[complete text , plus ninsianna update added, starts with pensee article] Babylonian Observations of Venus Lynn E. Rose A Historical Record of Changing orbits Dr. Rose is a professor of philosophy at the State University of New York (Buffalo). The paper published here was first read at the Velikovsky Symposium, Lewis and Clark College (Portland, Oregon), August 17, 1972. Copyright 1972 by Lynn E Rose. Ammizaduga was a relatively obscure king during what is known as the first Babylonian dynasty; he is usually thought to have reigned during the early or middle part of the second millennium before the present era. One of Ammizaduga's claims to fame is that various cuneiform tablets describing conjunctions of the planet Venus with the Sun are said by some to have derived from observations made during the twenty-one years of his reign. Ammizaduga's other claims to fame are that he was the great-great-grandson of Hammurabi, and that Ammizaduga (or perhaps it was his son) was the monarch who lost the kingdom to foreign invaders and thus allowed the dynasty of Hammurabi to come to an end. One of the results of this paper will be the suggestion that the so-called Venus tablets of Ammizaduga have nothing to do either with Ammizaduga or with his times. But the two major purposes of the paper are, first, to examine some of the ways in which scholars have treated these tablets over the past century or so, and, second, to give you a progress report on the efforts that Raymond Vaughan and I are making to try to determine just which orbits of Venus and of Earth would have produced the patterns of appearances and disappearances that the ancient Venus-viewers say they saw. The first of these tablets that we are concerned with is now in the British Museum, in whose catalogue it is called K. 160 because it came from Kuyunjik, the site of ancient Nineveh, where it was excavated from the library of Ashurbanipal by Layard about 1850. The text of this tablet was first published by Rawlinson and Smith in 1870: the text was also published in 1874 by Sayce, this time with a transliteration and with a translation. In 1880 Bosanquet and Sayce published a translation of K. 160, and offered a preliminary analysis of its contents. They recognized, for example, that K. 160 contains three distinct groups of "observations" of Venus: the first group consists of lines 1-29 on the obverse of the tablet, the second group consists of lines 31-45 on the obverse and lines 1-32 on the reverse, and the third group consists of lines 33-45 on the reverse. They also seem to have been the earliest to adopt with specific reference to the Venus tablets the attitude that might be called the "astronomers' dogma," which I will explain in a moment. But before we consider any more of the literature on these tablets or the ways in which the astronomers' dogma has dominated that literature, it may be useful to look at the nature of the observations themselves. When Venus is to the east of the Sun, it can be seen in the western sky for a time after sunset and is then spoken of as the "Evening Star." As Venus moves directly between Earth and the Sun, it is said to be at inferior conjunction with the Sun, and for a brief time Venus cannot be seen because of the brightness of the Sun. But the "Evening Star" that vanishes from the western sky at inferior conjunction reappears in the eastern sky, west of the sun, as the "Morning Star," and can be seen for some months in the hours before sunrise. Then Venus approaches superior conjunction, where the Sun is directly between us and Venus, and Venus ceases to be visible from Earth. After this period of invisibility, however, Venus appears once more in the western sky as the "Evening Star," and the cycle continues. K. 160 seems to be a record of these invisibilities at inferior and superior conjunction. Let me give some typical passages from the tablet: In the month Sivan, on the twenty-fifth day Ninsianna [that is, Venus] disappeared in the east; she remained absent from the sky for two months six days; In the month Ulul, on the twenty-fourth day, Ninsianna appeared in the west -- the heart of the land is happy. In the month Nisan, on the twenty-seventh day, Ninsianna disappeared in the west; she remained absent from the sky for seven days; in the month Ayar, on the third day, Ninsianna appeared in the east--hostilities occur in the land, the harvest of the land is successful. The first invisibility mentioned in these lines involves a disappearance in the east, an invisibility of two months six days, and a reappearance in the west. This seems to be a superior conjunction. The second invisibility involves a disappearance in the west, an invisibility of seven days, and a reappearance in the east. This seems to be an inferior conjunction. Most of the data in groups one and three on the tablet are of this form. But the lengths and spacings of these invisibilities have a certain irregularity about them, and they do not conform to the manner in which Venus moves at Present. The data given in the second group on the tablet do have regularity--even too much regularity to be believable--but they do not conform to the present state of affairs either, and many have wondered if they are actual observations at all. Actual observations would be marred by weather conditions, yet the data of this second group seem to be almost perfect: the invisibility at superior conjunction is always three months, not a day more and not a day less, and the invisibility at inferior conjunction is always seven days, not a day more and not a day less. The visibility of the "Morning Star" lasts eight months five days (just once it is eight months four days), and the visibility of the "Evening Star" also lasts eight months five days (just twice it is eight months four days). This idealized regularity makes these "observations" very suspicious-looking. Another suspicious feature is that the initial appearances are on the first month, the second day; on the second month, the third day; on the third month, the fourth day; ... and so on, up to the twelfth month, the thirteenth day. The idealized and somewhat numerological character of this group of data has led most readers, probably correctly, to suspect that this group of "observations" is not directly based on observation at all, and that if we are seeking actual astronomical observations and records, we should concentrate on the first and third groups on the tablet, and not worry about the artificial insertion. Unfortunately, nearly all treatments of groups one and three on K. 160, and of the genuinely observational material on the other Venus tablets that supplement K. 160, have been based upon what I will call the "astronomers' dogma". The "astronomers' dogma" is the uniformitarian attitude that the solar system has for untold years been just as it is now, and that Venus and Earth in particular have always been on the same orbits they are on now, except for certain very minor perturbations that are for most purposes entirely negligible. This means that we can look at the present motions of Earth and Venus and then judge on that basis how accurate the ancient observations were. If the ancient observations do not conform to what would be expected from the present state of affairs, then the ancient records were defective, and were either fictions or errors, but could not have been accurate observations of what was going on in the sky; accordingly, it is up to us to rewrite those ancient records so that they will conform to what we see in the sky today. As I mentioned, Bosanquet and Sayce seem to have been the first to introduce this astronomers' dogma into the study of the Venus tablets. They did so very cautiously, not because they doubted the astronomers' dogma, but because they were afraid that the ancient records were so insufficient that even the astronomers' dogma would not permit the derivation of any definite conclusions. We shall see that others, such as Kugler, were not so cautious about this as were Bosanquet and Sayce. We come next to Schiaparelli's 1906 paper in Das Weltall. This was an abridgement and updating of a long, unpublished monograph on the same subject, the text of which was finally published in 1927, posthumously, in the collection of Schiaparelli's works on ancient astronomy (Scritti Sulla Storia della Astronomia Antica, Bologna, Nicola Zanichelli Editore, 3 vols). In that collection the monograph on the Venus tablets is preceded by a long excerpt from one of Schiaparelli's letters that deals with further questions about the tablets. In the literature on the Venus tablets, mention is usually made only of the Das Weltall paper; indeed, I have not yet seen any mention either of Schiaparelli's longer monograph or of his letter. So I take this occasion not only to recommend these neglected contributions of Schiaparelli's, which are important for anyone interested in the Venus tablets, but also to recommend in general the great work that Schiaparelli did on ancient astronomy. His reconstruction of the systems of Eudoxus and Kallippus would by itself rank him among the major historians of science. My admiration of his work is tempered by his unwavering loyalty to the astronomers' dogma; but even the astronomers' dogma did not prove an obstacle to his work on Eudoxus and Kallippus, since, after all, Eudoxus and Kallippus were dealing with a solar system not much different from our own. But when Schiaparelli deals with other subjects--prior, let us say, to -687--it seems to me that his opinions are of less value, precisely because of his acceptance of the astronomers' dogma: Schiaparelli is one of those who feel free to ignore what the tablets actually say whenever they conflict with what modern retro-calculation indicates that they should say. But in spite of this weakness, enormous credit must be given to Schiaparelli for noticing what had escaped the attention of the philologists, that the tablet K. 2321 + K. 3032, which had been published in 1899 by Craig, was concerned with the same series of observations as was K. 160. K. 2321 + K. 3032 is referred to with two different numbers because the two pieces of what was later seen to be one tablet were originally numbered separately. Schiaparelli realized that the end of K. 2321 + K. 3032 overlapped the beginning of K. 160, and this gave him a much larger sample of observations to work with. Schiaparelli was also the first to recognize that the data on the reverse of K. 2321 + K. 3032 are actual observations. They are arranged, not chronologically, but in the order of the months of the disappearances of Venus. All the disappearances in the first month or Nisan are placed together at the beginning, all the disappearances in the second month or Ayar are placed next, and so on, down to all of the disappearances in the twelfth month or Adar. Another admirable feature of Schiaparelli's work is that he assigns the tablets to a period no earlier than the eighth century. Vaughan and I, unexpectedly, became inclined toward a similar dating, but for different reasons. Schiaparelli's reason was that the tablets refer to invading hordes of Manda, whom he believes not to have been on the scene in Mesopotamia prior to the eighth century. Some of the later criticisms of this account of the Manda are based on Hittite archives and Hittite chronology. Even in Schiaparelli's own day there were some similar efforts to place the Manda in Mesopotamia prior to the eighth century, but Schiaparelli held firm against this. (Velikovsky may feel that Schiaparelli was on the right track here, in his assignment of a relatively late date to the appearance of the Manda in Mesopotamia.) The next important work was by Kugler in 1912. He had noted that some of the observations for the eighth year were missing, and that in their place there was a passage that had never yet been adequately understood. Kugler showed that this phrase meant "year of the golden throne", and that it was a year-formula that had been used to refer to the eighth year of the reign of Ammizaduga, the next-to-last king during the first Babylonian dynasty. And so it is at this point that the Venus tablets become linked to Ammizaduga. If the observations really do date from the time of Ammizaduga, then they are probably 3500 or 4000 years old. Kugler tried to pin down the epoch more precisely. His method for doing this is, from my point of view, unsatisfactory. He realized that the observations as a whole have little similarity to anything we see Venus doing now, but he thought that if he could date one observation, regardless of its "impossible" context, that would be sufficient. So he picked out one date, from the sixth year of the observations, where Venus is said to have disappeared in the west on the twenty-eighth day of the eighth month. He then determined that if Venus has always moved in the way that it moves now, then there would have been a series of possible dates about four thousand years ago when Venus would have approached inferior conjunction at new moon and at about the right time of the year. But even if this sort of backward calculation were sound, which it is not, Kugler's method would still be unsatisfactory in that it allows everything to rest on this one observational record. In the first place, the observation that Kugler selects is by no means one of our better-confirmed readings: for every one of the sources gives a slightly different report. One source says that Venus disappeared on the twenty eighth and was invisible for five days. Another source says that Venus disappeared on the twentieth day of the month (or perhaps later--it isn't clear) and was invisible for three days--and here indeed the scribe adds a comment of his own that the text he is copying is defaced or damaged at this spot! A new tablet, discovered only after Kugler wrote, says that Venus disappeared on the eighteenth of the month and was invisible for three days. Obviously, this kind of textual evidence is not the sort on which one should be ready to stake one's whole case, and yet that is precisely what Kugler did. In the second place, and more importantly, Kugler's use of just one observation is questionable in that if this one observation is ever placed in accord with modern expectations, then other observations on the tablets are automatically placed in conflict with modern expectations. If you are to reach back to the sixth year of the records by retro-calculation from the present behavior of Venus, you have to pass through all the tablet entries that come after the year six, and each of those later readings must likewise be in accord with your retro-calculation. This means that the five month invisibility at superior conjunction in year twelve should have lasted only about two months, and that the nine month invisibility at inferior conjunction in year nine should have lasted only a day or two! In spite of' these difficulties, however, Kugler goes ahead with his calculations, and asserts that Ammizaduga's reign began in the year 1977. In the next few years there were, as one might expect, a number of objections to Kugler's chronological conclusions, but no one seems to have gone so far as to challenge the astronomers' dogma, which was their real foundation. In 1920 Hommel suggested that the reference to the "year of