellation/star lists in Mul.Apin tablet 1 (BM 86378), an autograph copy of which was first published by the British Assyriologist Leonard King in 1912, provided a unique opportunity for the identification of Babylonian constellations. The primary effort in successfully identifying the constellations and star names listed in BM 86378 was carried out by first by Franz Kugler and then by Carl Bezold and August Kopff. The Kopff-Bezold results largely agree with the identifications made by Franz Kugler in his Supplement 1 (1913) to his /Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel/. Further work by later scholars largely confirmed their results. There were 16 agreements in identification between Kugler, Weidner, and Kopff-Bezold. The lower number is due to the lesser number of identifications made by Ernst Weidner. August Kopff was a German astronomer who worked in Heidelberg; then Berlin. In Berlin he was Director of the Institute for Astronomical Calculation of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-University (now the Humboldt-University). Franz Boll was a renowned German classical philologist who specialized in ancient astronomy. He had the ability to combine astronomy, religion, and literature with great originality. His death in 1924 at the age of 57 put an end to his further masterly contributions to elucidating little-known traditions. His last academic position was Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Heidelberg. The two tablets comprising the Mul.Apin series are essentially a series of structured lists grouped into 18 sections. Tablet 1 basically contains eight sections (including five star lists): (1) A list of 33 stars in the Path of Anu, 23 stars in the Path of Enlil, and 15 stars in the Path of Ea. (2) A sequential list of (heliacal rising) dates in the ideal calendar (i.e., based on a year comprised of 12 months of 30 days each) on which 36 fixed stars and constellations rose heliacally. (3) A list of simultaneously rising and setting constellations. (4) Time intervals between the heliacal rising dates of some selected stars. (5) The visibility of the fixed stars in the East and the West. (6) A list of 14 /ziqpu/-stars (i.e., stars which culminate overhead). (7) The relation between the culmination of /zipqu/-stars and their heliacal rising. (8) A list of stars and planets in the path of the moon. (The beginning of the second tablet continues the listing of (8) in tablet 1.) The data contained in the Mul.Apin series is not quantifiable (i.e., precisely defined) and appropriate assumptions are required to be made (i.e., of the stars forming each constellation and which of these stars were listed to rise heliacally). Kugler in his /Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel/, /Erg/. /1/, used lists (2) (3) and (6) and computed for 500 BCE at Babylon. Kopff used the same lists and computed for 600 BCE at Nineveh. I am presently unsure what lists Weidner used and what date and location he computed for. Later researchers used different lists. The German assyriologist Johann Schaumberger in his /Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel/, /Erg/. /3/, used lists (1) and (2). The Dutch mathematician Bartel van der Waerden in his /Anfänge der astronomie/ used lists (2) and (4). List (4) is compiled from list (2) and its data is most subject to inaccuracy. Many significant differences exist between the identifications made by these four scholars. Erica Reiner and David Pingree, /Babylonian Planetary Omens: Part Two/, using lists (3) and (6) in conjunction with a planetarium projector, concluded that the data best fit the date 1000 BCE the location of Nineveh. Copyright © 2005-2006 by Gary D. 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