SECTION II: THE ARTIFICIAL INSERTION 

LYNN E. ROSE AND RAYMOND C. VAUGHAN 

Copyright (C) 1980 by Lynn E. Rose and Raymond C. Vaughan 

K. 160. the best known of the Ninsianna or Venus fragments, contains an "artificial 
insertion" that has intrigued commentators for over a century. Inserted after 
Year 17 and before Year 19 are twelve paragraphs or verses, each of which gives 
a date and direction of appearance of Ninsianna, a forecast, a date and 
direction of last visibility, a date of disappearance (the next day), an 
interval of invisibility, a date and direction of reappearance, and another 
forecast. The dates of initial appearance are I 2, II 3, III 4, and so on, down 
to XII 13. 

Reiner and Pingree call this artificial insertion Section II, and they refer to 
Years 1-17 as Section I and Years 19-21b as Section III. (These year numbers are 
not in the text, but have been supplied by modern scholars.) After Section III 
on some fragments-(but not on K. 160) comes what Reiner and Pingree call Section 
IV, where all except two -- they would say three -- of the entries in Sections I 
and III are listed in order of the month of disappearance, rather than in 
chronological order. After Section IV there is sometimes a rather short part of 
the text that we propose to call Section V, though Reiner and Pingree do not do 
so. Each of the five Sections ends with a "footing", which serves the same 
purpose as would a modern "heading", and the entire text is then ended with a 
colophon. Some versions of the text lack Section IV or Section V, and some put 
Sections IV and V on a separate tablet. 

Calling Section II an insertion may reinforce the questionable but seldom 
questioned thesis that the years have been properly numbered and that Years 19-21b 
really do follow immediately after Years 1-17, with Year 18 omitted. But it is 
still in some sense an insertion, for it is indeed placed between two groups of 
observational reports (Sections I and III). 
Table I 

Translation of The Artificial Insertion,
or Section II (Conflated and Reconstructed) 

In the month Nisan, on the 2nd day, Ninsianna appeared in the east: there will 
be mourning in the land; until the 6th day of Kislev she is seen in the east; on 
the 7th day of Kislev she disappears; for 3 months she remains absent from the 
sky; on the 7th day of Adar Ninsianna shines forth in the west: king to king 
messages of war will send. 

In the month Ayar, on the 3rd day, Ninsianna appeared in the west: there will be 
hostilities in the land; until the 7th day of Tebit she is seen in the west; on 
the 8th day of Tebit she disappears; for 7 days she remains absent from the sky; 
on the 15th day of Tebit Ninsianna shines forth in the east: the harvest of the 
land will prosper; the heart of the land will be happy. 

In the month Sivan, on the 4th day, Ninsianna appeared in the east: downfall of 
a large army; until the 8th day of Sabat she is seen in the east; on the 9th day 
of Sabat she disappears; for 3 months she remains absent from the sky; on the 9th 
day of Ayar Ninsianna shines forth in the west: there will be hostilities in the 
land. 

In the month Tammuz, on the 5th day, Ninsianna appeared in the west: there will 
be hostilities in the land; the harvest of the land will prosper; until the 9th 
day of Adar she is seen in the west; on the 10th day of Adar she disappears; for 
7 days she remains absent from the sky; on the 17th day of Adar Ninsianna shines 
forth in the east: king to king messages of war will send. 

In the month Ab, on the 6th day, Ninsianna appeared in the east: there will be 
rains from the sky; there will be disaster; until the 10th day of Nisan she is 
seen in the east; on the 11th day of Nisan she disappears; for 3 months she 
remains absent from the sky; on the 11th day of Tammuz Ninsianna shines forth in 
the west: there will be hostilities in the land; the harvest of the land will 
prosper. 

In the month Ulul, on the 7th day, Ninsianna appeared in the west: the harvest 
of the land will prosper; the heart of the land will be happy; until the 11th 
day of Ayar she is seen in the west; on the 12th day of Ayar she disappears; for 
7 days she remains absent from the sky; on the 19th day of Ayar Ninsianna shines 
forth in the east: there will be hostilities in the land. 

