145 
1894.] Gr. Thibaut —Babylonian Origin of the Lunar Zodiac. 
state as an undoubted fact, what certainly was only a fairly plausible 
conjecture, was what generally happens in such cases, and can in no 
way be laid to the fault of the distinguished author of the hypothesis. 
At the time when Professor Weber first formulated his views on 
the probable origin of the Nakshatras (to use the term by which the 
Hindus designate the constituent asterisms of their lunar zodiac), 
hardly anything was known about the astronomical doctrines of the 
Babylonians, but what we learn from Greek and Roman authors. These 
writers do not indeed say anything about a lunar zodiac ; but as their 
accounts cannot be considered as in any way exhaustive, no great stress 
could be laid upon this absence of testimony on a particular point. 
During the last forty years, however, rapid progress has been made in 
the decipherment of the original records of Babylonian and Assyrian 
literature, i.e ., the very numerous inscriptions in cuneiform characters 
engraved on stone and clay tablets, which have been excavated from 
the heaps of ruins covering ancient Chaldean soil, and are at present 
preserved in the great Museums of Europe, principally the British 
Museum. Among these records of the past, numerous texts of astrono¬ 
mical and astrological character came to light, some of which have been 
published — chiefly in the ‘ Inscriptions of Western Asia,’ edited by the 
authorities of the British Museum, — and several scholars, soon after, 
attempted to elucidate the meaning of those difficult documents. Of 
the scope and value of these earlier attempts to re-construct the system 
of Chaldean astronomy we cannot speak here in detail. To the general 
difficulties besetting all interpretation of cuneiform documents, there are 
added, in the case of astronomical texts, special difficulties of a truly 
formidable nature, and we, therefore, need not be astonished, when find¬ 
ing, that, for some time, no results were reached that could be accepted 
with any confidence. As far as the question of the lunar zodiac is con¬ 
cerned, nothing was discovered that favoured the hypothesis of its 
Chaldean origin. But owing to the fragmentary nature of the texts 
interpreted, and the doubts attaching to the interpretations, there was, 
after all, no reason for giving up the hope that evidence confirming 
that hypothesis might be traced at some future time. 
A few years ago, however, an enormous advance in our knowledge 
of Babylonian Astronomy was effected by the publication of the results 
of the researches which two distinguished scholars, Fathers Epping and 
Strassmaier, had carried on in co-operation . 1 F. Strassmaier had suc¬ 
ceeded in discovering, among the treasures of the British Museum, 
some astronomical tablets which were distinguished from the mass of 
1 F. Epping S. J., Astronomisches aus Babylon. Freiburg, 1889. 
