Sumerian Advanced Astronomical Knowledge That Still Remains A Mystery For Historians

[Music] before we discuss anything regarding astronomy or astrology we must understand that in the ancient world there was no distinction between these two subjects they were one in the same in civilization today we seem to be heavily focused on astronomy and have little regard for astrology our view of astrology however is distorted to the one of the past with the addition of variant forms of astrology Chinese Vedic and Western the astronomy astrology of the past was known as the Royal science it was the rulers pharaohs and God kings of the ancient world who possessed the power of these subjects an elite sect of astronomer priests who were under the command of the Royal emperors it was an innocent science and practice developed by the Sumerians that became abused by later successors by the time of neo Babylonia the astrology was a dominant aspect primarily for divination and control of the populace utilizing the framework of astronomical study like all information that's passed between cultures there's an advancement metamorphism either through manipulation or evolution in concept or both particularly the god kings of Mesopotamia you've seen the names of gods and their attributes are interwoven with astronomical detail as detailed in the Kings list you'll have seen the academic procedures of the clever Sumerians with incredible advancements we still struggle to comprehend we see advanced calculus being used to calculate positions of planets now we're going to get into the body of astronomical knowledge they had the hard core framework of what they knew about the stars planets motions of the heavens precession comets and cycles is earth shattering we will address the Nibiru and nygma briefly reserving full analysis for a special episode as it's such a huge controversial subject masked in layers of mystery it's a little-known fact but the Babylonians had a comprehensive star catalog for academic study something we do today in the modern world of astrophysics the 18th century Messier catalog was the first compiled by Charles Messier and lists 100 objects nowadays we have much bigger ones the NGC catalog of seven thousand objects and the monstrous IC index catalogue the Babylonian version we call the moola pin star catalog the conventional title from cuneiform texts is conceptually a masterpiece of what we call modern thinking it wasn't rivaled until messy A's catalog in 1771 the moola pin was likely compiled around 1000 BC the tax lists the names of sixty-six stars some version 71 and constellations and further gives several indications such as rising setting and culmination dates that helped to map out the basic structure of the sophisticated Babylonian star map again the Babylonians inherited this legacy from the Sumerians as a hand-me-down both cultures are both often referred to as star mappers of the ancient world the Babylonian star map and the moola pin catalog are testament to this the mole append text is named for their incipit corresponding to the first constellation of the Year moola pen also known as the plough identified with Triangulum plus gamma Andromeda constellation the earliest copy of the text so far discovered was made in 686 BC however most scholars now believe that the text was originally compiled around 1000 BC with the latest copies of moola pin are currently dated to around 300 BC astrophysicist Bradley Schaefer claims that the observations reported in these tablets were made in the region of a sewer around the year thirteen seventy BC the moolah pinned by this standard was an ancient library document record tablet one of the mula pen has been instrumental for reconstructing the Babylonian star chart another genius concept to aid in mapping the Stars its various sections locate the constellations in relation to each other and to the calendar all the major stars and constellations are listed and organized into three broad divisions according to celestial latitude allocating each star to three paths utilizing the names of deities and gods the northern path of Enlil containing 33 stars or constellations the presumably equatorial path of Anu containing 23 stars or constellations and the southern path of EA containing 15 stars or constellations most of these stars and constellations are further attributed to a variety of Near Eastern deities the Halal rising dates of 34 stars and constellations are given according to the 360 day ideal calendar year the Hylian is what gives us Swiss watch precision of dating as the Halal rising occurs only once every twenty five thousand nine hundred twenty years accounting for precision the obsession with measuring the Halal rising is yet another commonality with Egypt and other cultures [Music] the details on the mule up in text is unprecedented the list of stars and constellations that rise and set at the same time the number of days between the risings of various stars and constellations these stars and constellations that rise and culminate at the same time these stars on the path of the moon being the major