In the month Tesrit, on the 8th day, Ninsianna appeared in the east: there will 
be hostilities in the land; the harvest of the land will prosper; until the 12th 
day of Sivan she is seen in the east; on the 13th day of Sivan she disappears; 
for 3 months she remains absent from the sky; on the 13th day of Ulul Ninsianna 
shines forth in the west: the harvest of the land will prosper; the heart of the 
land will be happy. 

In the month Arahsamna, on the 9th day, Ninsianna appeared in the west: hard 
times will befall the land; until the 13th day of Tammuz she is seen in the west; 
on the 14th day of Tammuz she disappears; for 7 days she remains absent from the 
sky; on the 21st day of Tammuz Ninsianna shines forth in the east: there will be 
hostilities in the land; the harvest of the land will prosper. 

ln the month Kislev, on the 10th day, Ninsianna appeared in the east: there will 
be scarcity of grain and straw in the land; until the 14th day of Ab she is seen 
in the east; on the 15th day of Ab she disappears; for 3 months she remains 
absent from the sky; on the 15th day of Arahsamna Ninsianna shines forth in the 
west: the harvest of the land will prosper. 

In the month Tebit, on the 11th day, Ninsianna appeared in the west: the harvest 
of the land will prosper; until the 15th day of Ulul she is seen in the west; on 
the 16th day of Ulul she disappears; for 7 days she remains absent from the sky; 
on the 23rd day of Ulul Ninsianna shines forth in the east: the harvest of the 
land will prosper; the heart of the land will be happy. 

In the month Sabat, on the 12th day, Ninsianna appeared in the east: the harvest 
of the land will prosper; until the 16th day of Tesrit she is seen in the east; 
on the 17th day of Tesrit she disappears; for 3 months she remains absent from 
the sky; on the 17th day of Tebit Ninsianna shines forth in the west: the 
harvest of the land will prosper. 

In the month Adar, on the 13th day, Ninsianna appeared in the west: king [to 
king messages of war will send]; until the 17th day of Arahsamna she is seen in 
the west; on the 18th day of Arahsamna she disappears; for 7 days she remains 
absent from the sky; on the 25th day of Arahsamna Ninsianna shines forth in the 
east: hard times will befall the land. 

12 Entries, Visibilities of Ninsianna, A Copy From Babylon  

See the accompanying translation (Table I) of the reconstructed and conflated 
text of the artificial insertion. There may be disagreement (as between Langdon 
and Reiner, for example) about what the correct translation is, especially where 
the forecasts are concerned. Usually we have followed Langdon, but sometimes 
Reiner. It will be seen later that how a forecast is to be translated is far 
less important than where that forecast occurs. It is also unimportant to us 
what the tenses are: as long as Sections I, III, IV, and V are based on 
observational material, and as long as Section II really is artificial, it does 
not matter which tenses were used by the astrologer-scribes who gave these texts 
their present format. We do not even care whether the introductory symbol in 
each paragraph is an "If" or simply a paragraph marker (though we have taken 
them in the latter sense). What does count is whether the material contained in 
such paragraphs is observational or artificial; we need not be overly concerned 
about the style of the astrologically-oriented versions that happen to have 
survived. 

One of the important features of the artificial insertion is that it makes it 
clear that disappearance means first invisibility, rather than last visibility. 
The day of last visibility is here distinguished from the following day, which 
is the actual day of disappearance or first invisibility. From the other 
Sections there is no way to determine which is meant. 

For us, the major value of the artificial insertion is that it provides a way to 
test our reconstruction of the observational material in Section I. That 
reconstruction has been accomplished independently of Section II, and is 
defended in our Commentary (not included here). In many cases, there are no 
problems at all, and we simply report what the fragments say. Our most 
speculative interpretations are those for Years 8b and 16b, which we would 
reconstruct as XI 25 (3m9d) III 4 and as XII 25 (2m7d) III 2, and for Years 13b 
and 14, which we take as IX 20 (2m1d) XI 21 and as VII 21 (1m7d) VIII 28. The 
main purpose of this paper is to argue that Section II is based upon and is 
strictly tied to the various intervals of invisibility and implied periods of 
visibility that we established in our reconstruction of Section I. 

