8. The Babylonians and Astrology

The Babylonian’s were the first civilization known to possess a functional theory of the planets. The oldest astronomical manuscript of the planets were the Babylonian Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa of 7^th Century BC. The Babylonian Astrologers laid the foundation of Western Astrology. The book named as Enuma anu enlil written during Neo-Assyrian period comprises a list of omens and their relationship of various celestial phenomena connected with the movements of planets. Many Scholars agree that Metonic cycles had been learnt by the Greeks from Babylonian scribes. Meton of Athens, a Greek astronomer of the 5th century BCE, developed a luni-solar calendar based on 19 solar years is equal to 235 lunar months in which a periodic relation was maintained. In the 4th century, Eudoxus of Cnidus was the great personality who properly applied mathematics to Astronomy. His descriptions of many constellations covered twelve signs of the zodiac almost similar to Babylonian origin. He devised an ingenious planetary system based on spheres identifying the recession of nodes. He identified the homocentric spheres of the moon and its rotation period was fixed at 27 days, 5 hours, 5 minutes. The century of Aristarchus of Samos used an ecliptic cycle of Babylonian origin called the Saros Cycle to determine the period of the year. The Babylonians used lunisolar calendar of 12 months which begins from new crescents visible on the west horizon at sunset. From the new moon day onwards, Babylonians distinguished every seventh day a holiday as an evil day. Modern Astrology is indebted to Babylonians for the useful concept of the zodiac and for contributing the fractions of time with minutes and seconds of modern astronomical calculations originated from Numbering System.