constellations close to the ecliptic which includes all the Babylonian forerunners to the zodiac constellations the Dendera zodiac in Egypt and its mysterious origins is already there in textual form on cuneiform in Sumeria the intricate links between these two sister cultures are abundant even though the Babylonians used a loonie solar calendar which added an occasional 13th month to the calendar mola pen like most texts of Babylonian astrology uses an ideal year composed of twelve ideal months each of which was composed of an ideal 30 days in this scheme the equinoxes were set on the fifteenth day of the first and seventh month and these solstices on the fifteenth day of the 4th and 10th month the second tablet of Mullah pen is of greater interest to historians of science as it delivers many of the methods and procedures used by Babylonian astrologers to predict the movements of the Sun Moon and planets as well as the various methods used to regulate the calendar details of the names of the Sun the planets and the assertion that they all travel the same path as the Moon which stars are rising and which contain the full moon on these solstices and equinoxes to judge the disparity of the lunar and solar cycles recommendations for observing the appearance of certain stars and the direction of the wind at the time of their first appearance very approximate values for the number of days that each planet is visible and invisible during its observational cycle the four stars associated with the four directional winds the dates when the Sun is present each of the three stellar paths two types of intercalation scheme one uses the rising dates of certain stars while the other uses position of the moon in relation to the stars and constellations the relative duration of day and night at the solstices and equinoxes and the lengths of shadow cast by an omen at times of the day at the solstices and equinoxes a basic mathematical scheme giving the rising and setting times of the Moon in each month a selection of astrological omens there's some evidence that a third and so far unrecovered tablet was sometimes appended to the series it started with a section of scholarly explanations of celestial omens which brings us to the ultimate doomsday omens of the heavens evidence on a Babylonian cuneiform tablet recorded Halley's Comet in 164 BC came to light in recent years written by a Babylonian scribe about a rare phenomenon familiar to use as Halley's Comet the only short period comet visible to the naked eye the comet which previously had been in the East reported the ancient scribe in 164 BC became visible and passed along the path of EA in the West his words chronicled the appearance of Halley's Comet the tablet recorded the 164 BC passage of Halley's Comet is displayed alongside another describing the Comets return in 87 BC well the British Museum has had these Babylonian tablets for over a century they're references to the comet were only recognized in modern times these 76 year comet was also monitored by the Chinese for 2150 years from 240 BC onwards the significance of both these cultures is the precise dating and verification of the astronomical detail in chronologies the other significance is that comets have always been perceived as harbingers of doom for very good reason deeply embedded in the psyche of all ancient cultures and mythology we see astrology move away from behaviorism of people born at certain months people born under constellations and in Judah nation of the neo-babylonian period as there was a systematic demand for omens good or bad from the kingdoms rulers the origins of Western astronomy can be found in Mesopotamia and all Western efforts in the exact sciences modern knowledge of Sumerian astronomy is indirect via the earliest Babylonian star catalogues dating from about 1200 BC the fact that many star names appear in Sumerian suggests a continuity reaching into the early Bronze Age we have a date for the Babylonian star map putting it mysteriously in the 3rd millennium BC technically it should be called the Sumerian star map for its era yet it was found in the library of Ashurbanipal in Assyria in the 7th century BC what we can tell with this Babylonian star map is that in the 3rd millennium BC there was a sophisticated astronomy somehow astronomy went underground only to blossom again in the Babylonian era 1800 BC onwards Babylonian astronomy was like a Renaissance period which finally became embroiled in divination astrology in the neo-assyrian and neo-babylonian empire amazingly upon examination of the babylonian star map clay tablets it reveals a mysterious object in the skies it displays astronomical work as it is drawings of constellations on it and the text is known constellation names it has attracted a lot of attention but in over a hundred years yet nobody has come up with a convincing explanation as to what it is with modern computer programs that can simulate trajectories and reconstruct the night sky thousands of years ago the researchers have established what the planisphere tablet refers to it's a copy of the night notebook of an