The description of the invisible moon at Edfu

J. Althoff, D. Berrens & T. Pommerening (Hrsg.), Construction and Transfer of Knowledge about Man and Nature in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Bielefeld 2019, 277–284., 2019

This contribution summarizes the papers of the conference panel “Of Men and Moon”, which focuses on the temporally and spatially related cultures of Central Europe, the Mediterranean, Ancient Egypt and the Near East, and aims at an overview of the manifold interpretations and concepts of the moon in different cultures. A broad spectrum of the knowledge about the moon in Antiquity is presented and possible ways and mechanisms of transfer and adoption of concepts of the moon are discussed. transcript Verlag - Bielefeld For the complete volume: https://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-4236-0 https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/510824 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No-Derivatives 4.0 (BY-NC-ND) which means that the text may be used for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

KASKAL 20 (2023) 183-214, 2024

The shadows on the visible region of the face of the Moon, the maria, which contrast with the brighter “highlands” on the lunar surface, remnants of meteoric impacts and volcanic eruptions, have always inspired people to see certain shapes in the lunar disc. The most common pareidolic images seen on the Moon are a human figure (a man, a woman, a boy or just a face) or an animal (e.g. a rabbit, a toad, a moose, a buffalo or a dragon).2 Narratives tell the underlying stories and explain how and why that image came to be on the Moon. Knowing this narrative makes it easier to recognise the figure in question, which is why narrative and figure reinforce each other. For the tradition of Ancient Mesopotamia, we have both an image incised into the surface of a clay tablet (VAT 7851) and what can be understood as a verbal description of this image (VAT 8917 rev. 5-6; KAR 307), while the underlying narrative remains unknown. Both sources have been discussed in detail but interpreted differently.

KASKAL 14, 55-74, 2017

EAE 20, edited by Rochberg-Halton 1988: 174-229, is the tablet with the most detailed description of lunar eclipse omens of the series and unlike other omen tablets it is thoroughly recorded in two Recensions. The omens most probably drew on sources from the second millennium BCE with only minor revision, since it comprises some peculiarities that are not common in the first millennium BCE. First, it has the intercalary month nisannu (I.a) instead of the intercalary addaru (XII.a). Second, it has the term šurinnu that refers to the appearance of the moon during both one of his phases and his eclipse (see 4. Excursus: The šurinnu (ŠU.NIR) of the moon). The explanations for šurinnu provided by a Late Babylonian commentary from Uruk for the phenomenon that Venus entered “in his šurinnu” inside the moon (horn; the black in the middle of the moon; the ominous radiation of the eclipse) are too vague to define its exact meaning. Since šurinnu is also used as general term for a divine emblem, it most likely refers to a distinctively observable characteristic for the moon, which would be his crescent. The three terms for phases of the waxing moon (crescent, kidney and crown of glory) have no parallel for the waning one. Therefore šurinnu more likely refers to the waning moon, and most likely to the last phase of the cycle, shortly before the moon disappears and before new moon appears, or shortly before the eclipse was completed. The completion of the cycle of lunar phases or the progress of eclipsing might even have symbolised the time when the moon was most powerful as an ominous sign (see the commentary: ominous radiation of the eclipse). In this article three new fragments of EAE 20 are published, two from Nineveh and one from Late Babylonian Babylonia.

2017

The most spectacular celestial event to be observed during the night is the lunar eclipse. Slowly, a dark shadow slides over the full moon, and the nightly source for light gradually ceases. When the moon is completely covered, no more moonlight lightens the night. The moon god has disappeared. All of a sudden, the shadow moves on and eventually leaves the moon uncovered and shining as usual. Because of the impression a lunar eclipse made on people, distinct rituals were performed to make the moon reappear so that the world order would be re-established (e.g. BRM 4, 6, see BRM 4 pp. 12-17). In order to be prepared well ahead for such events, lunar eclipses have also been the subject of predictions in various other divination methods from the Old Babylonian period onwards (Khait 2014, 79-82). And since lunar eclipses can generally be watched twice or thrice during a lifetime, people and especially astronomers began to observe the exact movement of the shadow progressing over the moon's disk as well as the time the eclipse begins and ends. Naturally, just as with every other celestial event, lunar eclipses were considered ominous signs and individual occurrences were connected with specific predictions. Because of the frequency of lunar eclipses omens referred to them are found on the earliest omen texts from the Old Babylonian period (Rochberg 2006; Fincke 2016, 114-115). The omen series enūma ānu enlil (EAE) devoted eight tablets, EAE 15-22, to lunar eclipses. Francesca Rochberg-Halton edited these tablets in 1988. On the basis of this edition more fragments can be identified in the various collections of cuneiform tablets. In this article, more duplicates of EAE lunar eclipse tablets from both the Koujunjik collection and the so-called collection of Babylonian Tablet from the British Museum for the tablets EAE 15-19 will be presented