the golden throne" was inserted by a later copyist, perhaps during the reign of Ashurbanipal in the seventh century. It does seem likely that the phrase is a later insertion, for it is located in the space that would originally have contained the rest of the observational material for the eighth year. As it is now, we have only the date of Venus' disappearance, not the interval of invisibility and not the date of reappearance. But Hommel thought that even if the insertion was late, the observations themselves still dated from the time of Ammizaduga. A little later I will question this, but at this point I will merely remark that Hommel's suggestion may also be vulnerable in that W. 1924.802, which is a copy of K. 2321 + K. 3032, contains a scribble "signature" dated in an unreadable year of the reign of Sargon, which would put the insertion a number of decades, at least, prior to Ashurbanipal. Hommel, however, was not aware of W. 1924.802, since, as the label implies, it was not discovered until four years after his 1920 paper. The excavation of this new tablet at Kish in 1924 was announced by Langdon in 1925, and was important in that only the right edge of W. 1924.802 is unreadable, whereas its duplicate, K. 2321 + K. 3032, is readable on the right side but is broken off on the left. Thus, between them both, we have an excellent set of readings for the first six or seven years of the observations, with usually only very minor discrepancies. In 1927 Sarton published his Introduction to the History of Science, where he made the later very influential pronouncement that: "As early as the close of the third millennium, Babylonian astronomers recorded heliacal risings and settings of the planet Venus." Sarton supports this claim with a footnote mentioning Kugler and Schiaparelli. As we have seen, however, Schiaparelli dated these observations at about the eighth or seventh centuries, and Kugler dated them as covering the reign of Ammizaduga from 1977-1956. Sarton's reference to "the third millennium" is quite an overstatement of the case, but if you think that's bad, consider what happened in 1950. In the rush to find evidence against Velikovsky, Sarton's sloppy use of "the third millennium" as a substitute for "1977-1956" was resurrected from the libraries and rephrased as "3000 B.C." by people like Kaempffert. This whole comedy of errors is traceable back to Kugler. Why Schiaparelli was implicated in it escapes me. The next major study of the Venus tablets was by Langdon and Fotheringham in 1928. Their book is important for the student of the tablets in that they bring together a great deal of material that is not available in any one other place; unfortunately, however, their book is dominated and severely handicapped by the astronomers' dogma, and they find it necessary to scoff at much of what the tablets say was seen, simply because such things are not seen today. Further attempts to deal with the tablets along uniformitarian lines were made by Ungnad in 1940 and van der Waerden in 1946. Van der Waerden plays the uniformitarian game much better than some of his predecessors, but the main reason I want to mention him here is that he is the clearest example I have found of an unfortunate way of talking and thinking that is characteristic of uniformitarians. He says at one point, after either rejecting or radically rewriting about three out of four of the recorded observations, that: "All I have done is to remove inner contradictions from the text". It must be admitted that there are several genuine "inner contradictions" in the texts; one of them occurs in the passage that I quoted earlier. When we are told that Venus disappeared on the twenty-fifth day of the third month, was absent from the sky for two months six days, and reappeared on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, something is wrong here, and it is fairly obvious that we will have to reject at least one of those three items. But to deal with textual errors of this sort and to rewrite radically the whole set of observations just in order to make them fit the present movements of Venus, as van der Waerden would do, are two entirely different things. And what van der Waerden and others have done is hardly a matter of correcting "inner contradictions". The fact that uniformitarians can think and speak of these things as "inner contradictions" is only symptomatic of how deeply ingrained the astronomers' dogma is. It just never occurs to its victims that they are making any assumptions at all. As far as they are concerned, if the historical record conflicts with modern retro-calculations, there must be some defect in the historical record, and it is perfectly all right to refer to this defect as an "inner contradiction". The intransigence of this attitude is one of the barriers that Velikovsky ran into in 1950. Worlds in Collision devotes pages 198-200 to the Venus tablets. The approach is very cautious: Velikovsky does not claim to know when they originated, or even what orbits of Venus or of Earth could have produced such observations. But he does claim, quite correctly, that the present orbits of Venus and Earth could not have produced such observations, and that if the tablets have any reliability at all, then we must admit that Venus was not moving on its present orbit at the time the observations were made. Velikovsky thus became the first to propose a non-uniformitarian approach to the tablets. The story from here on is probably familiar to most persons attending this conference. You will recall that the Venus tablets came up in Payne-Gaposchkin's review, where she appealed to Sarton and to Langdon and Fotheringham. Payne Gaposchkin's errors of several sorts were reworded by Kaempffert, with such improvements as the substitution of "3000 B.C." for "third millennium" (which had itself been a substitute for Kugler's "1977-1956"). Then Edmondson copied both the errors and the words of both Payne Gaposchkin and Kaempffert. The irony is that both Velikovsky and his critics were drawing upon exactly the same evidence, namely, the Babylonian Venus tablets. But when you examine the content of those tablets, they turn out to support Velikovsky and not his critics. Those uniformitarians who do take the tablets seriously seem to be either unfamiliar with or oblivious to their contents. How else could Kaempffert say that the Babylonians "saw the planet exactly as we see it"? How else could Stephens say that: "As I consider the texts in their entirety I get quite the opposite impression [i.e., that Venus was not moving irregularly at the time these observations were made]"? How else could Neugebauer say that: "From the purely astronomical viewpoint these observations are not very remarkable"? Such statements fly in the face of the Venus tablets, for there is no way the tablets can be reconciled with the present motions of Venus, except by denying, in one way or another, that the Babylonians saw what they say they saw. I would now like to conclude with a brief progress report concerning the efforts that Raymond Vaughan and I are making to try to find orbits of Earth and of Venus that will fit the recorded observations. Our first move, as you might suspect, was to ignore the astronomers' dogma, and to try to make no rash assumptions about what sorts of orbits we would find. Instead, we tried as far as possible to take the tablet reports as accurate descriptions of what was actually seen, even though they do seem to be marred by (1) a few serious textual inconsistencies of the sort discussed earlier; (2) a score or so minor discrepancies about dates, many of which amount to only a day or two; and (3) several contradictory readings about "east" and "west," none of which presents any major difficulty. I pointed out to you a little earlier that the events on the tablets, do follow a pattern of sorts--not the present pattern, but a pattern of sorts--in that an invisibility at superior conjunction is followed by an invisibility at inferior conjunction, then there is another invisibility at superior conjunction, and so on. In order for this kind of sequence to continue without an interruption, as it does, the orbits of the two planets must lie in nearly the same plane; otherwise, some conjunctions would not be accompanied by invisibility, or, if the inclination of the orbital planes were great enough, the very concept of a "conjunction" with the Sun might lose much of its importance, as it does, for example, in the case of comets. At least for the time being, therefore, we decided to ignore any motions in latitude. It should be recognized that a near collision between Earth and another planet would likely have changed the length of the day, the length of the month, and the length of the year. So if the tablets refer to some state of affairs prior to such a near collision, we cannot be certain what was meant by the words "day", "month", and "year". But in a ratio of quantities, the units are irrelevant, so we decided to work in terms of the ratio of the period of Earth to the period of Venus. For purposes of our constructions, we chose to work with denominators of 19. After investigating ratios of 2/19, 4/19, 6/19, and so on, up to 36/19, we found that the ratio at the time of the observations was just about 31/19, or about 1.63, a little higher than the present ratio of about 1.625. Our lack of any definite units of time or distance was also a problem when we tried to deal with sightings of Venus made from Earth, where the nature of the sighting depends both upon the size and eccentricity of the orbit being followed by Venus and upon the size and eccentricity of the orbit being followed by Earth, and yet we were in no position to say anything about the actual sizes of the orbits. We found a way around this problem by working with changing heliocentric angular velocities, which provided a way of handling sightings and invisibilities without knowing the actual sizes of the orbits. Proceeding in that way, we found that the observations recorded for years one through nine seem to make sense with an Earth eccentricity of about .1 and a Venus eccentricity of about .15. Years ten through seventeen also make sense with Earth .1 and Venus .15, but the perihelion of Earth's orbit appears to have been shifted from where it was during years one through nine, so that you do not have the same state of affairs as before. Years nineteen through twenty-one make sense with Earth .0 + and Venus .15. These figures are tentative, and need to be tied down more precisely; and we also need to make sure that no better orbits for explaining the observations are available. At present, there are still seven spots at which the fit between the pattern of invisibilities recorded on the tablets and the pattern of invisibilities that we constructed is less than satisfying. Six of these discrepancies vary from a few thousandths of a "year" to a few hundredths of a "year"; that is, from about a "day" or two to about ten "days" or so. I hope that we soon will have improved upon this by introducing slight changes and refinements into our model, for we still have considerable leeway for the further manipulation of the characteristics of the orbits. The only discrepancy I really worry about is the seventh and most serious of those I mentioned. Even if we manage to save all of the remaining phenomena, I see little chance that anything can be done to save this one, which is the eastern disappearance on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the eighth year. Our model requires that the invisibility ought to have begun at least a month earlier than that. There is some consolation in the fact that this phenomenon belongs to the eighth year, the one that was partially missing and that now contains the year-formula of Ammizaduga. There is further consolation in that no wholesale rewriting of the text is involved: if one word, the name of the month Adar, could be changed to Sabat, that would be enough to make things right. But perhaps we should not apologize at all for this one discordant reading, for in doing well by all but one of the phenomena we have already avoided the past practice of having to rewrite most or even nearly all of the recorded observations. The ratio of the period of Earth to the period of Venus for years one through nine is very close to 31/19; and the ratio for years ten through seventeen is slightly less than 31/19, and the ratio for years nineteen through twenty-one is slightly greater than 31/19. Since there is no sign here of any definite change in the orbit of Venus, this change in the ratios would presumably be due to a change in Earth's orbit; and this suggests that Earth's orbit in years one through nine was slightly greater than in years ten through seventeen and slightly smaller than in years nineteen through twenty-one, if the length of the day and the length of the month were not altered enough to distort the observers' estimate of the length of the year to such a degree that this inference about the sizes of Earth's successive orbits would be invalidated. That is a big "if". In none of these three states of affairs do the orbits of Venus and Earth intersect; thus it seems clear that no collision between Earth and Venus was imminent at the time of these observations. Neither a very large Venus orbit, nor a highly eccentric one (say, .3 or greater), nor a Venus orbit that was highly inclined to the ecliptic, could have produced the observations recorded on the tablets. This does not mean, of course, that at some other point in time--presumably earlier--Venus could not have had a very large orbit, or a highly eccentric one, or one that was highly inclined to the ecliptic, but it does mean that such things were not going on at the time of these observations. But what was the time of these observations? Since the ratio of the periods of Earth and Venus in each of the three situations is so close to what it is now, it seems unlikely that the observations date from very far before the present orbits of Earth and Venus were established. If we use Velikovsky's own theory as a guide in trying to date the observations, a favorable period would appear to be the eighth century, when Earth and Venus were perhaps not very far from their present orbits (compared, at least, to where they had been at earlier times) and yet were on orbits that were definitely not the same as their present orbits. If it was Mars that was the main threat during this period, it may be that the change in Earth's orbit at about year nine was due to a near collision with Mars; the atmospheric opacity and the disruption of living conditions that would result from such a near collision might explain why Venus was not observed for a period of nine months and four days. A similar Earth Mars perturbation might have been responsible for the transition from the year ten through year seventeen state of affairs to the year nineteen through year twenty one state of affairs. It seems clear, then, that our findings not only are consistent with Velikovsky's theory, but also may be regarded as providing further confirmation of his theory. It should be noted that if the Venus observations do indeed date from the eighth century, then they have nothing to do with Ammizaduga, and the later insertion of Ammizaduga's