Reiner recently found three other fragments -- B.M. 36758 + B.M. 37496; K. 12344 
+ K. 12758; and K. 3105 -- that supplement some of the Section II information 
from K. 160 (which still remains our most complete source for Section II). She 
also located some Section II material on the reverse of K. 3170 + K. 11719 + K. 
14551;such material seems sometimes to have been included as part of the 
astrological series known as Iqqur ipus. 

Table II gives the key items from Section II. Alternative readings have a slash 
between them; items with a question mark are incorrect, incomplete, or missing 
entirely. The sources of the various readings are listed in Table III. Some 
minor reconstruction of Section II is required, but this is by no means 
arbitrary: every writer who has ever discussed Section II has recognized the 
need for such reconstruction. On this the uniformitarians and the non-uniformitarians 
are in full agreement. For this reconstruction is not in order to make the text 
fit the present motions of Venus, but simply to make some obvious repairs in a 
text that is so idealized that it would not fit the actual observations (present 
or past) anyway. 

Table II
Key Items From Section II Date of Appearance Direction of Appearance Direction 
of Last Visibility Date of Last Visibility Date of Disappearance Interval of 
Invisibility Date of Appearance Direction of Appearance 
I 2 E E IX 6 IX 7 (3m) XII 8? W 
II 3 W W X 6?/7 X 7? (7d) X 14?/15 E 
III 4 E E XI 7?/8 XI 7?/8? (?m) II 9/12? W 
IV 5 W W XII 8?/9 XII 10 (7d) XII 17/18? E 
V 6 E E I 10 I 11 (3m) IV 11 W 
VI 7 W W II 11 II 12 (7d) II 19 E 
VII 8 E E III 12 III 13 (3m) VI 13 W 
VIII 9 W W IV x+2? IV 14 (7d) IV 21 E 
IX 10 E E V 14 V 15 (3m) VIII 15 W 
X 11 W W VI 15 VI 16 (7d) VI 23 E 
XI 12 E E VII 16 VII 16?/17 (3m) X 17 W 
XII 13 W W VIII 16? VIII 16? (7d) VIII 25 E 

These repairs are dictated by the character of the text itself. For it is quite 
clear that the author of Section II intended for the appearances of Ninsianna to 
occur in the first month, the second day, in the second month, the third day, 
and so on, down to the twelfth month, the thirteenth day. It is also quite clear 
that the author recognized a period of visibility of Ninsianna lasting eight 
months and five days, followed either by a three-month interval of invisibility 
at superior conjunction or by a seven-day interval of invisibility at inferior 
conjunction. Thus there would be a synodic period of nineteen months and 
seventeen days. If the months were of 30 days, this would amount to 587 days, 
which is slightly longer than the present mean synodic period of 583.914 days. 
The situation is even worse if the present month of 29.53 days is used: the 
synodic period would be only 578 days. Section II is not only artificial, but so 
idealized as to be unrealistic. Orbital considerations aside, weather conditions 
alone would prevent any such pattern of appearances and disappearances that was 
mathematically perfect to the day. 

Since we do know what Section II is supposed to say, we can assess with some 
confidence the effect that scribal errors, tablet damage, and all other such 
factors have wrought in the condition of the text, especially as far as the 
numbers are concerned. Of the sixteen wrong numbers, twelve have been reduced 
from the intended value, and only four have been increased. It is also 
significant that the vulnerable numbers seem to be the higher digits: one 5 has 
been affected, and seven 7's, four 8's, and four 9's. (See Table III.) This 
information may be taken as a clue as to what can be expected to have happened 
in other portions of the Ninsianna document, where we do not have such a 
reliable control. 

We shall argue that Section II is based upon the data in Section I. Table IV 
gives the Section I intervals of invisibility and implied periods of visibility 
in the condition in which they probably stood at the time when Section II was 
derived from Section I. We do not offer these as the original readings, those 
that described the actual events. For example, we think that the invisibility in 
Year 8b actually began on XI 25, rather than on XII 25; but Section II seems to 
presuppose that the 8b invisibility lasted from XII 25 to III 4. Thus it is 
probable that Section II was invented before the interval of invisibility, the 
date and direction of reappearance, and the forecast of Year 8b were replaced by 
the 8b year-formula, but some time after the observations themselves. 

