page_title: Babylonian astronomy
section_title: MUL.APIN
hierarchical_section_title: Babylonian astronomy / Old Babylonian astronomy / MUL.APIN
caption_attribution_description: English: Asset number 152339001 Description Clay tablet with two columns of inscription. Astronomical treatise, tablet 1 of the series Mul-Apin ("the plough star") which includes a list of the three divisions of the heavens, the dates (in the ideal 360-day year) of the rising of principal stars and of those which rise and set together, and the constellations in the path of the moon; nearly complete.
context_page_description: Babylonian astronomy was the study or recording of celestial objects during early history Mesopotamia. These records can be found on Sumerian clay tablets, inscribed in cuneiform, dated to around 1000 BCE.
  In conjunction with their mythology, the Sumerians developed a form of astronomy/astrology that had an influence on Babylonian culture. Therein Planetary gods played an important role.
  Babylonian astronomy seemed to have focused on a select group of stars and constellations known as Ziqpu stars. These constellations may have been collected from various earlier sources. The earliest catalogue, Three Stars Each, mentions stars of the Akkadian Empire, of Amurru, of Elam and others.
  A numbering system based on sixty was used, a sexagesimal system. This system simplified the calculating and recording of unusually great and small numbers. The modern practices of dividing a circle into 360 degrees, of 60 minutes each, began with the Sumerians.
  During the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Babylonian astronomers developed a new empirical approach to astronomy.
context_section_description: MUL.APIN is a collection of two cuneiform tablets (Tablet 1 and Tablet 2) that document aspects of Babylonian astronomy such as the movement of celestial bodies and records of solstices and eclipses. Each tablet is also split into smaller sections called Lists. It was comprised in the general time frame of the astrolabes and Enuma Anu Enlil, evidenced by similar themes, mathematical principles, and occurrences.
  Tablet 1 houses information that closely parallels information contained in astrolabe B.  The similarities between Tablet 1 and astrolabe B show that the authors were inspired by the same source for at least some of the information.  There are six lists of stars on this tablet that relate to sixty constellations in charted paths of the three groups of Babylonian star paths, Ea, Anu, and Enlil. there are also additions to the paths of both Anu and Enlil that are not found in astrolabe B.
caption: Mul.apin cuneiform tablet
exif: {}