year-formula was an ancient error. Hommel suggests that this insertion was made by a scribe during the reign of Ashurbanipal (although we saw that the signature on W. 1924.802 seems to preclude that late a date for the insertion). But whenever it was done, this error was presumably caused by the coincidence that the Venus observations and the reign of Ammizaduga both covered twenty-one years. If these observations do date from the eighth century, any attempt to connect them with Ammizaduga would involve an error of from seven to twelve centuries, depending upon just when it was that Ammizaduga actually reigned. The catch-phrase, "the Venus tablets of Ammizaduga", has a nice ring to it, but it may be time to give it up as obsolete. In closing, I would emphasize that these results that Raymond Vaughan and I have reached so far are still tentative; our work is by no means completed, and there are numerous questions that remain to be investigated. PENSEE Journal III \cdrom\pubs\journals\pensee\ivr03\18babyln.htm .............. more ANALYSIS OF THE BABYLONIAN OBSERVATIONS OF VENUS LYNN E. ROSE and RAYMOND C. VAUGHAN Copyright (c) 1976 by Lynn E. Rose and Raymond C. Vaughan. *This paper is an expanded version of one that was first presented on June 19 1974 before the international symposium - Velikovsky and the Recent History of the Solar System - held at McMaster Univ., Hamilton, Ontario. A number of fragmentary tablets written in cuneiform describe the appearances and disappearances of "Ninsianna". It has usually been claimed that Ninsianna is the planet Venus. It has usually been claimed also that these observations cover approximately twenty-one years and that they are to be assigned to the twenty-one year reign of King Ammizaduga of the First Babylonian Dynasty. Such questions as whether the tablets date from the time of Ammizaduga are not dealt with here, since they have already been discussed in the paper, "Babylonian Observations of Venus"; that paper also included a preliminary report on our investigation of the tablets. The tablets provide a dated sequence of those periods during which Ninsianna is not visible. For example, we may be told that Ninsianna disappears in the west on such-and-such a date, remains absent for so many months and/or days, and reappears in the east on such-and-such a date. This phenomenon resembles the invisibility of an inner planet (one whose orbit lies closer to the Sun than does that of Earth) at the time near inferior conjunction, when the planet is passing between Earth and the Sun. Or we may be told that Ninsianna disappears in the east on such-and-such a date, remains absent for so many months and/or days, and reappears in the west on such-and-such a date. This phenomenon resembles the invisibility associated with superior conjunction, when the planet is passing around the far side of the Sun. The precise patterns of invisibility that these ancient tablets report might be used in calculating just what orbits and motions of Venus and of Earth would have produced such observations. But the patterns of motion given on the tablets do not fit the present observed motions of Venus. Neither the lengths nor the spacings of the invisibilities are compatible with the present orbits of Earth and Venus. Thus there are two principal approaches that one might take. Uniformitarians, who believe that the orbits of the planets have remained substantially unchanged for thousands, millions, or even billions of years, will take it upon themselves to "correct" what they perceive as the "scribal errors" of the tablets. Velikovskians, who have reason to suspect that the orbits of the planets involved may have been changed within historical times, will try to take as many as possible of the data at face value, and then determine the orbits that might have produced such data. The uniformitarians who deal with the Ninsianna data frequently stress the complexity and difficulty of their task. But in general the task of the catastrophists who study the Ninsianna data is considerably more difficult. For at least the uniformitarians can assume that a careful retrocalculation of Venus' orbit will show what actually happened several thousand years ago, and that the ancient observations can be "corrected" so as to fit that retrocalculation. This may mean wholesale rewriting of the ancient records, but the uniformitarians carry out that rewriting with unshakeable confidence, since they already "know" what happened anyway. The catastrophists, on the other hand, do not know exactly what happened, and are relying on the ancient records in an effort to find out what did happen. They do not have retrocalculation to use as an aid in interpreting ancient records, because they see retrocalculation as the question-begging procedure that it is. The catastrophists must consider many more possibilities than the uniformitarians consider. An enumeration of some of these possibilities may seem to present a rather bleak picture and offer little hope of a solution, but let us proceed with such an enumeration anyway, so as to obtain a familiarity with the problems. If we lack the uniformitarians' prior "knowledge" of the orbits that Earth and Venus were following several thousand years ago, how can we tell whether ancient observations of Venus from Earth have been reported correctly? If the ancient reports were complete and undamaged and entirely consistent, we could simply compute the orbits of Venus and Earth that would have caused such observations. In spite of a widespread view to the contrary, it would be relatively easy to narrow down the approximate kind of orbits that would cause such-and-such observations. If absolute precision is sought, then the problem becomes extremely difficult, even insoluble. But we are not seeking absolute precision. We would be satisfied if we could show that Earth and Venus were on orbits with eccentricities specified within a couple of hundredths and semimajor axes specified within a couple of hundredths of an astronomical unit and perihelia offset specified within a couple of degrees. This is far short of the level of precision that is commonplace in modern astronomy, but it must be remembered that we are not seeking anything like that level of precision. Indeed, our major immediate goal is simply to determine whether the Ninsianna data do or do not prove that Earth and Venus were on orbits definitely different from their present orbits. Unfortunately, the data are not in such a form that we can proceed directly to such a computation of the orbits. For one thing, most readings of the data include some data which conflict with any proposed set of orbits. The units in which the data are expressed are not fully understood, in that we do not know how long a day or a month or a year was at the time of the observations. We do not know how many days there were in a month, or how many months there were in each year, or how many days there were in a solar year. We do not know whether or how many intercalary months or other intercalary units were inserted at various places. We do not know which of various conflicting readings on different tablets should be relied upon and which should be rejected. And in trying to make decisions about these questions, we have no technique such as retrocalculation to rely upon. Thus we are faced with the necessity of considering many possible interpretations of the data simultaneously. Where one tablet tells us that Ninsianna disappeared on the 25th and another tablet suggests that the disappearance was on the 15th, we must work with both of these reports, and reserve judgement on which is correct and which is incorrect. In some cases there are conflicting reports even about the month in which an appearance or a disappearance occurred, and we must then consider both of these alternative reports. There is some question about whether the so-called Years 19 through 21 really were situated in that relation to Years 1 through 17. (The numbering of the years is entirely a modern convention; all we really have to go on is that the observations occur on some tablets in a sequence that appears to be chronological. But Years 19-21 do not occur in the same sequence as Years 1-17. There is a lengthy and extraneous insertion after Year 17 and before Year 19. It is only assumed by modern writers that 19-21 came after 1-17 originally,with a gap for the missing Year 18. But it might just as well be the case that 19-21 came long after 1-17, or even before 1-17.) Such considerations provide us with still more alternative possibilities that must be investigated. Our intention has been to consider what orbits would produce the observations of Years 1-8, with various alternative readings, with and without intercalary months in various places; to consider what orbits would produce the observations of Years 9-17, with various alternative readings, with and without intercalary months in various places, and with and without Years 19-21 placed after Years 9-17; and finally to consider what orbits might have produced just the 19-21 sequence itself (even though 19-21 may be too short a sequence to permit any effective analysis), with various alternative readings, with and without intercalary months in various places. Such considerations leave us with an enormous variety of options and alternatives, whose permutations run well into the thousands. Then we are faced with another large number of permutations of the proposed orbital parameters, even though some of the parameters are more important than others: ratio of Earth and Venus periods; inclination of orbital planes; perihelion offset; and individual eccentricities for both planets. If the perihelion offset is to be considered down to the degree, there are 360 possibilities to be considered. If the eccentricities are to be measured to the nearest hundredth, then, even with the arbitrary elimination of eccentricities above, say, 0.3, we are still left with a total of nearly one thousand eccentricity pairs to be considered for the two planets. The permutations of the interpretations of the data must be one-by-one compared to each of the many permutations of the orbital parameters. The amount of work is enormous, even for a computer. We have chosen so far a combination of computer calculation, computer graph-plotting, and visual comparison of the orbital graphs with other graphs representing the ancient reports. We are not yet fully satisfied with our method. Thus far, we have emerged with a multiplicity of fits that are not too bad, and none that are excellent. Nearly every one of the reported invisibilities can be explained individually - on the basis of one or another set of orbits. But we have not found any one set of orbits that will simultaneously explain all of the reported invisibilities. For one set of orbits, one report will look suspicious; and for another set of orbits, another report will look suspicious. The one report that presents the greatest difficulty is the invisibility of 9 months 4 days in Year 9. The tablets as a whole suggest a situation in which the orbits of Earth and Venus are roughly coplanar; in which the orbit of Venus lies entirely inside the orbit of Earth; and in which the ratio of the period of Venus to the period of Earth is approximately 0.615. Under these conditions, it would not be possible -- with Keplerian kinematics -- to have Venus remain invisible for three-fourths of an Earth year. It is tempting to suppose that an Earth-Mars collision might have disrupted living conditions and polluted Earth's atmosphere to such an extent that Venus would not have been observed for 9 months 4 days; but that is a highly speculative matter. Aside from the invisibility of 9 months 4 days in Year 9, we find that the available fits between reported invisibilities and computed invisibilities lead us into a matter of statistics: what kinds of orbits and what ranges of orbital values work best and involve the least discrepancy with the reports? We can give a very rough answer: Earth orbits with eccentricities ranging up to about 0.2; and Venus orbits with somewhat lower eccentricities, ranging up to about 0.15. We can also say that the present orbits of Earth and Venus do not work at all, as the uniformitarians have already found. It is necessary for the uniformitarians to reject thirty or forty percent of the reports in order to make the tablets fit the present orbits. We, on the other hand, would not want to reject more than one or two of the reports in any case, and we would do that very reluctantly and very tentatively. If Earth and Venus were moving in perfectly circular orbits, with their orbits lying in exactly the same plane, Venus' periods of invisibility at inferior and superior conjunction would follow a very regular pattern. The short invisibilities at inferior conjunction would each have a nearly uniform duration; the longer invisibilities at superior conjunction would likewise have a nearly uniform duration; and all intervals between invisibilities would be nearly equal. The pattern of invisibilities, plotted on a linear time scale, would look something like this: [*!* Image] INSERT KII2_07.TIF HERE [Labels: INFERIOR CONJUNCTION; SUPERIOR CONJUCTION; One synodic period] If Venus' orbit were then tilted slightly, so that it no longer lay in the plane of Earth's orbit, the pattern of invisibilities would become less and less regular as the orbital inclination increased. The same general effect would be seen, although the details would be different, if the orbits ceased to be perfectly circular: the pattern would become less and less regular as the orbital eccentricities increased. By deliberately varying such factors as inclination and eccentricities, it is possible to compute patterns of invisibilities for a great many different pairs of hypothetical orbits of Earth and Venus. The work that we have been doing has been directed toward finding a match between one of these computed patterns and the pattern of invisibilities recorded on the Ninsianna tablets. The tablets, which contain a number of alternative readings, show a pattern like this (broken up into segments here, to fit the page): [*!