unknown Sumerian astronomer as he records the events in the sky before dawn in June 3123 BC Julian calendar half the tablet records planet positions and cloud cover the same as any other night but the other half of the tablet records an object large enough for its shape to be noted even though it's still in space presumably an asteroid during the 8th and 7th centuries BC Babylonian astronomers developed a new empirical approach to astronomy they began studying philosophy dealing with the ideal nature of the universe and began employing an internal logic within their predictive planetary systems this was an important contribution to astronomy and the philosophy of science and some scholars have thus referred to this new approach as the first scientific revolution this new approach to astronomy was adopted and further developed in Greek and Hellenistic astronomy classical Greek and Latin sources frequently used the term Chaldeans for the astronomers of Mesopotamia who were priests scribes specializing in astrology and other forms of divination the significant point of all this is that mere fragments of Babylonian astronomy have survived consisting largely of contemporary clay tablets containing astronomical Diaries ephemerides and procedural texts hence current knowledge of Babylonian astronomy is in a fragmentary state these surviving fragments show that Babylonian astronomy was the first successful attempt at giving a refined mathematical description of astronomical phenomena and that all subsequent varieties of scientific astronomy in the Hellenistic world in India in Islam and in the West depend upon Babylonian astronomy in decisive and fundamental ways just how old is Babylonian astronomy then old Babylonian astronomy was practiced during and after the first Babylonian Dynasty circa 1830 BC and before the neo-babylonian empire circus 626 bc from the Sumerian names and the Babylonian star chart showing Sumerian night skies in 3123 BC from Ashurbanipal library of 700 BC area it's obvious that Sumerians passed knowledge to Babylonians which by the time of 700 BC was descending into the dark ages it's best to think what we can learn from the fragments left behind instead of attributing who invented what and when clearly on multiple levels we see time and again the Babylonians as inheritors of knowledge of these Sumerians the Babylonians were the first to recognize that astronomical phenomena are periodic and apply mathematics to their predictions tablets dating back to the old babylonian period document the application of mathematics to the variation in the length of daylight over a solar year centuries of babylonian observations in celestial phenomena were recorded in the series of cuneiform tablets known as a Numa Anu Enlil the oldest significant astronomical text that we possess is tablet 63 of the Anu ma Anu Enlil the Venus tablet of Amissah dukkha which lists the first and last visible risings of venus over a period of about 21 years this is the earliest evidence that planetary phenomena were recognized as periodic the moola pin contains catalogues of stars and constellations as well as schemes for predicting Hilal risings and settings of the planets and lengths of daylight as measured by a water clock genome n' shadows and inner calculations the Babylonian texts arranges stars in strings that lie along declination circles thus measure right ascensions or time intervals all employees the Stars of the zenith which are also separated by given right ascension differences there are dozens of cuneiform Mesopotamian texts with real observation of eclipses mainly from Babylonia the Babylonians were the first civilization known to possess a functional theory of the planets the oldest surviving planetary astronomical text is the Babylonian Venus tablet of a Mesa dukkha a 7th century BC copy of a list of observations of the emotions of the planet Venus that probably dates as early as the 2nd millennium BC time and again we see 7th century BC copies survived of 2nd millennium BC data the Babylonian astrologers also laid the foundations of what would eventually become Western astrology via Numa Anu Enlil written during the neo-assyrian period in the 7th century BC it comprises a list of omens in their relationships with various celestial phenomena including the motions of the planets in contrast to the worldview presented in Mesopotamia and Assyria Babylonian literature particularly in Mesopotamian and Babylonian mythology very little is known about the cosmology and world view of the ancient Babylonian astrologers and astronomers this is largely due to the current fragmentary state of Babylonian planetary theory aweso YouTube Babylonian astronomy being independent from cosmology at the time nevertheless traces of cosmology can be found in Babylonian literature and mythology in Babylonian cosmology the earth and the heavens were depicted as a spacial hole even one of round shape with references to the circumference of heaven and earth and the totality of heaven and earth their worldview was not exactly geocentric either the idea of Geo centrist ISM where the