igoSj IN BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. 667 



thus at a comparatively early age the seeds for a genuine science of 

 astronomy were planted. The fact, however, is significant that, 

 with perhaps some exceptions, we have in the library of Ashur- 

 banapal, representing to a large extent copies from older originals, 

 no texts that can properly be called astronomical." For this reason 

 a reaction has set in among Assyriologists against the view 

 formerly held that astronomy was cultivated at an early period in 

 Babylonia and Assyria."" It is certainly significant that the astronom- 

 ical tablets so far found belong to the latest period and in fact to the 

 age following apon the fall of the Babylonian empire.^'' While we 

 must be warned against pressing the argument c.v silcntio too far, 

 still there is sufficient evidence to warrant the conclusion that the 

 most glorious period of Babylonian astronomy falls in the fourth to 

 the second centuries before this era, that is to say, within the period 

 of the Greek occupation of the Euphrates Valley. According to 

 Kugler,^^ the oldest dated genuinely astronomical tablet belongs to 

 the seventh year of Cambyses, i. e., 522 B. C, although it shows evi- 

 dence of having been revised on the basis of an older original. We 

 also find evidence of changes both in the astronomical terminology 

 and in the order of the planets after c. 400 B. C.,^^** so that while we 

 are justified in going back to the neo-Babylonian dynasty as the point 

 of departure for the beginnings of a genuine astronomical science, 

 it would be rash to go much farther back than this. At all events, 



"K. 9794 appears to be purely astronomical. See Bezold, 0. c, Vol. V., 

 p. XXV. and iii., p. 1039 ; also Jeremias, " das Alter der babylonischen Ast'o- 

 nomie " (Leipzig, 1908), p. 21. 



°^ For a fuller discussion of the recent literature on the subject see 

 Jastrow, 0, c, IL, pp. 232-434. Kugler, in '" Kulturhistorische Bedeutung der 

 Babylonischen Astronomic " (Vcreiusschriftcn der Gorres-Gcsellschaft, 1907, 

 IIL, pp. 38-50), maintains the late origin of Babjdonian astronomy. His 

 views have been accepted by Boll, " die Erforschung der Antiken Astrologie " 

 in Ncue Jahrbiiclicr fiir das Klassische Altertum, i. Abteilung, Bd. XXL, 

 pp. 103-126) and others, while Jeremias ("das Alter der babylonischen 

 Astronomic") and the adherents of the Winckler school cling to the view that 

 astronomy took its rise in the early period of Babylonian history. For a 

 general summary of our present knowledge of Babylonian astronomy, on the 

 basis chiefly of Kugler's researches, see the two articles by Schiaparelli in the 

 Rivista di Scienza, IIL, pp. 213-259, and IV., pp. 24-54. 



" See Kugler, " Sternkunde nnd Sterndienst in Babel," I., p. 2. 



^° Sternkunde, p. 61. 



^ o. c, pp. 12, 13, 22, 62, etc. 