Except for our handling of Year 8b -- the "year of the golden throne", where 
some sort of reconstruction is unavoidable -- and of Years 13b, 14, and 16b, our 
decisions about Section I can be supported in a quite straightforward way on the 
basis of the available readings. 

Table III
The Sources Of The Variant Readings Month of Initial Appearance The Correct 
Reading of Has Been Changed to On The Fragment 
I 7 8 K. 160 
I 7 8 B.M. 36758 + B.M. 37496 
II 7 6 K. 160 
II 8 7 K. 160 
II 8 7 K. 3170 + K. 11719 + K. 14551 
II 15 14 K. 3170 + K. 11719 + K. 14551 
III 8 7 K. 3170 + K. 11719 + K. 14551 
III 9 8 or 7 K. 3170 + K. 11719 + K. 14551 
III 9 8 K. 160 
III 9 12 K. 3170 + K. 1719 + K. 14551 
IV 9 8 B.M. 36758 + B.M. 37496 
IV 17 18 K. 160 
XI 17 16 K. 105 
XII 17 16 K. 160 
XII 17 6 K. 3105 
XII 18 16 K. 160 

Table IV
Probable Status Of Section I
At The Time Of The Invention Of Section II

"Year" of Disappearance Direction of Disappearance Date of Disappearance 
Interval of Invisibility Date of Appearance Direction of Appearance Implied 
Period of Visibility 
1 W XI 15 (3d) XI 18 E 8m23d 
2 E VIII 11 (2m8d) X 19 W 8m4d 
3 W VI 23 (20d) VII 13 E 8m19d 
4 E IV 2 (2m1d) VI 3 W 7m29d 
5a W II 2 (16d) II 18 E 7m6d 
5b E IX 24 (2m4d) XI 28 W 9m 
6 W VIII 28 (3d) IX 1 E 8m20d 
7 E V 21 (2m11d) VIII 2 W 8m23d 
8a W IV 25 (7d) V 2 E 7m23d 
8b E XII 25 (2m9d) III 4 W 7d 
9 W III 11 (9m4d) XII 15 E 7m25d 
10 E VIII 10 (2m6d) X 16 W 8mlOd 
11 W VI 26 (11d) VI (the 2nd) 7 E 7m1d 
12 E I 8 (5 m17d) VI 25 W 7m10d 
13a W II 5 (7d) II 12 E 7m8d 
13b E IX 20 (2m1d) XI 21 W 8m 
14 E? VII 21 (1m7d) VIII 28 W? 8m22d 
15 E V 20 (2m15d) VIII 5 W 8m 
16a W IV 5 (15d) IV 20 E 8m5d 
16b E XII 25 (2m7d) III 2 W 9m9d 
17 W XII 11 (4d) XII 15 E ... 

In the matter at hand, however, the point is not what the original observations 
were, but rather what the best available readings were at the time when Section 
II was devised. That time may have been rather late, perhaps as late as the 
middle of the eighth century before the present era. So what we are 
reconstructing here is not what originally happened, but rather what was 
available to the author of Section II. These are two different things, and that 
is why we feel free to propose that the actual interval of invisibility in Year 
8b was 3m9d, but that the reading available to the author of Section II was 2m9d. 
(See our "Ninsianna Update" in KRONOS, V, 3, pages 51-54, for further discussion 
of Year 8b and Year 16b. All of the other readings in Table IV are explained in 
our Commentary.) 

The mean of the invisibilities in Table IV that last more than one month is 
exactly three months or ninety days, and the median of the remaining 
invisibilities -- those of less than one month -- is seven days. If the 
unusually short 7d period of visibility in Year 9 is disregarded, the mean of 
the nineteen remaining visibilities -- ranging from 7m1d to 9m9d -- is 244 11/19 
days, or, rounded off to the nearest day, eight months and five days. (The same 
result emerges another way: the ten eastern visibilities -- counting 14-15 -- 
average to 240.2 days, the nine longer western visibilities -- counting 13b-14 -- 
average to 249 4/9 days, and those two figures average to 8 months 4 37/45 days. 
The technique is sloppy, but uniformitarian methodology tends to be bad anyway.) 