center of the earth is the exact center of the universe did not yet exist in Babylonian cosmology but was established later by the Greek philosopher Aristotle on the heavens in contrast Babylonian cosmology suggested that the cosmos revolved around circularly with the heavens and the earth being equal and joined the Babylonians and their predecessors these Sumerians also believed in plurality of heavens and earths this idea dates to Sumerian incantations in the second millennium BC which refers to there being seven heavens and seven Earth's linked possibly chronologically to the creation by these seven generations of gods neo-babylonian astronomy refers to the astronomy developed by Chilean astronomers during the neo-babylonian eka mented Seleucid and Parthian periods of Mesopotamian history a significant increase in the quality and frequency of Babylonian observations appeared during the reign of Navin a sir 747 to 734 BC these systematic records of ominous phenomena in Babylonian astronomical Diaries that began at this time allowed for the discovery of a repeating 18-year sorrow cycle of lunar eclipses for example the Greco Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy later used Navin Oster's reign to fix the beginning of an era since he felt that the earliest usable observations began at this time Babylonian astrology as well as an Assyrian was a direct offshoot of Babylonian culture astrology takes its place as one of the two chief means at the disposal of the priests also known as the inspectors for ascertaining the will and intention of the gods using solar and lunar eclipses precise position of planets Babylonian astrology was the first organized system of astrology arising in the second millennium BC there's speculation that astrology of some form appeared in the Sumerian period in the 3rd millennium BC but the isolated references to ancient celestial omens dated to this period are not considered sufficient evidence to demonstrate an integrated theory of astrology this is largely a misunderstanding as ancient astrology the behavioral sunshine astrology from Sumerian and old Babylonian standards was completely different to neo-babylonian divination astrology the history of scholarly celestial divination is therefore generally reported to begin with late old Babylonian texts circa 1800 BC continuing through the middle babylonian and middle assyrian periods circa 1200 BC by the sixth century BC the extensive employment of omen based astrology can be evidenced in the compilation of a comprehensive reference work known as Enuma Anu Enlil its contents consisted of 70 cuneiform tablets comprising seven thousand celestial omens texts from this time also referred to an oral tradition the origin and content of which can only be speculated upon at that time Babylonian astrology was solely mundane and prior to the 7th century BC the practitioners understanding of astronomy was rudimentary there was clearly a dissent in the astronomy and an ascent in the omen astrology giving rise to two different fields because of their inability to accurately predict future celestial phenomena and planetary movement very far in advance interpretations were done as the phenomena occurred or slightly before by the fourth century however their mathematical methods had progressed enough to calculate future planetary positions with reasonable accuracy at which point extensive hemorrhoids began to appear the gods were also believed to present themselves in the celestial images of the planets or stars with whom they were associated evil celestial omens attached to any specific planet were therefore seen as indications of dissatisfaction or disturbance of the god that planet represented such indications were met with attempts to appease the God and find manageable ways by which the gods expression could be realized without significant harm to the king and his nation an astronomical report to the King Esarhaddon concerned a lunar eclipse of January 6 73 BC shows how the ritualistic use of substitute Kings or substitute events combined an unquestioning belief in magic and omens with a purely mechanical view that the astrological event must have some correlation with the natural world as follows in the Kingdom of the Year a flood will come and break the dikes when the moon has made the Eclipse the king my lord should write to me as a substitute for the king I will cut through a dike here in Babylonia in the middle of the night no one will know about it Lacock Western halts in her 1995 book Mesopotamian astrology argues that this ambivalence between a theistic and a mechanic's worldview defines the Babylonian concept of celestial divination as one which despite its heavy reliance on magic remains free of implications of targeted punishment with the purpose of revenge and so shares some of the defining traits of modern science its objective and value free it operates according to the known rules and its data are considered universally valid and can be looked up in written tabulations kok weston holds austell establishes the most important distinction between ancient babylonian