* Image] INSERT KII2_08.TIF HERE The shorter vertical lines separate the months, and the longer vertical lines separate the years; the two specially marked months are intercalary months. The Ninsianna pattern is definitely less regular than the pattern that would be expected from today's orbits. On the other hand, it is nowhere near as irregular as some of the computed patterns that we have worked with. Of the many factors that affect the pattern of invisibilities, four of the most important are the eccentricity of Earth's orbit, the eccentricity of Venus' orbit, the inclination of the orbits to each other, and the ratio of the orbital periods. The effects of these four variables are not completely independent; however, there are certain features that are characteristic of the different variables. The two eccentricities and the inclination of the orbits predominate in determining the short-range regularity of the pattern of invisibilities. The long range repetitiveness of the pattern depends primarily on the ratio of orbital periods. The present ratio of the period of Venus to the period of Earth is approximately equal to the decimal value .6152. The ratio of periods implied by the Ninsianna tablets is roughly the same value. This can be shown, and the nature of the long-range repetitiveness can be illustrated, by using slightly different ratios of integers to approximate the ratio of orbital periods. For example, the ratio 5/8, the ratio 8/13, and the ratio 19/31 are all close to the present ratio of periods: PV /PE = .6152 5/8 = .6250 8/13 = .6154 19/31 = .6129 where PV is Venus' orbital period and PE, is Earth's orbital period. In other words, eight periods of Venus are roughly equal to five Earth years; thirteen periods of Venus are almost exactly equal to eight Earth years; thirty-one periods of Venus are nearly equal to nineteen Earth years. There is a fixed relationship between the orbital periods of two planets and their mean synodic period. Using the same three ratios, and assuming that Earth and Venus revolve around the Sun in the same direction, the relationship works like this: 8PV ~ 5PE ~ 3S 13PV ~ 8PE ~ 5S 31PV ~ 19PE ~ 12S where S is the mean synodic period of the two planets. The convenient feature of the relationship between the orbital periods and the mean synodic period, when expressed in the above manner, is the fixed relationship among the coefficients of PV, PE,, and S in each equation: 8 - 5 = 3 13 - 8 = 5 31 - 19 = 12 It now becomes possible to obtain a rough value for the ratio of periods implied by the Ninsianna tablets. For example, consider the span of time from the first year of the tablets to the seventeenth year: the invisibility of Venus recorded in the seventeenth year occurs 16 years and one month after the invisibility in the first year. By 9 counting the invisibilities, it can be seen that the invisibility in the seventeenth year is the 20th invisibility after the first-year invisibility. If there are two invisibilities per synodic period (i.e., one invisibility at inferior conjunction and one at superior conjunction), then ten synodic periods have elapsed during those 16-1/12 years: 16-1/12 PE ~ 10S Both sides of the equation can be multiplied by 12 in order to obtain integers for both coefficients: 193PE ~ 120S The fixed relationship among the coefficients of PV, PE, and S then provides: 313PV ~ 193PE ~ 120S PV/PE ~ 93/313 = .6166 The value of .6166 for the Ninsianna ratio of periods should be considered only a rough approximation, but it does indicate that the ratio of periods was close to the present value of .6152. Consider now what the pattern of conjunctions and associated invisibilities would be like if the ratio of periods were exactly 5/8, so that 8PV = 5PE = 3S. For the sake of illustration, assume that Venus and Earth have circular orbits. Imagine that an inferior conjunction (which is an alignment of the two planets on the same side of the Sun) occurs when the planets are at the points labeled zero on their orbits: [*!* Image] INSERT KII2_10.TIF HERE Venus will of course be invisible from Earth for several days due to the glare of the Sun. The two planets continue to move around their hypothetical circular orbits, and, when half a synodic period has gone by, there will be a superior conjunction (which is an alignment of the two planets on opposite sides of the Sun). The original equation 8PV = 5PE = 3S can be divided by six to give the length of half a synodic period: 1-1/3 PV = 5/6 PE = 1/2 S. In other words, the superior conjunction occurs 1-1/3 periods of Venus or five-sixths of an Earth year after the inferior conjunction. Venus, having travelled one full revolution plus an extra 1/3 revolution, has reached the point on its orbit marked 1. Earth has travelled only 5/6 of a revolution, and has reached the point on its orbit marked 1: [*!* Image] INSERT KII211A.TIF HERE Venus, as seen from Earth, is again obscured by the glare of the Sun, with the invisibility at superior conjunction usually starting about a month before the conjunction and lasting about a month afterward. As the planets continue to revolve, each conjunction occurs 1-1/3 periods of Venus, or five-sixths of an Earth year, or one-half synodic period, after the previous conjunction. If the consecutive numbering of conjunctions is continued, the even numbers will refer to inferior conjunctions and the odd numbers will refer to superior conjunctions. The positions that each planet has occupied at inferior or superior conjunction are shown after one, two, and three synodic periods in the diagrams below. As long as the ratio of periods is exactly 5/8, there are only three points on Venus' orbit that Venus can occupy during a conjunction; Venus thus returns again and again to the same three points for its conjunctions. Earth, on the other hand, can occupy six different points before repetition begins: [*!* Image] INSERT KII211B.TIF HERE From a strictly mathematical point of view, Venus' motion can be compared to an arithmetic modulo 3; Earth's can be compared to an arithmetic modulo 6. For a 5/8 ratio of periods, the pattern of conjunctions would thus be exactly repetitive after each interval of 8PV = 5PE = 3S. Furthermore, the pattern of invisibilities accompanying the conjunctions would also be exactly repetitive, at least as far as the orbital factors were concerned. The idea of exact repetition of invisibilities is complicated somewhat by terrestrial uncertainties such as the weather and such as the possibility that the precise interval of repetition would not be an integral number of days, so that the position of a given observer would not be the same each time, due to the rotation of Earth. Nevertheless, the orbital causes of invisibility would be exactly repetitive after five Earth years if the ratio of periods were 5/8. This is true for highly eccentric orbits as well as for circular orbits. Highly eccentric orbits would produce a highly irregular pattern of invisibilities within the span of five Earth years, but the same irregular pattern would be repeated every five years. In this way, the orbital eccentricities and inclination predominate in determining the short-range pattern, while the ratio of periods predominates in determining the long-range pattern. Now, consider briefly what the pattern of conjunctions and invisibilities would be like if the ratio of periods were exactly 8/13, so that 13PV = 8PE = 5S. There is not much difference between 5/8 and 8/13, but the slight difference between them is enough to change the long-range repetitiveness. The 5/8 ratio produced exact repetition after three synodic periods. With an 8/13 ratio of periods, Earth and Venus would have undergone conjunctions at the following places on their orbits after three synodic periods: [*!* Image] INSERT KII2_12.TIF HERE Exact repetition of the pattern would not begin, for the 8/13 ratio, until five synodic periods had elapsed; and the pattern would then be exactly repetitive after each interval of 13PV = 8PE = 5S: [*!* Image] INSERT KII213A.TIF HERE Finally, for the ratio 19/31, repetition would begin after twelve synodic periods; and the pattern would then be exactly repetitive after each interval of 31PV = 19PE = 12S: [*!* Image] INSERT KII213B.TIF HERE An idea that is related to the exact repetitiveness of the pattern of invisibilities is the continuity of the pattern when conditions are almost, but not quite, the same. Thus, while the pattern of invisibilities for a 19/31 ratio of periods is derived from conjunctions occurring at only 24 points on Earth's orbit, it gives a representative picture of the invisibilities that can be expected for conjunctions occurring at every point around Earth's orbit, for any ratio of periods close to 19/31, as long as other factors such as eccentricity are kept the same. The astronomical criteria for the visibility or invisibility of Venus can be understood in the following way: For Venus to be visible in the sky, the Sun must be roughly five and three-quarters degrees, or more, below the horizon. The sky will then be dark enough for Venus, if it is above the horizon, to be seen. This minimum required angle of the Sun below the horizon is termed the arcus visionis. Another way of expressing the criteria for visibility is in terms of the imaginary celestial sphere. The path of Venus as seen from Earth, the apparent motion of the Sun, and the horizon seen by an observer on Earth, can all be projected onto the celestial sphere; their relative positions can then be calculated using spherical trigonometry, involving two dimensions instead of three. The horizon seen by any observer on Earth forms a great circle on the celestial sphere. (A great circle is any circle on a sphere that divides the sphere into two equal halves.) At any instant, two different great circles can be defined on the celestial sphere such that: one is the horizon of the point on Earth which has the same latitude as Babylon and which has the Sun, at that instant, 5-3/4° below its western horizon; the other is the horizon of the point on Earth which has the same latitude as Babylon and which has the Sun, at that instant, 5-3/4° below its eastern horizon. These two great circles divide the celestial sphere into four zones, labeled A, B, C, and D in the diagram below. Zone A contains the north celestial pole; zone B lies to the east of the Sun; zone C lies to the west of the Sun; and zone D contains both the Sun and the south celestial pole. The two great circles follow the Sun's apparent motion across the celestial sphere. Their position relative to the Sun and their orientation relative to the north celestial pole vary, but only very slightly, through the year. At all times, each great circle remains 53/4° from the Sun, while the point of intersection of the two circles that lies directly north of the Sun is never more than 10-3/4° nor less than 9° from the Sun. (The values 10-3/4° and 9° are based on the present 23-1/2° obliquity of the ecliptic and the present 32-1/2° latitude of Babylon.) In other words, the four zones A, B, C, and D remain relatively stable during the course of the year as they move, in unison with the Sun, across the celestial sphere. [*!* Image] INSER KII2_14.JPG HERE The visibility of Venus (or, in principle, any equally bright celestial body in the vicinity of the Sun) depends on which of the four zones it is located in, relative to an observer on Earth. If Venus were in zone A at any time, it would then be visible from the latitude of Babylon both at dusk and at dawn. In zone B, Venus is visible from the latitude of Babylon at dusk, but not at dawn, whereas in zone C it is visible at dawn, but not at dusk. Finally, whenever Venus is in zone D, it cannot be seen at all with the naked eye from the latitude of Babylon. Zone D can thus be termed Venus' zone of invisibility. As seen from Earth, an inner planet such as Venus moves back and forth, making one cycle per synodic period, between its greatest elongation east of the Sun, occurring somewhere in zone B, and its greatest elongation west of the Sun, occurring somewhere in zone C. Conjunctions occur twice per synodic period as the planet passes through either zone A or zone D. The planet normally passes through zone D, so that the conjunction is accompanied by invisibility; however, with appropriate orbits, there could be conjunctions without any invisibility as the planet passed from zone B to zone C (or vice versa) through zone A. If the orbits of Venus and Earth lay in exactly the same plane, all conjunctions would be accompanied by invisibilities, as Venus would necessarily pass directly in front of or directly behind the Sun at every conjunction. The different possible paths that Venus could follow through the zone of invisibility would look like this: [*!* Image] INSERT KII2_15.JPG HERE The different angles of Venus' passage through the zone would be due to the inclination of Earth's axis to the plane of its orbit. Because of the repetitiveness of invisibilities accompanying each type of conjunction when Earth returns to the same point on its orbit, the different paths of Venus through the zone of invisibility would be tied to the seasons. The present orbits of Earth and Venus are not in the same plane; they are inclined approximately 3-1/2° to each other. As a consequence, Venus usually passes somewhat to the north or south of the Sun at conjunction: [*!* Image] INSERT KII2_16.JPG HERE The 3-1/2° inclination of the orbits is measured at the Sun; however, as seen from Earth, Venus can be as much as 8-1/2° above the ecliptic. It is thus possible for Venus to pass within one degree of the vertex of the zone of invisibility. A slight increase of the present inclination of the orbits would be enough to cause Venus to pass occasionally through zone A rather than zone D, producing occasional gaps in the pattern of invisibilities. Such missing invisibilities would occur first at inferior conjunction; a considerably larger inclination would be needed to produce missing invisibilities at superior conjunction. The fact that there are no missing invisibilities at inferior conjunction in the sequence recorded on the Ninsianna tablets suggests that the inclination of the orbits at the time of the Ninsianna observations was not greater than, say, four degrees at the most. The effect of different orbital eccentricities on the pattern of invisibilities is a more complicated problem than the effect of different inclinations. We have spent a lot of time developing a rather abstract general method of generating the patterns for different eccentricities. It is fairly simple, however, to establish a rough upper limit on the eccentricities. A planet whose orbit is circular moves with a constant angular velocity around the Sun. As the eccentricity increases, the angular velocity is no longer constant, but varies as the planet moves around the orbit, with a maximum value at perihelion and a minimum value at aphelion. As this happens with Venus or Earth or both, the pattern of invisibilities is affected greatly, with both the length and spacing of invisibilities becoming less regular as the eccentricities increase. With relatively low eccentricities, the angular velocity of an inner planet such as Venus is greater at all times than the angular velocity of Earth. As the eccentricities increase, however, the angular velocity of Earth when it is at or near perihelion will begin to be greater than Venus' angular velocity at or near aphelion. It thus becomes possible for a triplet of inferior conjunctions, or a triplet of superior conjunctions, to occur in succession when Earth is near perihelion as the two planets jockey back and forth for the lead. Such a triplet of conjunctions could be accompanied by one, two, or three invisibilities. Venus' path through the zone of invisibility would resemble one of the three following possibilities: [*!* Image] INSERT KII217A.JPG HERE As an example of the effect of increasing eccentricity on the pattern of invisibilities, a segment of the pattern for a Venus-Earth orbital period ratio of 19/31 is shown below. The first line shows the pattern when both eccentricities are zero; the second line is for both eccentricities equal to 0.1; etc. The planetary perihelia are aligned in all four cases. The dotted lines show the continuity that could be expected for intermediate values: [*!