The apparent garbling of the directions in Year 14 (more of which in a moment) 
would complicate the status of the visibilities before and after Year 14. But 
even if both visibilities were placed in the wrong group -- 13b-14 with the 
eastern visibilities, and 14-15 with the western visibilities -- the averages of 
the two groups would themselves still average closer to 245 days than to any 
other integral number of days. 

There is a minor problem about the dates in Year 17. Reiner reports XII 10 and 
XII 14. Other scholars -- see the writings of Rawlinson and Smith, Sayce, 
Virolleaud, and LFS, all of which are listed in our References -- report a 
disappearance on XII 11 and an interval of 4d. All of these sources treat the 
date of appearance as illegible, though XII 15 would be implied by the XII 11 
and the 4d. If Reiner is right, then some of the figures in the paragraph before 
last would be slightly different, but we would still arrive at an average 
visibility just short of 8m5d. 

Similarly, Reiner favors month V in Year 16a, rather than Langdon's more likely 
month IV; her reasons are not specified. (The other sources just mentioned all 
treat the month name as illegible.) If we were to follow Reiner rather than 
Langdon, we would again find some of the numbers changed, but the average 
visibility of 8m5d would still emerge, as would the mean of 3m for the longer 
invisibilities and the median of 7d for the shorter invisibilities. 

The practice of rounding off to the nearest integer may not be appropriate here. 
Even if the average interval was only, say, 244 1/3 days, any calculation of the 
next disappearance, based on that figure, would actually have to use 245 days. 
For one could not witness the next disappearance until after sundown, 245 
integral days (ignoring seasonal changes) after the first visibility, which was 
also witnessed just after sundown. Any number significantly over 244 days would 
not be rounded off to 244, but would have to be rounded up to 245. 

Thus Section II does seem to be an idealization of the observational data from 
Section I. Like Huber, the inventor of Section II was compelled to smooth out 
the observational record in order "to obtain a decent alignment", and Section II 
stands to Section I in just about the same way that Huber's graph stands to 
Sections I and III. 

It seems most unlikely that Section III was included along with Section I in the 
derivation of Section II; even if someone were to do a lot of juggling, the 
results would be neither as satisfactory nor as straightforward as with Section 
I alone. While it is possible, using alternative readings for several of the 
years (such as Years 20 and 14 and 15), to save the 3m and the 7d, the 8m5d is 
inevitably thrown off. The simple fact that Section II immediately follows 
Section I is also an indication that Section II is based just on Section I. 

It is rather obvious why it might be tempting to group an invisibility of 9m4d 
with the longer invisibilities even though most of them involve disappearances 
in the east and reappearances in the west -- what we now call superior 
conjunctions -- while the 9m4d invisibility involved a disappearance in the west 
and a reappearance in the east what we now call an inferior conjunction. But 
what about the borderline invisibility of only 1m7d? Is there any special reason 
why it should have been grouped with the longer invisibilities, all of which, 
after all, are at least two months long? Yes, there is. The status of Year 14 in 
Section I is unique. It alone has both of its directions incorrectly reported. (There 
is another case in which one direction on one fragment is wrong -- namely, the 
western appearance in Year 16a on K. 160 -- but that incorrect direction is 
outweighed by four other Section I reports.) For Year 14, K. 160 reports that 
the disappearance was in the east and that the appearance was in the west; Rm. 
II 531 also reports that the appearance was in the west. Thus all three 
surviving reports seem to be wrong. (If B.M. 41498, Obverse, lines 3´-4´ is Year 
14, as we suspect, then both directions are given correctly there. But those two 
correct reports would still not outweigh the three incorrect reports on the two 
fragments just mentioned. Besides, the scribal comment in line 5´ may report 
that the directions were wrong in the source but have been corrected!) 

