Book Review: The Chronology of Old Babylon, Die Venustafeln des Ammī-⋅aduqa und ihre Bedeutung für die astronomische Datierung der altbabylonischen Zeit

THE CHRONOLOGY OF OLD BABYLON Die Venustafeln des Ammi-saduqa und ihre Bedeutung fur die astronomische Datierung der altbabylonischen Zeit. Joachim Mebert (Archiv fur Orientforschung Beiheft, xxxi; Berger & Sohne, Horn, 2010). Pp. 179. 38 (paperback). ISBN 3-900345-10-4.In 1912 F. X. Kugler discovered among the omens on the sixty-third tablet of the Babylonian celestial omen series Enuma Anu Enlil a reference to the "Year of the Golden Throne" which he identified with the eighth year of the Old Babylonian king Ammi-saduqa. Tablet 63 of Enuma Anu Enlil contains a series of omens referring to the dates of Venus's first visibility and first invisibility in the morning and evening. Kugler suggested that, contrary to the other tablets of Enuma Anu Enlil which contain pure omens, tablet 63 contains reports of observations which had been codified as omens. If this suggestion is correct, then the Venus data on Enuma Anu Enlil tablet 63 (commonly referred to as "the Venus Tablet of Ammi-saduqa") potentially provides the means to establish the date of the reign of Ammi-saduqa and hence to provide a fixed point to pin the floating, relative chronology of the early second millennium b.c. known from king lists and other historical documents.Many attempts to date the Venus Tablet of Ammi-saduqa have been made in the hundred years since Kugler' s discovery. By the middle of the twentieth century, three possible chronologies had emerged: a high chronology in which Ammi-saduqa year 1 = -1710, a middle chronology with Ammi-saduqa year 1 = -1645, and a low chronology with Ammi-saduqa year 1 = -1581. Most Assyriologists and historians of the ancient Near East have adopted the middle chronology, but on no other grounds than that it is a convenient compromise and appears in all the standard reference works. In recent years, several scientifically-trained scholars have argued in favour of other chronologies: P. J. Huber has made a forceful case for the long chronology by combining evidence from the Venus Tablet with eclipse omens from Enuma Anu Enlil tablets 20 and 21 which he believes refer to specific observations as well as month-length data taken from economic documents.1 V. G. Gurzadyan in a much criticized analysis has argued for a super-short chronology with Ammi-saduqa year 1 = -1549. 2 And most recently, T de Jong and V Foertmeyer have argued for Ammisaduqa year 1 = -1637 on the basis of a possible connection with the eruption of the volcano on Thera.3The book under review presents a new and detailed study of the Venus Tablet of Ammi-saduqa and its use in determining Old Babylonian chronology. Mebert begins by discussing the Venus Tablet itself. It has long been recognized that the tablet as it may be reconstructed from preserved copies is corrupt in various ways. Mebert provides a useful study of the structure of the tablet in order to extract a subset of the omens which he believes are reliable. In order to investigate the dates of Venus's visibility phenomena found in these omens, Mebert first investigates Late Babylonian observations of Venus in order to establish values for the arcus visionis of the phenomena of Venus for Babylon. He then uses these values to calculate the dates of Venus's visibility during the early second millennium b.c. which can then be compared with dates extracted from the Venus Tablet. Next, Mebert compares preserved mo nth -length data from the Old Babylonian period with calculated month lengths. By combining the results from these two types of evidence, he concludes that the most likely date for the first year of Ammi-saduqa is -1573. Finally, Mebert investigates other evidence - most of it historical rather than astronomical - to see whether there are any contradictions with his proposed chronology and to provide supporting evidence of his proposed chronological equation. …