In the Path of the Moon: Babylonian Celestial Divination and Its Legacy.

• Author: Montelle, Clemency
• Position: Book review

In the Path of the Moon: Babylonian Celestial Divination and Its Legacy. By FRANCESCA ROCHBERG. Studies in Ancient Magic and Divination, vol. 6. Leiden: BRILL, 2010. Pp. xxii + 445, frontispiece. $216.

In the late eighties Francesca Rochberg published her first monograph, Aspects of Babylonian Celestial Divination: The Lunar Eclipse Tablets of Enuma Anu Enlil (Horn: Ferdinand Berger und Sohne, 1988), which examined aspects of Babylonian celestial divination through an exacting and thorough critical edition and analysis of the lunar eclipse tablets from the major omen compendium Enigma Anu Enlil. This seminal work set the tone for her subsequent researches on the ancient Near Eastern scientific traditions, and since then she has been producing various pivotal scholarly articles, as well as two important monographs, Babylonian Horoscopes (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1998) and The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004), on the divination tradition, its wider cultural context, and its status and legacy within broader trajectories in the History of Science.

Her latest monograph, reviewed here, collects these papers and presents them in a single volume. Twenty-one previously published articles have been assembled, contextualized by a detailed introduction, and supplemented by a substantial bibliography. The ordering of the papers is largely by publication date (although three chapters, 16, 18, and 21, are still in press). Thus, in addition to the rewards of the content, it is immensely satisfying to consider, on a more holistic level, the evolution of reflection and rumination of this scholar over almost three decades. Her scholarship proves to be unfailingly meticulous, thought-provoking, and insightful.

Rochberg's chief intention is to collect her key articles pertaining to Babylonian celestial divination, horoscopy, astronomy, and their legacy, particularly in the Greco-Roman world, for scholars who are increasingly interested in the development and transmission of these areas. The primary advantage of republishing these articles is having them together in a single and easily accessible place; no doubt an indirect benefit will be an increased prominence of this area of inquiry in the wider scholarly community. While some bibliographic updating has been done via footnotes, the content of the contributions remains untouched. This feature is quite remarkable and a testament to the quality of Rochberg's work over the years; even early papers continue to command relevance and coherence, even though more texts...