Year 14 is also special in that for some reason or reasons it was repeated at 
the very end of the listings, after Section IV had been concluded. Reiner and 
Pingree argue that this additional listing served as a "correction" of the 
earlier listings of Year 14. Some versions of the Ninsianna fragments -- such as 
B.M. 42033, and/or whatever source it was from which W. 1924. 802, Reverse, line 
14´ was copied -- seem to have contained a "correction" for Year 5b just after 
the "correction" for Year 14. 5b may have needed such correction because its 
directions had been consistently misreported in Section IV, but it is possible 
also that 5b's dates needed correction, either from Section I or from Section IV, 
or from both. The surviving directions in these various "corrections" are 
themselves correct. (Reiner and Pingree have overlooked the 5b "correction".) 

But the inventor of Section II may have been working just with Section I, and 
may have been led astray by the incorrect directions for Year 14. That is, if 
Year 14 was recorded there as featuring an eastern disappearance and a western 
reappearance, that in itself might explain why it was classed with the other 
invisibilities that were (correctly) reported to have had eastern disappearances 
and western reappearances. The inventor of Section II would thus quite 
understandably have found himself in the position of grouping together all of 
the invisibilities that were longer than one month, and of grouping together all 
of the invisibilities that were shorter than one month. The longer ones were 
averaged, and the average was found to be exactly three months. The inventor may 
have been aware that the shorter invisibilities are much more vulnerable to bad 
weather (a week of cloudy weather could triple the length of an invisibility at 
inferior conjunction, but that same week of poor "seeing" could not produce much 
more than about a ten percent increase in the length of an invisibility at 
superior conjunction), and he may for that reason have decided to take the 
median of the shorter invisibilities rather than the mean, so as to minimize any 
undue weighting by any of the invisibilities that might have been stretched out 
by bad weather. The median, of course, is seven days. 

(No great sophistication is required in taking a median. Just list the shorter 
invisibilities in order of length, and then go half way down the list. If 
anything, medians are easier than means, since they involve neither addition nor 
division.) 

Once the decision had been made to group the shorter invisibilities together and 
to group the longer invisibilities together, it would have seemed inappropriate 
to group the short seven-day visibility (between 8b and 9) with all the other 
periods of visibility, each of which is thirty to forty times longer than it. 
The seven-day visibility could have seemed to be an anomaly, and could thus have 
been disregarded. The average of the remaining periods of visibility would then 
have yielded the figure of eight months and five days that is used in Section II. 

(If the 9m4d was averaged in with the longer intervals of invisibility, shouldn't 
the 7d be averaged in with the periods of visibility, especially since the 
length of the one is the reason for the shortness of the other? Yes, it should. 
But we are not defending what was done; we are simply trying to discover what 
was done. And it seems clear that the 9m4d was counted and that the 7d was not 
counted.) 

If we are correct in explaining Section II as an idealization of the 
observations recorded in Section I, then it would follow that the author of 
Section II did not recognize any intercalary months from the time of the Section 
I observations (whenever he thought that time was), other than the second Ulul 
recorded in Year 11. Any of the uniformitarians' postulated intercalations, such 
as 4A, 5U, 13U, 13A, or 14U, or, for that matter, any other intercalations that 
might be proposed, would stretch out the periods of visibility to significantly 
more than the average of eight months and five days. Nor will it work to 
lengthen an invisibility and shorten a visibility, with the idea of making room 
in the visibility for an extra intercalary month. The longer invisibilities are 
already maximal; none can be lengthened by even one month without spoiling the 
three month average. 

Section I implies a mean synodic period of 581.65 days. The artificial insertion 
or Section II implies a synodic period (the "mean" is unnecessary, so idealized 
is Section II) of 587 days. If the author of Section II had taken the mean of 
all invisibilities at superior conjunction, and the mean of all invisibilities 
at inferior conjunction, and the mean of all periods of visibility, then Section 
II would not conflict with Section I. Instead, the author took the mean of the 
longer invisibilities (including Years 9 and 14, which occurred at inferior 
conjunction), the median of the remaining shorter invisibilities (excluding 
Years 9 and 14), and the mean of all visibilities (excluding the anomalous seven-day 
visibility in Year 9), and then proceeded to use these derived values throughout 
Section II for all invisibilities at superior conjunction, all invisibilities at 
inferior conjunction, and all visibilities, respectively. 