* Image] INSERT KII217B.TIF HERE The apparent lack of multiple invisibilities in the Ninsianna pattern is one indication that the eccentricities of Earth and Venus could not have been more than, say, 0.3 at the time of the observations. In our work on the tablets, we are within sight of some sort of completion point. It is not clear yet whether we will actually perform a full computer search of the many orbital variables and the many interpretations of the tablets to find the best ultimate fits, or whether we will have to be satisfied with just writing the program, if the amount of computer time required turns out to be prohibitive. In any event, it is clear that there will be no single clear-cut orbital solution. The next step in this area would seem to be an analysis of the many late-Babylonian astronomical tablets, to see if they show any small but systematic inconsistencies with the present orbits of Earth and the other planets, particularly with regard to eccentricities. APPENDIX The Translation that follows is a conflation and reconstruction of the various Ninsianna tablets, no one of which is complete, and represents our best estimate of what the original series of Ninsianna observations might have contained. Where the tablets give alternative readings, or no reading at all, our choice has been based upon considerations that will be explained in detail in a Commentary (not included here). For ease of reference, year numbers have been added in the left margin, but the tablets themselves do not number the years or provide any other labels for them. Table I gives the actual data from those tablets that list the invisibilities of Ninsianna in chronological order, and Table II gives the actual data from those tablets that list the invisibilities of Ninsianna in order of the months of disappearance. In Tables I and II, an expression such as "E 19 (5m16d) VI 25 W" for Year 12 means that Ninsianna disappears in the east on the ninth day of the first month, Nisan, remains absent from the sky for five months and sixteen days, and appears in the west on the twenty-fifth day of the sixth month, Ulul. The expression "VI*" refers to second or intercalary Ulul. The twelve months of the normal Babylonian year were: I Nisan VII Tesrit II Ayar VIII Arahsamna III Sivan IX Kislev IV Tammuz X Tebit V Ab XI Sabat VI Ulul XII Adar It will be seen that the Translation is in fairly close agreement with the data that are given in Tables I and II, except that where the data are inconsistent or incomplete we have had to make choices or reconstructions. We have proposed significant changes only in the cases of Year 8b and Year 16b, where we think that the intervals of invisibility might have become transposed. Our scenario for this proposed transposition is outlined in Table III. A Bibliography is appended, including not only serious studies of the tablets but also a number of pronouncements by writers, including noted astronomers, who do not seem to have been very familiar with the tablets. TRANSLATION Year 1 In the month Sabat, on the 15th day, Ninsianna disappears in the went; for 3 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Sabat, on the 18th day, Ninsianna appesrs in the east; catstrophes of kings; Adad brings rains, Ea brings streams; king to king greeting send 2 In the month Arahsamna, on the 11th day, Ninsianna disappears in the east; for 2 months 8 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Tebit, in the 19th day, Ninsianna appears in the west; the harvest of the land is successful 3 In the month Ulul, on the 23rd day, Ninsianna disappears in the west; for 20 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Tesrit, on the 13th day, Ninsianna appear in the east hostilities occur in the land; the harvest of the land is successful. 4 In the month Tammuz, on the 2nd day, Ninsianna disappears in the east; for 2 months 1 day she remains absent from the sky; in the month Ulul, on the 3rd day, Ninsianna appears in the west; the heart of the land is happy 5a In the month Ayar, on the 2nd day, Ninsianna disappears in the west; for 16 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Ayar, on the 18th day, Ninsianna appears in the east; rains and floods occur; the harvest of the land is successful 5b In the month Kislev, on the 25th day, Ninsianna disappears in the east; for 2 months 4 days she rem ins absent fro the sky in the month Sabat, on the 29th day, Ninsianna appears in the west; the harvest of the land is successful 6 In the month Arahsamna, on the 28th day, Ninsianna disappears in the west; for 3 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Kislev, on the 1st day, Ninsianna appears in the east; hunger for grain and straw occurs in the land; desolation is wrought 7 In the month Ab, on the 21st day, Ninsianna disappears in the east; for 2 months 11 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Arahsamna, on the 2nd dey, Ninsianna appears in the west; rains occur in the land; desolation is wrought 8a In the month Tammuz, on the 25th day, Ninsianna disappears in the west; for 7 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Ab, on the 2nd day, Ninsianna appears in the east; reins occur in the lend; desolation is wrought. 8b In the month Sabat, on the 25th day, Ninsianna disappears in the east; [for 3 months 9 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Sivan, on the 4th day, Ninsianna appears in the west; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .]*. *The bracketed material was eventually lost or deleted, and was replaced by the year formula, "YEAR OF THE GOLDEN THRONE", which is usually thought to have been a year formula for Ammizaduga. 9 In the month Sivan, on the 11th day, Ninsianna disappears in the west; for 9 months 4 days she remains absent from the sky; In the month Adar, on the 15th day, she appears in the east; king to king greetings [or: declaration of war] sends. 10 In the month Arahsamna, on the 10th day, Ninsianna disappears in the east; for 2 months 6 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Tebit, on the 16th day, she appears in the vest; the harvest of the land is successful 11 In the month Ulul, on the 26th day, Ninsianna disappears in the west; for 11 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month second Ulul, on the 7th day, she appears in the east; the heart of the land is happy 12 In the month Nisan, on the 9th day, Ninsianna disappears in the east; for 5 months 16 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Ulul, on the 25th day, she appears in the west; the heart of the land in happy 13a In the month Ayar, on the 5th day, Ninsianna disappears in the vest; for 7 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Ayar, on the 12th day, she appears in the east; the harvest of the land is successful 13b In the month Kislev, on the 21st [?] day, Ninsianna disappears in the east; for 2 months [and days?] she remains absent from the sky; in the month Sabat, on the 21st day, she appears in the west; the harvest of the land is successful 14 In the month Tesrit, on the 10th day, Ninsianna disappears in the vest; for 1 month 16 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Arahsamna, on the 26th day, she appears in the east; rains occur in the land; desolation is wrought. 15 In the month Ab, on the 20th day, Ninsianna disappears in the east; for 2 months 15 days [or 3 months 15 days] she remains absent from the sky in the month Arahsamna [or the month Kislev], on the 5th day, she appears in the west; rains occur in the land; desolation is wrought. 16a In the month Tammuz, on the 5th day, Ninsianna disappears in the west; for 15 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Tammuz, on the 20th day, she appears in the east; rains in heaven and floods in the streams occur 16b In the month Adar, on the 25th day, Ninsianna disappears in the east; for 2 months 7 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Sivan, on the 2nd day, she appears in the vest; disaster of the Umman-manda 17 In the month Adar, on the 11th day, Ninsianna disappears in the vest; for 4 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Adar, on the 15th day, she appears in the east; king to king greetings sends; the harvest is successful; the heart of the land is happy 18? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 In the month second Ulul, on the 2nd day, Ninsianna disappears in the vest; for 15 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month second Ulul, on the 17th day, Ninsianna appears in the east; a defeat occurs in a distant land; in the palace a maid 20 In the month Sivan, on the 25th day, Ninsianna disappears in the east; for 2 months 29 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Ulul, on the 24th day, Ninsianna appears in the vest; the heart of the land is happy 21a In the month Nisan, on the 26th day, Ninsianna disappears in the west; for 7 days she remains absent from the sky; in the month Ayar, on the 3rd day, Ninsianna appears in the east; hostilities occur in the land; the harvest of the land is successful 21b In the month Tebit, on the 28th day, Ninsianna disappears in the east; for 2 months she remains absent from the sky; in the month Adar, on the 28th day, Ninsianna appears in the west; king to king declaration of war sends 22? 23? 11th day, .. .. .. .. .. .. .. the west; TABLE I INVISIBILITIES OF NINSIANNA LISTED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER Year K. 160, Obverse K. 2321 + K 3032, Obverse W. 1924. 802, Obverse 1 W (3d) E W XI 15 (3d) XI 18 E 2 E (2m7d) W E VIII 11 (2m7d) X 19 W 3 W (20d) E W VI 23 (20d) VII 13 E 4 E (2m1d) W E VII 2 (2m1d) VI 3 W 5a W (15d) E W II 2 (18d) II 18 E 5b E IX 10[+?] (2m4d) XI 16 W E IX 25 (2m4d) XI 29 W 6 VIII 20[+?) (3d) IX 1 W VIII 18 (3d) IX 1 E 7 E ( ) VIII 2 E V 21 ( 11d) VIII 2 W E (2m11d) 8a W IV 25 (7d) V 2 E W IV 25 ( ) V 2 E (7d) 8b E XII 25 ( ) E XII 25 ( ) 9 W 11 (9m4d) XII 15 E W III 11 (9m ) XII 15 E 10 E VIII 10 (2m6d) X 16 W E VIII 10 ( ) X 16 11 W VI 26 (11d) VI* 7 W 12 I 9 (5m16d) VI 25 W Rm. II 531: 13a W II 5 (7d) E 2[+?] ( ) 12 E 20 ( ) 13b E (16d) XI 21 W X 21 ( ) XI 11 14 E VII 10 (1m15[+?]d) VIII 26 W VII 10 ( ) VIII 25 W 15 E V 20 (2m15d) VIII 5 W E V 21 ( ) IX 5 W 16a W 5 (15d) 20 W W VIII 4 ( ) IV 20 E 16b E XII 25 (3m9d) III 20 W E XII 15 ( ) W 17 XII 11 (4d) K. 160, Reverse B. M. 41688 19 W VI* 1 (15d) VI* 17 E 1 ( ) VI* 14 20 E III 25 (2m6d) VI 24 W 25 ( ) VI 14 21a W I 27 (7d) II 3 E 17[+10?] 28d [?] 21b E ( ) XII 28 22? 23? "11th day, the west" TABLE II INVISIBILITIES OF NINSIANNA LISTED IN ORDER OF MONTHS OF DISAPPEARANCE Probable Year Rm. 134 K: 7072 B. M. 42033: 12 I 8 (5m17d) VI 25 I ( ) VI 24 I (5m18d) 21a I 26 (6d) E I 26 ( ) II 3 E I 17[+10?] ( ) E 5a II 2 ( ) W II 2 ( ) II 2 "28 days" "15 days" E 13a? W II 3[+2?] 9? 3[+2? +12?] 20? ? S. 174 16a? 8a? W K. 2321 + K. 3032, Reverse: 15 E W 7 E W 3 W W VI 23 (20d) VII 13 E W. 1924. 802, Reverse: 11 W VI 26 (12d) VI* 8 E 14 W VII 11 (1m17d) VIII 28 E VII ( ) VIII 27 6 W VIII 28 (5d) IX E 2 E (2m8d) X 19 W 10 (2m8d) [X?] 16 W 13b E 1[+?] (2m ) W 5b W ( m4d) XI 28 E 21b E (2m) 1 W (3d) XI 28 16b? 8b? E (2m7d) W 17 W (4d) E TABLE III THE CHRONOLOGICAL LISTINGS THE LISTINGS BY MONTHS 8b 16b Bb 16b XI 25 (3m9d) III 4 XII 25 (2m7d) III 2 XI 25 (3m9d) III 4 XII 25 (2m7d) III 2 v v v v XI 25 ( ) XII 25 ( ) III 2 XI 25 (3m9d) XII 25 ( ) v v v v 25 XII 25 III 2 XII 25[1] (3m9d) XII 25 ( ) v v v II 25 [2] ( ) XII 25 ( ) III 20[3] XII 25 (3m9d) [4] v v v II 25 YEAR OF THE GOLDEN THRONE [6] XII 25 (3m9d) [5] III 20 v v v as on: X 160, Obverse, and K. 2321 + K. 3032, Obverse as on: K 160, Obverse [7] [8] lost? W 1924 802, Reverse? [9] [1] The similar and probably adjacent entries on the listing by months have confused, and XI 25 has been read as XII 25 [2] The missing month of disappearance has been erroneously "corrected" or "recovered" fro- the listing by months. 133 III 2 has become III 20 [4] Two different but probably adjacent disappearances on XII 25 have been erroneously conflated into one [5] The missing interval has been erroneously "recovered" from the listing by months. [6] The year-formula has been inserted in Year 8b [7] lb II 531, a variant of K 160, Obverse, gives the disappearance in Year 16b as XII 15 rather than as XII 25 [8] The original interval for 16b has survived, according to this interpretation, in only one place on K 2321 + K 3032, Reverse [9] Although none of the surviving fragments of the listing by months contains this reading, this is a reading that might once have appeared on W 1924 802 Reverse, in as much as the section of W 1924 802, Reverse, that vould have contained disappearances in month XII has not survived. MATHEMATICAL VARIABLES The following independent quantities must be treated as variables (or as constants) in making a comparison between the pattern of invisibilities reported on the Ninsianna tablets and computed patterns of invisibilities of Venus. The thoroughness of the comparison depends on how many are treated as variables. Not included in the list are observational uncertainties such as weather; uncertainties concerning the relationship among the calendar units (year, month, and day), including the number and location of intercalary months; and uncertainties in the Ninsianna data, where different dates can often be read or inferred for the same event. 1. Ratio of the orbital periods of Venus and Earth. 2. Orbital eccentricity of Venus. 3. Orbital eccentricity of Earth. 4. Inclination of Venus' orbit to the ecliptic (the ecliptic = the plane of Earth's orbit, without implying any relationship to the present ecliptic). 5. Heliocentric longitude of Venus' ascending node with respect to vernal equinox. 6. Venus' argument of perihelion. 7. Heliocentric longitude of Earth's perihelion with respect to vernal equinox. 8. Initial positioning of Venus with respect to Earth. 9. Initial positioning of Earth with respect to the calendar. 10. Ratio of the mean calendar year to the orbital period of Earth. 11. Obliquity of the ecliptic. 12. Terrestrial latitude of Babylon. 13. Arcus visionis (= angle of the Sun below the horizon which makes the sky dark enough for Venus to be seen on the horizon). BIBLIOGRAPHY Baity, Elizabeth Chesley. "Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy So Far", Current Anthropology, XIV (1973), 389431. "Comments" by eighteen scholars, 431438. "Reply" by Baity, 439449. Bosanquet, R. H. M., and Sayce, A. H. "The Babylonian Astronomy: No. 3. The Venus Tablet", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, XL ( 1880), No. 9, 565-578. Cant, Gilbert. "New Theory Attacked. Rubbish! Say the Scientists", New York Post Home News, April 2, 1950. de Camp, L. Sprague. Review of Worlds in Collision, in Astounding Science-Fiction, September, 1950, p. 140. Doermann, Humphrey. "Shapley Brands 'Worlds in Collision' a Hoax", Harvard Crimson, September 25, 1950. Edmondson, Frank K. "'Worlds in Collision' Is Blasted", Indianapolis Star, April 9, 1950. Edmondson, Frank K. "A Hoosier Astronomer Calls Velikovsky Book 'Annotated Claptrap' ", Louisville Courier-doumal, April 23, 1950. Hommel, F. "Ur Dynasty Tablets", Assyriologische Bibliothek, XXV (1920), 197-199. Huber, Peter J. Review (in German) of John D. Weir, The Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga, q.v. Unpublished as of early 1974. Huber, Peter J. "Early Cuneiform Evidence for the Planet Venus", read at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting, San Francisco, February 25, 1974. Unpublished. Kaempffert, Waldemar. "The Tale of Velikovsky's Comet", New York Times, April 2, 1950. Kaempffert, Waldemar. Letter to the Editor (under the heading, ". . . A Collision of Author and Reviewer"), New York Times Book Review, May 7, 1950. Kugler, Franz Xaver. Im Bannkreis Babels. Munster in Westfalen: 1910. Pp. 147-148. Kugler, Franz Xaver. Sternkunde und Stemdienst in Babel. Munster in Westfalen: Aschendorff, 1907-1935. 