The Moon: A Voyage Through Time, 2019

The moon played a major role in the ancient Middle Eastern world as a celestial body, as a material measure of time and temporality, as a site for predicting the future, and as a benevolent god of abundance, prosperity, and in certain places, even healing. In this essay, I discuss both the veneration and the visualization of the moon in Pre-Islamic (ritual) contexts to provide a visual-historical biography of the moon, which was imagined both as a divine presence and as a cosmic actor. For the sake of brevity and coherence, I will focus on the ancient Mesopotamian engagements with the moon during the Bronze and Iron Ages, and pursue the very popular cult of the moon in Hellenistic and Roman Anatolia. In doing so, as an art historian, my biased focus is on the various apparitions of the moon on monuments, works of art, and the artifacts of visual culture, which will help me narrate its story. Contrary to the modern scientific vision of the moon as a “lifeless, rocky satellite,”3 the protagonist of this new materialist tale is no less than a major cosmic actor, a vibrant and powerful god who shaped and safeguarded the everyday life and fate of humanity. New materialism urges us to return to the matter, liberating it as much as possible from the ontological straitjacket of anthropocentric idealism, symbolism, and classification.

Time and History in the Ancient Near East Proceedings of the 56th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Barcelona 26–30 July 2010 edited by L. Feliu, J. Llop, A. Millet Albà, and J. Sanmartín, Winona Lake, 2013

The moon had a particular importance in the III millennium Mesopotamian society, being the basis of the Ur III calendar, of the daily life, and of the religious cult. It was in fact the astral representation of the moon-god Nanna/Sîn. Thus its first visual representation, as a crescent with its hump toward down, belongs to this period. But the moon isn’t only a crescent. It has different phases: from the crescent to the full moon and vice-versa. Aim of this paper is to analyze the representation of the moon and its meaning in its two main phases (new moon and full moon) on the Ur III glyptic, as representation of a specific time and a specific temporal event of the Ur III lunar calendar.

KASKAL 16, 95-132, 2019

Each of the five lunar eclipse tablets of the omen series enūma anu enlil (EAE) describes a specific lunar eclipse and interprets it for each of the twelve months.1 Both EAE 21 and 22 part I describe possible lunar eclipses for days 14, 15, 16, 20 and 21 of each month (I-XII), neglecting the intercalary month (XIIa). Since the beginning of the month is defined as the first visibility of the moon sickle after a new moon, a lunar eclipse can occur on days 14, 15 and 16. A lunar eclipse on days 20 or 21, when the third quarter of the moon phase begins, implies that the world order is in chaos, indicating chaos also on earth. The Babylonian Almanac (Livingstone 2013, 5-82) is a tool for identifying the right day for certain activities, but it also gives hints at selected phenomena in the sky that may be observed on that day. Surprisingly, a lunar eclipse is predicted for day 20 of the month tašrītu (VII) in the Middle Babylonian version from Dūr-Kurigalzu as well as in the early Neo-Assyrian one from Kalḫu, while the other copies predict a solar eclipse on that day (Livingstone 2013, 45). Although the understanding of lunar eclipses occurring on days 20 and 21 might go back to a mythological understanding of the lunar phases in the second millennium BCE or to a different calendar, these dates are purely hypothetical in the first millennium BCE. Since a lunar eclipse generally points to a disturbance in the sky and is therefore a potential negative ominous sign, the prediction for lunar eclipses on days 20 and 21 are not specifically more negative than the others. The EAE lunar eclipse tablets have been edited in detail by Francesca Rochberg-Halton in 1988. Based on her text edition, more fragments from Nineveh were identified and listed by Erica Reiner 1998. When examining the collections of tablets of the British Museum from the first millennium, I was able to add a few joins to the sources from Nineveh used by Rochberg-Halton and to identify more fragments among the tablets from Babylonia. The new material for EAE tablets 21 (1.a.–c.) and 22 (2.a. and b.) will be presented here. I shall use the reconstructed text from Rochberg-Halton’s edition as a base into which I incorporate the text of the new texts, with the scores showing only the transliteration of the new texts.

Journal of The Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, Vol. 68, 2020

Awarded a commendation in the international Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society Young Writers Award 2019, this paper examines Ibn 'Arabi's references to the Moon as a metaphor for man becoming illuminated by the light of the God. It compares the astronomical process of the Moon's illumination over the course of twenty-eight days to Ibn 'Arabi's notion of the twenty-eight spiritual waystations, concluding that the Full Moon can be thought to represent the Sufi idea of the 'polished mirror'.

in J.C. Fincke (ed.), Divination in the Ancient Near East, Winona Lake, 2014, pp. 91-104, 2014

In this article I analyze the halo of the moon in ancient Mesopotamian sources, underlying the relation on a symbolical plan with the bovine element and on the interpretative level with weather forecasting (parapegmata).

According to Mircea Eliade, supported by evidence from the history of ancient religions, the Moon was crucial in the first mental synthesis of mankind, which we inherited. In particular, it was fundamental to the first perceptions and measurements of time by early societies and expressed symbolically the cosmic unity. We suggest here that prehistoric remains (monuments, astral orientations, artefacts) may help us to go deeper in time, and understand the importance of the first lunar observations and symbolizations in human thought.