The resulting scheme may have been intended as a rough guide to what might have 
been expected whenever Ninsianna appeared, but it gives us no empirical 
information beyond what we have from Section I. (It does, however, serve as a 
check on our reconstruction of Section I.) The 587 days comes from a bad 
statistician's attempt to smooth out accurate but displeasing data, in the 
manner of a Huber. Even the use of medians is similar to Huber, who properly 
calls them "more robust" than means, but then reveals a typical uniformitarian 
compulsion "to obtain a decent alignment", even at the expense of clearly 
irregular observational facts. As far back as twenty-seven centuries ago, there 
were students of the heavens who would go to any lengths to make the celestial 
phenomena uniform and regular and "decent" and predictable, whatever the facts, 
just as there are today. 

Another motive of the inventor of Section II may have been astrological. Each 
paragraph or verse in Section II has two appearances, with a forecast following 
each. As can be seen from Table V, these forecasts are tied to the month of 
appearance: all appearances in the same month are followed by the same forecast. 
(The only exceptions are the second forecasts of the second and ninth entries.) 
Section II seems to have been intended as a schematic device for astrological 
forecast, a device that would be based on what was taken to be observational 
material (Section I), but would be smoothed out so as to form a more "decent" 
pattern. 

Before we leave the artificial insertion, let us note some further respects in 
which the author of the artificial insertion has been of assistance to us. Table 
V indicates how the forecasts in Section II are tied to months of appearance. If 
a month of appearance had been lost, and the forecast immediately following it 
had survived, we might be able to tell what the month was supposed to be by 
checking the forecast. Of course we do not need this sort of clue in the case of 
the artificial insertion, since we already know what all of the days and months 
in Section II are supposed to be anyway. But the other parts of the text are 
different. We are not fully confident about all of the days and months in 
Sections I, III, IV, and V. The forecasts in those parts of the text also depend 
upon the month of the appearance (though apparently not in as strict or 
mechanical a way as in Section II), and we should keep that clue in mind 
whenever we attempt to determine months of appearance in those parts of the text. 
We do not need to be astrologers in order to exploit this clue. 

Table V
Forecasts and Months of Appearance in Section II

Each Section II
Appearance In The Month: Is Followed By This Foercast: 
I = Nisan "there will be mourning in the land" 
II = Ayar "there will be hostilities in the land" 
III = Sivan "downfall of a large army" 
IV = Tammuz "there will be hostilities in the land; the harvest of the land will 
prosper" 
V = Ab "there will be rains from the sky; there will be disaster" 
VI = Ulul "the harvest of the land will prosper; the heart of the land(1) will 
be happy" 
VII = Tesrit "there will be hostilities in the land; the harvest of the land 
will prosper" 
VIII = Arahsamna "hard times will befall the land"(2) 
IX = Kislev "there will be scarcity of grain and straw in the land" 
X = Tebit "the harvest of the land will prosper; [the heart of the land will be 
happy]"3 
XI = Sabat "the harvest of the land will prosper" 
XII = Adar "king(4) to king messages of war will send" 

(1) The word translated as "of the land" is missing from the second forecast of 
the tenth entry.
(2) But K. 160 and K. 3105 both have "the harvest of the land will prosper" as 
the second forecast of the ninth entry.
(3) But K. 160 adds the bracketed material to the second forecast of the second 
entry.
(4) In the first forecast of the twelfth entry, only the first word has survived. 

But the main value of the artificial insertion is as an independent check on the 
dates of appearance and disappearance in Section I that we have arrived at on 
the basis of alternative readings, textual analysis, and textual reconstruction. 
The dates that we arrived at do imply a mean of 3m for the longer invisibilities, 
a median of 7d for the shorter invisibilities, and a mean (to the nearest day) 
of 8m5d for the extended periods of visibility (excluding the 7d visibility in 
Year 9). The use of these same values in the artificial insertion shows that it 
is extremely likely that our reconstruction of the text available to the author 
of the artificial insertion is correct. The corroboration thus provided is 
perhaps the most important feature of the artificial insertion. 