3 vols. II, Teil II, 257-311. Landau, Joseph. "Did The Sun Really Stand Still for Joshua?", Louisville Courier-Joumal, April 2, 1950. Langdon, Stephen H. The Illustrated London News, October 10, 1925, p. 666. Langdon, Stephen H., Fotheringham, John K., and Schoch, Carl. The Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1928. Larrabee, Eric. "The Day the Sun Stood Still", Harper's Magazine, January,1950, pp. 23, 24. Larrabee, Eric. "Larrabee Rebuts", The Reporter, April 11, 1950. Miller, Robert Cunningham. "Star Dust", Pacific Discovery, March-April, 1950, p. 3. Neugebauer Otto. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. Second edition. New York: Dover 1969. Pp. ;00, 139. North, John. "Venus, by Jupiter!", London Times Literary Supplement, June 25, 1976. Pannekoek, Antonie. A History of Astronomy. New York: Interscience Publishers, 1961. Pp.33-35. Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia. "Nonsense, Dr. Velikovsky!" The Reporter, March 14, 1950. p.40. Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia "Payne-Gaposchkin Stands", The Reporter, April 11, 1950. Pensee, "Velikovsky's Challenge to Science", IVR VII, Spring, 1974, pp. 32-33. Prescott, Orville. "Books of the Times", New York Times, April 3, 1950. 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. Rose, Lynn E. "Babylonian Observations of Venus", Pensee, IVR 111, Winter, 1973, pp. 18-22. (Reprinted in Velikovsky Reconsidered.) Rose, Lynn E. Reply to Ms. van Lieshout, Pensee, IVR V, Fall, 1973, pp. 3940. Rose, Lynn E., and Vaughan, Raymond C. "Velikovsky and the Sequence of Planetary Orbits", Pensee, IVR VIII, Summer, 1974, pp. 27-34. (Reprinted in Velikovsky Reconsidered.) Sachs, A. J., with the cooperation of Schaumberger, J. I.ate Babylonian Astronomical and Related Texts Copied by T. G. Pinches and J. N. Strassmaier. Providence, Rhode Island: Brown University Press, 1955. Nos. 1560-1563. Sarton, George. Introduction to the History of Science. Publication No. 376 of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins,1927. 1,71. 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 Archealogy, III (1874), 145-339, especially 316-339. Schiaparelli, Giovanni, "Venusbeobachtungen und Berechnungen der Babylonier", Das Weltall, 6. Jahrgang, Heft 23, 7. Jahrgang, Heft 2 (1906). Schiaparelli, Giovanni. Scritti Sulla Storia della Astronomia Antica. Bologna: Nicola Zanichelli Editore, 1925-1927. 3 vols. 1, 5-27 contains "Osservazioni e Calcoli dei Babilonesi", the Italian original of the Das Weltall paper. III, 125-233 contains "Osservazioni ed Effemeridi sui Fenomeni del Pianeta Venere Scoperte fra le Rovine di Ninive, ed Oggi Conservate nel Museo Britannico", which was written in 1904 or 1905 but never published during the author's lifetime. III, 123-124 contains excerpts from Schiaparelli's letter of January 24, 1907, on these subjects. Science News Letter, "Theories Denounced", February 25,1950. Science News Letter, "Retort to Velikovsky", March 25, 1950. Stecchini, Livio C. "Astronomical Theory and Historical Data", in The Velikovsky Affair, edited by Alfred de Grazia, Ralph E. Juergens, and Livio C. Stecchini. New Hyde Park, New York: University Books, 1966. Pp. 146-152. Stern, Mort "Did Comets Strike The Earth?", Little Rock Gazette, April 16, 1950. Stewart, John Q. "Disciplines in Collision", Harper's Magazine, June, 1951, p. 63. Time Magazine, "Venus on the Loose", March 13, 1950. Ungnad, Arthur. Die Venustafeln und das Neunte Jahr Samsuilunas (1741 V. Chr.). In Mitteilungen der Altorientalischen Gesellschaft, XIII. Band, Heft 3. Leipzig: Verlag von Otto Harrassowitz, 1940. van der Waerden, Bartel L. "On Babylonian Astronomy 1: The Venus Tablets of Ammisaduqa", Ex Oriente Lux, X (1948), 414424. van der Waerden, Bartel L. Erwachende Wissenschaft, Band 2. Die Anfange der Astronomie. Groningen: P. Noordhoff LtdL, 1966. Basel and Stuttgart: Birkhauser Verlag, 1968. pp. 34-52. van der Waerden, Bartel L. Science Awakening II: The Birth of Astronomy, with contributions by Peter Huber. Leyden: Noordhoff International Publishing, and New York: Oxford University Press, 1974. Pp. 50-59. van Lieshout, M. G. Letter to the Editor, Pensee, IVR V, Fall, 1973, pp. 38-39. Vaughan, Raymond C. "A Configuration and Phase Space for Keplerian Planetary Motion". Unpublished. Velikovsky, Immanuel. Worlds in Collision. New York: Macmillan, 1950. Pp. 198-200. Velikovsky, ImmanueL Letter to the Editor (under the heading, "Dr. Velikovsky vs. Mr. Kaempffert . . ."), New York Times Book Review, May 7, 1950. Velikovsky, Immanuel. "Answer to My Critics", Harper's Magazine, June, 1951, pp. 53-54. Velikovsky, Immanuel. "Answer to Professor Stewart", Harper's Magazine, June, 1951, p. 65. Velikovsky Reconsidered. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1976. Pp. 58, 73-86, 92, 110-132, 250. Virolleaud, Ch. L'Astrologie Chaldeenne. Paris: Librairie Paul Geuthner, 1905-1913. 13 Fascicules. Fascicules 3 and 7: Nos. IV, XII, XIII, XIV, and XV. Fascicules 9 and 10: Nos. XXXVII, XLI, XLII, and LIV. Virolleaud, Ch. "Fragments Astrologiques", Babyloniaca, 111(1910), 285. S. 174. Virolleaud, Ch. "Etudes Astrologiques", Babyloniaca, VI ( 1912), 253. K. 11840. Weir, John D. The Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga. Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch Archaeologisch Instituut in Het Nabije Oosten, 1972. \cdrom\pubs\journals\kronos\vol0202\003babyl.htm .............. more Ninsianna Update LYNN E. ROSE AND RAYMOND C. VAUGHAN Copyright (C) 1980 by Lynn E. Rose and Raymond C. Vaughan Our last detailed discussion of the Ninsianna or Venus fragments was in "Analysis of the Babylonian Observations of Venus", which we read at the Velikovsky Symposium at McMaster University in June, 1974, and which was later published in KRONOS, II, 2, pages 3-26. The Appendix to that paper was widely distributed at the Symposium in mimeographed form, and contained a reconstruction of the chronological parts of the Ninsianna document, that is, the section covering Years 1-17 and the section covering Years 19-21b. We now wish to present in summary form the principal textual results of our continuing Ninsianna studies. (The orbital considerations are a separate subject, and will be dealt with on another occasion.) In 1975 Erica Reiner and David Pingree published The Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa, in which Reiner's identification of ten or eleven additional fragments as parts of the overall Ninsianna document was first announced, and in which the contents of those fragments were published, all but one for the first time. (VAT 11253, the one that had been published before, is not strictly a "Ninsianna" fragment, since it refers to Venus as Dilbat rather than as Ninsianna; it is, nevertheless, from the same overall document.) This near doubling of the number of known fragments (twelve Ninsianna fragments had been identified in the literature up to then) might have been expected to cause radical changes in our understanding of the Ninsianna document, but it did not. Instead, the near-doubling of the sources has served mainly to confirm that our previous readings and reconstructions were on the right track. (A precise count of the newly-identified fragments is difficult because of K. 5963, which Reiner treats as a small join to the end of Rm. 134. She does not claim for herself or assign to anyone else the credit either for the identification of K. 5963 as a Ninsianna fragment or for its join to Rm. 134. Yet we know of no one prior to Reiner who deserves such credit. Perhaps she did not count it as a separate identification because it was a join to a previously-identified fragment.) Reiner and Pingree refer to Years 1-17 as Section I, they refer to the "artificial insertion" as Section II, and they refer to Years 19-21b as Section III. Their Section IV is the listing of all but two -- they would say all but three -- of the entries from Sections I and III in order of the month of disappearance, rather than in chronological order. Reiner and Pingree recognize an additional part of the Ninsianna document (which we will call Section V, though they do not), in which previous material that needed correction was repeated. They regard Year 14 as the only entry that appeared there, but we have concluded that sometimes both Year 14 and Year 5b were put in Section V. Reiner's identification of a number of additional Ninsianna fragments, together with our own continuing studies, have now led us to make minor revisions in several of the entries in our 1974 reconstruction. Involved are Years 5b, 12, 13b, 14, and 21a. We would change the dates of disappearance and appearance in Year 5b from IX 25 and XI 29, respectively, to IX 24 and XI 28. The disappearance in Year 12 was probably on I 8 rather than on I 9, and the interval of invisibility was probably 5m 17d rather than 5m 16d. The disappearance in Year 13b was probably on IX 20 rather than on IX 21 (though there is not much to go on), and the interval of invisibility was probably 2m 1d rather than just 2m. The disappearance in Year 21a was probably on I 27 rather than on I 26, and the interval of invisibility was probably 6d rather than 7d. These changes are trivial, but worth noting. The only change involving more than one day is in Year 14, which we reconstructed in 1974 as VII 10 (1m16d) VIII 26. After considering Reiner and Pingree's explanation of the purpose of Section V, and after studying the data from K. 7090 (which is one of Reiner's newly-identified fragments and covers Section V), and after reexamining B.M. 42033, which was published by Sachs in 1955, we would now argue that the original readings for Year 14 were VII 21 (1m7d) VIII 28. We think that at last we have a well-established reconstruction of all of the data from Section I. One of the major repercussions and confirmations of that reconstruction is that we can for the first time make good sense of the artificial insertion, which we will discuss in a later issue of KRONOS. Some of Reiner's newly-identified Ninsianna fragments relate to our suggestion in 1974 that Years 8b and 16b became confused and conflated in Section IV (where they would have been adjacent), and that the original readings for these two entries were XI 25 (3m9d) III 4 and XII 25 (2m7d) III 2, respectively. The interval of 3m9d has survived only on K. 160, where it is given as the interval for Year 16b of Section I. The interval of 2m7d was known to us in 1974 only from Section IV of K. 2321 + K. 3032, where there is no clear indication whether the entry is supposed to be Year 8b or Year 16b. The Year 16b readings on K. 160 -- XII 25 (3m9d) III 20 -- were obviously garbled, but the III 20 could originally have been III 2 (the date of appearance that would be expected with an interval of 2m7d). The Year 9 disappearance on III 11 placed restrictions on the date of appearance for Year 8b, and the similarity of the forecasts in Years 8b and 16b (compare also the third entry of Section II) suggested that both appearances were in month III. Thus we proposed that the interval of 3m9d was in Year 8b, but that the month of disappearance was XI rather than XII. This put the appearance on III 4, a date not then known to us from any fragment. We also proposed that the interval of 2m7d was indeed from Year 16b, and that the original date of appearance was III 2. Accordingly, we suggested that the III 2 had become the III 20 of K. 160, a common sort of cuneiform error. At that time we knew of no fragment that gave 2m7d as the interval for Year 16b. One of Reiner's newly-identified fragments is B.M. 36758 + B.M. 37496, which gives 2m7d as the interval of invisibility for Year 16b of Section I! Another is B.M. 36395, which gives a Section IV entry (8b? 16b?) with an interval of 2m7d but with an appearance on III 4! The mere occurrence of III 4, even in a garbled context, supports our 1974 conjecture. B.M. 36395 seems to be garbled in a manner analogous to the manner in which Year 16b is garbled on K. 160: B.M. 36395 gives the interval from Year 16b with the date of appearance from Year 8b, while K. 160 gives the interval from Year 8b with the date of appearance (changed from III 2 to III 20) from Year 16b. K. 160 also gives the date of disappearance as XII 25, which is correct for Year 16b. Thus our 1974 conjecture has received weighty confirmation from Reiner's newly-identified Ninsianna fragments, and we can offer our reconstructions of Year 8b and of Year 16b with much greater confidence than before. (This entire matter will be discussed in more detail on another occasion.) Finally, we wish to note that our continuing Ninsianna studies have shed considerable and needed light on the four Ninsianna fragments published by Sachs in his Late Babylonian Astronomical and Related Texts (1955). For now, we will simply state the location of each of these fragments in the overall Ninsianna document. B.M. 42033 (1560 in LBAT) covers Year 14, Year 5b, and the "footing" (like a modern heading, but at the end) of Section V. B.M. 34227 (1561) is from the beginning of Section IV, and covers Years 12, 21 a, 5a, 13a, and 9. (Thus, Sachs' "join" of 1560 to the beginning of 1561 is a mistake; 1560 is from a much later portion of the text.) B.M. 41498 (1562) has its Obverse and Reverse mislabeled both in LBAT and in Reiner and Pingree. The actual Obverse seems to cover Years 13b, 14, 15, 16a, and 16b from Section I, and the actual Reverse seems to cover Years 9, 20, 4, and 8a from Section IV. (B.M. 41498 may be a fragment from the same tablet as K. 2321 + K. 3032.) B.M. 41688 (1563) covers the footing of Section II, all of Section III including its own footing, and Year 14 of Section V. As we will show elsewhere, Sachs has mishandled all four of these fragments, and has been followed in some (but not all) of his errors by Reiner and Pingree. \cdrom\pubs\journals\kronos\vol0503\051ninsi.htm ................ more yet 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 (1) Date of Appear (2) Direction of Appear (3) Direction of Last Visibility (4) Date of Last Visibility (5) Date of Disappearance (6) Interval of Invisibility (7) Date of Appearance (8) Direction of Appearance (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) 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 (1) Month of Initial Appearance (2) The Correct Reading of (3) Has Been Changed to (4) On The Fragment (1) (2) (3) (4) 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. \cdrom\pubs\journals\kronos\vol0504\032artif.htm .............. more Nov. 26, 1994, Portland, Oregon Ammizaduga was a relatively obscure king during what is known as the first Babylonian dynasty; he is usually thought to have reigned during the early or middle part of the second millennium before the present era. One of Ammizaduga's claims to fame is that various cuneiform tablets describing conjunctions of the planet Venus with the Sun are said by some to have derived from observations made during the twenty-one years of his reign. Ammizaduga's other claims to fame are that he was the great-great-grandson of Hammurabi, and that Ammizaduga (or perhaps it was his son) was the monarch who lost the kingdom to foreign invaders and thus allowed the dynasty of Hammurabi to come to an end. One of the results of this paper will be the suggestion that the so-called Venus tablets of Ammizaduga have nothing to do either with Ammizaduga or with his times. But the two major purposes of the paper are, first, to examine some of the ways in which scholars have treated these tablets over the past century or so, and, second, to give you a progress report on the efforts that Raymond Vaughan and I are making to try to determine just which orbits of Venus and Earth would have produced the patterns of appearances that the ancient Venus-viewers say they saw. The first of these tablets that were are concerned with is now in the British Museum, in whose catalogue it is called K. 160 because it came from Kuyunjik, the site of ancient Ninehev, where it was excavated from the library of Ashurbanipal by Layard about 1850. The text of this tablet was first published by Rawlinson and Smith in 1870; the text was also published in 1874 by Sayce, this time with a transliteration and with a translation. In 1880 Bosanquet and Sayce published a translaton of K. 160, and offered a perliminary analysis of its contents. They recognized, for example, that K. 160 contains three distinct groups consists of line 1-29 on the obverse of the tablet, the second group consists of lines 31-45 on the observse and line 1-32 on the reverse, and the third group consists of lines 33-45 on the reverse. They also seem to have been the earliest to adopt with specific reference to the Venus tablets the attitude that might be called the "astronomers' dogma," which I will explain in a moment. But before we consider any more of the literature on these tablets or the ways in which the astronomers' dogma has dominated that literature, it may be useful to looke at the nature of the observations themselves. When Venus is to the east of the Sun, it can be seen in the western sky for a time after sunset and is then spoken of as the "Evening Star." As Venus moves directly between Earth and the Sun, it is said to be at inferior conjunction with the Sun, and for a brief time Venus cannot be seen because of the brightness of the Sun. But the "Evening Star" that vanishes from the western sky at inferior conjunction reappears in the eastern sky, west of the sun, as the "Morning Star," and can be seen for some months in the hours before sunrise. Then Venus approaches superior conjunction, where the Sun is directly between us and Venus, and Venus ceases to be visible from Earth. After this period of invisibility, however, Venus appears once more in the western sky as the "Evening Star," and the cycle continues. K. 160 seems to be a record of these invisibilities at inferior and superior conjuction. Let me give some typical passages from the tablet: In the month Sivan, on the twenty-fifth day, Ninsianna [that is, Venus] disappeared in the east; she remained absent from the sky for two months six days; in the month Ulul, on the twenty-fourth day, Ninsianna appeared in the west- the heart of the land is happy. In the month Nisan, on the twenty- seventh day, Ninsianna disappeared in the west; she remained absent from the sky for seven days; in the month Ayar, on the third day, Ninsianna appeared in the east- hostilities occur in theland, the harvest of theland is successful. The first invisibility mentioned in these lines involves a disappearance in the east, an invisibility of two months six days, and a reappearance in the west. This seems to be a superior conjunction. The second invsibility involves a disappearance in the west, an invisibility of seven days, and a reappearance in the east. This seems to be an inferior conjunction. Most of the data in groups one and three on the tablet are of this form. But thelengths and spacings of these invisibilities have a certain irregularity about them, and they do not conform to the manner in which Venus moves at present. The data given in the second group on the tablet do have rregularity- even too much regularity to be believable- but they do not conform to the present state of affairs either, and many have wondered if they are actual observations at all. Actual observations would be marred by weather conditions, yet the data of this second group seem to be almost perfect: the invisibility at superior conjuction is always three months, not a day more and not a day less. The visibility of the "Morning Star" lasts eight months five days (just once it is eight months four days), and the visibility of the "Evening Star" also lasts eight months five days (just twice it is eight months four days). This idealized regularity makes these "observations" very suspicious-looking. Another suspicious feature is that the initial appearances are on the first month, the second day; on the second month, the third day; on the third month, the fourth day;...and so on, up to the twelfth month, the thirteenth day. The idealized and somewhat numerological character of this group of data has led most readers, probably correctly, to suspect that this group of "observations" is not directly based on observation at all, and that if we are seeking actual astronomical observations and records, we should concentrate on the first and third groups on the tablet, and not worry about the artificial insertion. Unfortunately, nearly all treatments of groups one and three on K. 160, and of the genuinely observational material on the other Venus tablets that supplement K. 160, have been based upon what I will call the "astronomers' dogma". The "astronomers dogma" is the uniformitarian attitude that the solar system has for untold years been just as it is now, and that Venus and Earth in particular have always been on the same orbits they are on now, except for certain very minor pertrubations that are for most purposes entirely negligible. This means that we can look at the present motions of Earth and Venus and then judge on that basis how accurate the ancient observations were. If the ancient observations do not conform to what would be expected from the present state of affairs, then the ancient records were defective, and were either fictions or errors, but could not have been accurate observations of what was going on in the sky; accordingly, it is up to us to rewrite those ancient records so that they will conform to what we see in the sky today. As I mentioned, Bosanquet and Sayce seem to have been the first to introduce this astronomers' dogma into the study of the Venus tablets. They did so very cautiously, not because they were afraid that the ancient records were so insufficient that even the astronomers' dogma would not permit the derivation of any definite conclusions. We shall see that others, such as Kugler, were not so cautious about this as were Bosanquet and Sayce. We come next to Schiaparelli's 1906 paper in Das Weltall. This was an abridgment and updating of a long, unpublished monograph on the same subject, the text of which was finally published in 1927, posthumously, in the collection of Schiaparelli's works on ancient astronomy (Scritti Sulla Storia della Astronomia Antica, Bologna, Nicola Zanichelli Editore, 3 vols). In that collection the monograph on the Venus tablets is preceded by a long excerpt from one of Schiaparelli's letters that deals with further questions about the tablets. In the literature on the Venus tablets, mention is usually made only of the Das Weltall paper; indeed, I have not yet seen any mention either of Schiaparelli's longer monograph of his letter. So I take this occasion not only to recommend these neglected contributions of Schiaparelli's, which are important for anyone interested in the Venus tablets, but also to recommed in general the great work that Schiaparelli did on ancient astronomy. His reconstruction of the systems of Eudoxus and Kallippis would by itself rank him among the major historians of science. My admiration of his work is tempered by his unwavering loyalty to the astronomers' dogma; but even the astronomers' dogma did not prove an obstacle to his work on Eudoxus and Kallipis, since, after all, Eudoxus and Kallipus were dealing with a solar system not much different from our own. But when Schiaparelli deals with other subjects- prior, let us say, to -687- it seems to me that his opinions are of less value, precisely because of his acceptance of the astronomers' dogma: Schiaparelli is one of those who feel free to ignore what the tablets actually say whenever they conflict with what modern retro-calculation indicates that they should say. But in spite of this weakness, enormous credit must be given to Schiaparelli for noticing what had escaped the attention of the philologists, that the tablet K. 2321 + K. 3032, which had been published in 1899 by Craig, was concerned with the same series of observations as was K. 160 K. 2321 + K. 3032 is referred to with two different numbers because the two pieces of what was later seen to be one tablet were originally numbered separately. Schiaparelli realized that the end of K. 2321 + K. 3032 overlapped the beginning of K. 160, and this gave him a much larger sample of observations to work with. Schiaparelli was also the first to recognize that the data on the reverse of K. 2321 + K. 3032 are actual observations. They are arranged, not chronologically, but in the order of the months of the disappearances of Venus. All the disappearances in the first month or Nisan are placed together at the beginning, all the disappearances in the second month or Ayar are placed next, and so on, down to all of the disappearances in the tweltfth month or Adar. Another admirable feature of Schiaparelli's work is that he assigns the tablets to a period no earlier that the eighth century. Vaughan and I, unexpectedly , became inclined toward a similar dating, but for different reasons. Schiaparelli's reason was that the tablets refer to invading hordes of Manda, whom he believes not to have been on the scene in Mesopotamia prior to the eighth century. Some of the later criticisms of this account of the Manda are based on Hittite chronology. Even in Schiaparelli's own day there were some similar efforts to place the Manda in Mesopotamia prior to the eighth century, but Schiaparelli held firm against this. (Velikovsky may feel that Schiaparelli was on the right track here, in his assignment of a relatively late date to the appearance of the Manda in Mesopotamia.) The next important work was by Kugler in 1912. He had noted that some of the observations for the eighth year were missing, and that in their place there was a passage that had never yet been adequately understood. Kugler showed that this phrase meant "year of the golden throne," and that it was a year- formula that had been used to refer to the eighth year of the reign of Ammizaduga, the next-to-last king during the first Babylonian dynasty. And so it is at this point that Venus tablets become linked to Ammizaduga. If the observations really do date from the time of Ammizaduga, then they are probably 3500 or 4000 years old. Kugler tried to pin down the epoch more precisely. His method for doing this is, from my point of view, unsatisfactory. He realized that the observations as a whole have little similarity to anything we see Venus doing now, but he thought that if he could date one observation, regardless of its "impossible" context, that would be sufficient. So he picked out one date, from the sixth year of the observations, where Venus is said to have disappeared in the west on the twenty-eighth day of the eighth month. He then determined that if Venus has always moved in the way that it moves now, then there would have been a series of possible dates about four thousand years ago when Venus would have approached inferior conjuncton at new moon and at about the right time of the year. But even if this sort of backward calculation were sound, which it is not, Kugler's method would still be unsatisfactory in that it allows everything to rest on this one observational record. In the first place, the observation that Kugler selects is by no means one of our better-confirmed readings: for every one of the sources gives a slightly different report. One source says that Venus disappeared on the twenty-eighth and was invisible for five days. Another source says that Venus disappeared on the twentieth day of the month (or perhaps later- it isn't clear) and was invisible for three days- and here indeed the scribe adds a comment of his own that the text he is coypin is defaced or damaged at this spot! A new tablet, discovered only after Kugler wrote, says that Venus disappeared on the eighteenth of the month and was invisible for three days. Obviously, this kind of textual evidence is not the sort on which one would stake one's whole case, and yet that is precisely what Kugler did. In the second place, and more importantly, Kugler's use of just one observation is questionable in that if this one observation is ever placed in accord with modern expectations, then other observations on the tablets are automatically placed in conflict with modern expectations. If you are to reach back to the sixth year of the records by retro-calculation from the present behavior of Venus, you have to pass through all the tablet entries that come after the year six, and each of those later readings must likewise be in accord with your retro-calculation. This means that the five month invisibility at superior conjunction in year twelve should have lasted only about two months, and that the nine month invisibility at inferior conjunction in year nine sohlud have last only a day or two! In spite of these difficulties, however, Kugler goes ahead with his calculations, and asserts that Ammizaduga's reign began in the year 1977. In the next few years there were, as one might expect, a number of objections to Kugler's chronological conclusions, but no one seems to have gone so far as to challenge the astronomer's dogma, which was their real foundation. In 1920 Hommerl suggested that the reference to the "year of the golden throne" was inserted by a later copyist, perhaps during their reign of Ashurbanipal in the seventh century. It does seem likely that the phrase is a later insertion, for it is located in the space that would originally have contained the rest of the observational material for the eighth year. As it is now, we have only the date of Venus' disappearance, not the interval of invisibility and not the data of reappearance. But Hommel thought that even if the insertion was late, the observations themselves still dated from the time of Ammizaduga. A little later I will question this, but at this point I will merely remark that Hommel's suggestion may also be vulnerable in that W. 1924. 802, which is a copy of K. 2321 + K. 3032, contains a scribal "signature" dated in an unreadable year of the reign of Sargon, which would put the insertion a number of decades, at least, prior to Ashurbanipal. Hommel, however, was not aware of W. 1924. 