Babylonian Planetary Omens, part three.

• Author: WESTENHOLZ, ULLA KOCH
• Position: Review

Babylonian Planetary Omens, part three. By ERICA REINER, with DAVID PINGREE. Cuneiform Monographs, vol. 11. Groningen: STYX PUBLICATIONS, 1998. Pp. viii + 290. HEI 185.

This is the very welcome third volume in the ongoing edition of planetary and stellar omens from the Babylonian astrological series Enuma Anu Enlil (EAE), published by Erica Reiner and David Pingree. In the present vol. are collected compilations of Venus omens other than those included in EAE tablet 63, the so-called "Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa" published in Babylonian Planetary Omens, vol. 1 (Malibu: Undena, 1975). The present edition contains a brief general introduction (pp. 1-2), a thorough discussion of the relevant astronomical terminology and phenomena (pp. 3-28), a catalogue of texts edited (pp. 275-78), and finally an index to words in protases only (pp. 279-90). All texts are presented in full transliteration in score format, with translation and introductory notes. The authors' main focus is on the astronomical rather than the divinatory aspects of the texts.

The largest group of planetary omens in EAE, about five or six tablets, concerns Venus. Unfortunately most of these tablets have only survived in bits and pieces and cannot be reconstructed today. The material edited in the present volume is unwieldy and its exact relation to, and place within, the astrological series is often difficult or impossible to determine. Besides the main series, a proliferation of commentary, extraneous compilations, and excerpts obviously existed in antiquity, and this severely complicates the task of the modern editor, Instead of presenting and classifying the fragments as very tentative tablets 58-62, the authors have divided the texts and fragments into seven groups, dubbed A-G, in order to represent clearly their theory concerning the historical development of Venus omens. [1] Comments and a survey of how the texts interrelate and duplicate other texts, especially the hemerology Iqqur ipus [2] and the astrological reports, introduce each group. [3] The main groups are A, C, an d F, while the other groups are partly derived from these three and from Iqqur ipus. Group G contains fragments that cannot be placed at all. Group A thus contains what appear to be the oldest omens and group F the latest additions. Group A omens, at least to some extent, belong in tablet 61. According to the commentaries, group C omens stem from tablets 59 and 60, and group F could belong in either...