Now that we have a well-established reconstruction of the original readings for 
Section I, we are in a position to carry our investigations two further steps. (Both 
investigations are similar to what was done earlier for Section II.) 

First, we can survey all variant readings for Section I that differ from our 
reconstruction, and we can see what types of errors were introduced into the 
text. This information may then be useful in deciding between variant readings 
in other parts of the text, such as Section III. 

Second, we can survey all the different fragments that include parts of Section 
I and/or Section II, and we can evaluate or rank those fragments according to 
how well or poorly they correspond to our reconstruction. This information, too, 
may then be useful in deciding variant Section III readings from different 
fragments, at least in the cases of those fragments that also cover parts of 
Section I or Section II. 

Both of these investigations could be used as a basis for judgments about 
Sections IV and V, as well as about Section II. 

Let us now report the results of these two investigations. 

The first investigation shows, as might have been expected, that symbols for ten 
are sometimes dropped, less often added, and that errors involving digits are 
clearly clustered on 6, 7, 8, and 9. Digits, like tens, are more likely to be 
lowered than raised. 

The second investigation shows that Rm. II 531 is distinctly unreliable. It has 
a greater proportion of errors than any of the other Section I sources. Three of 
the ten errors on Rm. II 531 are month names, which suggests scribal 
carelessness without parallel. No other Ninsianna fragment is even half so bad. 
(A rival to Rm. II 531 for inaccuracy is VAT 11253, which covers parts of 
Section IV; but VAT 11253 is not strictly a "Ninsianna" fragment, since it 
refers to Venus as Dilbat rather than as Ninsianna.) Otherwise, the second 
investigation leads to no conclusive result. The three fragments covering 
Section III that can be evaluated in this way all come out about the same. 
Fortunately, Years 19, 21a, and 21b involve uncertainties of at most a day or 
two; Year 20 is the only entry in Section III -- or, for that matter, in Section 
I -- about which we have not yet taken a definite position. For the time being, 
we will tentatively accept K. 160's extreme dates of III 25 and VI 24, and we 
will assume an interval of 2m29d; this seems more likely than any alternative. 
Thus our reconstruction of Section III is as follows: 

Year 19 W VI (the 2nd)2 (15d) VI (the 2nd) 17 E 
Year 20 E III 25 (2m29d) VI 24 W 
Year 21a W I 27 (6d) II 3 E 
Year 21b E X 28 (2m) XII 28 W 

It should be emphasized, however, that these Section III items have not been 
confirmed by the various checks that the artificial insertion enabled us to 
provide for Section I. 

REFERENCES 

Huber, Peter J., "Early Cuneiform Evidence for the Existence of the Planet Venus", 
in Scientists Confront Velikovsky, edited by Donald Goldsmith. Ithaca and London: 
Cornell University Press, 1977, pages 117-144. 

Langdon, Stephen H., Fotheringham, John K., and Schoch, Carl. The Venus Tablets 
of Ammizaduga. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1928. 

Rawlinson, Henry C., and Smith, George. The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western 
Asia. (Often referred to as "W.A.I.") Vol. III: A Selection From the 
Miscellaneous Inscriptions of Assyria. London: R. E. Bowler, 1870. Plate 63. 

Reiner, Erica, and Pingree, David. The Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa. Malibu: 
Undena Publications, 1975. 

Rose, Lynn E. " 'Just Plainly Wrong': A Critique of Peter Huber" (Second 
Installment), KRONOS, IV (1978), 2, pages 33-69. 

Rose, Lynn E., and Vaughan, Raymond C. "Analysis of the Babylonian Observations 
of Venus", KRONOS, II (1976), 2, pages 3-26. 

Rose, Lynn E., and Vaughan, Raymond C. "Ninsianna Update", KRONOS, V (1980), 3, 
pages 51-54. 

Sayce, Archibald H. "The Astronomy and Astrology of the Babylonians, with 
Translations of the Tablets Relating to These Subjects", Transactions of the 
Society of Biblical Archeology, 111(1874), pages 145-339. 

Virolleaud, Ch. L'Astrologie Chaldéenne. Paris: Librairie Paul Geuthner, 1905-1913. 
13 Fascicules. 

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