802, since, as the label implies, it was not discovered until four years after his 1920 paper. The excavation of this new tablet at Kish in 1924 was announced by Langdon in 1925, and was important in that only the right edge of W. 1924. 802 is unreadable, whereas its duplicate, K.2321 + K.3032, is readable on the right side but is broken off on the left. Thus, between them both, we have an excellent set of readings for the first six or seven years of the observations, with usually only very minor discrepancies. In 1927 Sarton published his Introduction to the History of Sciences, where he made the later very influential pronouncement that: "As early as the close of the third millennium, Babylonian astronomers recorded heliacal risings and settings of the planet Venus." Sarton supports this claim with a footnote mentioning Kugler and Schiaparelli. As we have seen, however, Schiaparelli dated these observations at about the eight or seventh centuries, and Kugler dated them as covering the reign of Ammizaduga from 1977-1956. Sarton's reference to "the third millennium" is quite an overstatement of the case, but if you think that's bad, consider what happened in 1950. In the rush to find evidence against Velikovsky, Sarton's sloppy use of "the third millennium" as a substitute for "1977-1956" was resurrected from the libraries and rephrased as "3000 B.C." people like Kaempffert. This whole comedy of errors is traceable back to Kugler. Why Schiaparelli was implicated in it escapes me. The next major study of the Venus tablets was by Langdon and Fotheringham in 1928. Thier book is important for the student of the tablets in that they bring together a great deal of material that is not available in any one other place; unfortunately, however, their book is dominated and severely handicapped by the astronomer's dogma, and they find it necessary to scoff at much of what the tablets say was seen, simply because such things are not seen today. Further attempts to deal with the tablets along uniformitarian lines were made by Ungnad in 1940 and van der Waerden in 1946. Van der Waerden plays the uniformitarian game much better than some of his predecessors, but the main reason I want to mention him here is that he is the clearest example I have found of an unfortunate way of talking and thinking that is characteristic of uniformitarians. He says at one point, after either rejecting or radically rewriting about three out of four of the recorded observations, that: "All I have done is to remove inner contradictions from the text." It must be admitted that there are several genuine "inner contradictions" in the texts; one of them occurs in the passage that I quoted earlier. When we are told that Venus disappeared on the twenty-fifth day of the third month, was absent from the sky for two months six days, and reappeared on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, something is wrong here, and it is fairly obvious that we will have to reject at least one of those three items. But to deal with textual errors of this sort and to rewrite radically the whole set of observations just in order to make them fit the present movements of Venus, as van der Waerden would do, are two entirely different things. And what van der Waerden and others have done is hardly a matter of correcting "inner contradictions". The fact that uniformitarians can think and speak of these things as "inner contradictions" is only symptomatic of how deeply ingrained the astronomers' dogma is. It just never occurs to its victims that they are making any assumptions at all. As far as they are concerned, if the historical record conflicts with modern retro-calculations, there must be some defect in the historical record, and it is perfectly all right to refer to this defect as an "inner contradiction." The intransigence of this attitude is one of the barriers that Velikovsky ran into in 1950. Worlds in Collision devotes pages 198-200 to the Venus tablets. The approach is very cautious: Velikovsky does not claim to know when they originated, or even what orbits of Venus or of Earth could have produced such observations. But he does claim, quite correctly, that the present orbits of Venus and Earth could not have produced such observations, and that if the tablets have any reliability at all, then we must admit that Venus was not moving on its present orbit at the time the obervations were made. Velikovsky thus became the first propose a non-unifomriatarian approach to the tablets. The story from here on is probably familiar to most persons attending this conference. You will recall that the Venus tablets came up in Payne- Gaposchkin's review, where she appealed to Sarton and to Langdon and Fotheringham. Payne-Gaposchkin's errors of several sorts were reworded by Kaempffert, with such improvements as the substitution of "3000 B.C." for "third millennium" (which had itself been a substitute for Kugler's "1977- 1956"). Then Edmondson copied both the errors and the words of both Payne- Gaposchkin and Kaempffert. The irony is that both Velikovsky and his critics were drawing upon exactly the same evidence, namely, the Babylonian-Venus tablets. But when you examine the content of those tablets, they turn out to support Velikovsky and not his critics. Those uniformitarians who do take tablets seriously seem to be either unfamiliar with or oblivious to their contents. How else could Kaempffert say that the Babylonians "saw the planet exactly as we see it?" How else coud Stephens say that: "As I consider the texts in their entirety I get quite the opposite impression [i.e., that Venus was not moving irregularly at the time these observations were made]"? How else could Neugebauer say that: "From the purely astronomical viewpoint these observations are not very remarkable"? Such statements fly in the face of the Venus tablets, for there is no way the tablets can be reconciled with the present motions of Venus, except by denying, in one way or another, that the Babylonians saw what they saw. I would now like to conclude with a brief progress report concerning the efforts that Raymond Vaughan and I are making to try to find orbits of Earth and of Venus first will fit the recorded observations. Our first move, as you might suspect, was to ignore the astronomers' dogma, and to try to make no rash assumptions about what sorts of orbits we would find. Instead, we tried as far as possible to take the tablet reports as accurate descriptions of what was actually seen, even though they do seem to be marred by (1) a few serious textual inconsistencies of the sort discussed earlier; (2) a socre or so minor discrepancies about dates, many of which amount to only a day or two; and (3) several contradictory readings about "east" and "west," none of which presents any major difficulty. I pointed out to you a little earlier that the events on the tablets do follow a pattern of sorts- not the present pattern, but a pattern of sorts- in that an invisibility at superior conjunction is followed by an invisibility at inferior conjunction, then there is another invisibility at superior conjunction, and so on. In order for this kind of sequence to continue without an interruption, as it does, the orbits of the two planets must lie in nearly the same plane; otherwise, some conjunctions would not be accompanied by invisibility, or, if the inclination of the orbital planes were great enough, the very concept of a "conjunction" with the Sun might lose much of its importance, as it does, for example, in the case of comets. At least for the time being, therefore, we decided to ignore any motions in latitude. It should be recognized that a near collision between Earth and another planet would likely have changed the length of the day, the length of the month, and the length of the year. So if the tablets refer to some state of affairs prior ti such a near collision, we cannot be certain what was meant by the words "day," "month," and "year." But in a ratio of quantities, the units are irrelevant, so we decided to work in terms of ration of the period of Earth to the period of Venus. For purposes of our constructions, we chose to work with denonimators of 19. After investigating rations of 2/19, 4/19, 6/19, and so on, up to 36/19, we found that the ratio at the time of the observations was just about 31/19, or about 1.63, a little higher than the present ratio of about 1.625. Our lack of any definite units of time or distance was also a problem when we tried to deal with the sightings of Venus made from Earth, where the nature of the sighting depends both upon the size and eccentricity of the orbit being followed by Earth, and yet we were in no position to say anything about the actual sizes of the orbits. We found a way around this problem by working with changing heliocentric angular velocities, which provided a way of handling sightings and invisibilities without knowing the actual sizes of the orbits. Proceeding in that way, we found that the observations recorded for years one through nine seems to make sense with an Earth eccentricity of about .1 and a Venus eccentricity of about .15. Years ten through seventeen also make sense with Earth .1 and Venus .15, but the perihelion of Earth's orbit appears to have been shifted from where it was during years one through nine, so that you do not have the same state of affairs as before. Years nineteen through twenty-one make sense with Earth .0+ and Venus .15. These figures are tentative, and need to be tied down more precisely; and we also need to make sure that no better orbits for explaining the observations are available. At present, there are still seven spots at which the fit between the pattern of invisibilities recorded on the tablets and the patter of invisibilities that we constructed is less than satisfying. Six of these discrepancies vary from a few thousandths of a "year" to a few hundredths of a "year"; that is, from about a "day" or two to about ten "days" or so. I hope that we soon will have improved upon this by introducing slight changes and refinements into our model, for we still have considerable leeway for the further manipulation of the characteristics of the orbits. The only discrepancy I really worry about is the seventh and most serious of those I mentioned. Even if we manage to save all of the remaining phenomena, I see little chance that anything can be done to save this one, which is the eastern disappearance on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the eighth year. Our model requires that the invisibility ought to have begun at least a month earlier than that. There is some consolation in the fact that this phenomenon belongs to the eighth year, the one that was partially missing and that now contains the year-formula of Ammizaduga. There is further consolation in that no wholesale rewriting of the text is involved: if one word, the name of the month Adar, could be changed to Sabat, that would be enough to make things right. But perhaps we should not apologize at all for this one discordant reading, for in doing well by all but one of the phenomena we have already avoided the past practice of having to rewrite most or even nearly all of the recorded observations. The ration of the period of Earth to the period of Venus for years one through nine is very close to 31/19; and the ratio for years ten through seventeen is slightly less than 31/19, and the ratio for years nineteen through twenty-one is slightly greater than 31/19. Since there is no sign here of any definite change in theorbit of Venus, this change in the ratios would presumably be due to a change in Earth's orbit; and this suggests that Earth's orbit in years one through nine was slightly greater than in years ten through seventeen and slightly smaller than in years nineteen through twenty-one, if the length of the day and the length of the month were not altered enough to distort the observers' estimate of the length of the year to such a degree that this inference about the sizes of Earth's successive orbits would be inavlidated. That is a big "if." In none of these three states of affairs do the orbits of Venus and Earth intersect; thus it seems clear than no collision between Earth and Venus was imminent at the time of these observations. Neither a very large Venus orbit, nor a highy eccentric one (say, .3 or greater), nor a Venus orbit that was highly inclined to the ecliptic, could have produced the observations recorded on the tablets. This does not mean, of course, that at some other point in time- presumably earlier- Venus could not have had a very large orbit, or a highly eccentric one, or one that was highly inclined to the eclipitic, but it does mean that such things were not going on at the time of these observations. But what was the time of these observations? Since the ratio of the periods of Earth and Venus in each of the three situations is so close to what it is now, it seems unlikely that the observations date from very far before the present orbits of Earth and Venus were established. If we use Velikovsky's own theory as a guide in trying to date the observations, a favorable period would appear to be the eighth century, when Earth and Venus were perhaps not very far from their present orbits (compared, at least, to where they had been at earlier times) and yet were on orbits that were definitely not the same as their present orbits. If it was Mars that was the main threat during this period, it may be that the change in Earth's orbit at about year nine was due to a near collision with Mars; the atmospheric opacity and the disruption of living conditions that would result from such a near collision might explain why Venus was not observed for a period of nine months and four days. A similar Earth-Mars perturbation might have been responsible for the transition from the year ten through year seventneen state of affairs to the year nineteen through year twenty-one state of affairs. It seems clear, then, that our findings not only are consistent with Velikovsky's theory, but also may be regarded as porviding further confirmation of his theory. It should be noted that if the Venus observations do indeed date from the eighth century, then they have nothing to do with Ammizaduga, and the later insertion of Ammizaduga's year-formula was an ancient error. Hommel suggests that this insertion was made by a scribe during the reign of Ashurbanipal (although we saw that the signature on W. 1924. 802 seems to preclude that late a date for the insertion). But whenever it was done, this error was presumably caused by the coincidence that the Venus observations and the reign of Ammizaduga both covered twenty-one years. If these observations do date from the eighth century, any attempt to connect them with Ammizaduga would invovle an error of from seven to twelve centuries, depending upon just when it was that Ammizaduga actually reigned. The catch-phrase, "the Venus tablets of Ammizaduga", has a nice ring to it, but it may be time to give it up as obsolete. In closing, I would emphasize that these results that Raymond Vaughan and I have reached so far are still tentative; our work is by no means completed, and there are numerous questions that remain to be investigated. ........... end