astrology and other divination disciplines as being that the former was originally exclusively mundane being geographically oriented and specifically applied to countries cities and nations and almost wholly concerned with the welfare of the state and the king as the governing head of the nation planets and gods of the planets five were recognized Jupiter Venus Saturn Mercury and Mars to name them an order in which they appear in the older cuneiform literature in later texts mercury and Saturn change places these five planets were identified with the gods of the Babylonian Pantheon as follows Jupiter with Marduk Venus with the goddess Ishtar Saturn with Nenita mercury with Nabu and Mars with Nergal the movements of the Sun Moon and five planets were regarded as representing the activity of the five gods in question together with the moon god sin and the sun-god shamash in preparing the occurrences on earth if therefore one could correctly read and interpret the activity of these powers one knew what the gods were aiming to bring about the Babylonian priests accordingly applied themselves to the tasks of perfecting a system of interpretation of the phenomenon to be observed in the heavens and it was natural that the system was extended from the moon Sun and five planets to the more prominent and recognizable fixed stars Association of ideas involving sometimes merely of play upon words in connection with the phenomenon or phenomena observed thus if on a certain occasion the rise of the new moon in a cloudy sky was followed by victory over an enemy or by abundant rain the sign in question was thus proved to be a favorable one and its reoccurrence would henceforth be regarded as a good omen though the prognostication would not necessarily be limited to the one or the other of these occurrences but might be extended to apply to other circumstances on the other hand the appearance of the new moon earlier than was expected was regarded as on favor of prognosticating in one case defeat in another DEATH among cattle and a third bad crops none of this necessarily because the events took place after such a phenomenon but by an application of the general principle resting upon Association of ideas whereby anything premature would suggest an unfavorable occurrence in this way a mass of traditional interpretation of all kinds of observed phenomena was gathered and once gathered became a guide to the priests for all times however not all these ideas are still used in astrology as it is usually practiced today a lot of astronomy tablets survived because of Ashurbanipal cuneiform library Ashurbanipal was a king of Assyria who ruled in the 7th century BC from 668 to 625 he was famous for assembling a great library of cuneiform tablets in Nineveh about astrology history mythology and science some of us urban appalls astrologers such as romano sumasar and Nabu mu CC became so adept at deducing omens from daily movements of the planets that a system of making periodical reports to the king came into being the saucer ba Nepal received swift messengers detailing all occurrences in heaven and earth throughout his kingdom and the results of his astrologers examinations of them he then used this information as a political weapon and for the practical day-to-day running of his kingdom after his death Nineveh fell to the Medes and the Sheldon Babylonians and Oscar monopoles library was destroyed or dispersed how astronomical information was handled and manipulated is something you must deeply consider when we discuss our final topic of the notorious Nibiru from various Babylonian star catalogues the lepen and others we have numerous resources that mention Nibiru what exactly Nibiru is open to heated debate Babylonian astronomy collated earlier observations and divinations in two sets of Babylonian star catalogues during and after the kassite rule over Babylonia these star catalogues written in cuneiform script contained lists of constellations individual stars and planets the constellations were probably collected from various other sources the earliest catalogue three stars each mentioned stars of Akkad and Amuro or a LOM and others it must be noted that these several times Nibiru is mentioned from all sources like the moolah pen and astrolabe B star catalogues the Anoma elihss and others we are likely dealing with different authors and completely different intentions honorable or otherwise for writing the references of Nibiru we know these catalogues are referring to real astronomical phenomena such as constellations and planets various sources have theorized a Sumerian origin for these Babylonian constellations but an ala might origin has also been proposed a connection to these star symbology of Kassite kuduro border stones has also been claimed but whether such kudou ruse really represented constellations and astronomical information aside from the use of these symbols remains unclear the Babylonian star catalogues entered Greek astronomy in the 4th century BC via u Ducks s of Sanitas and others a few of the constellation names in use in modern astronomy can be traced to Babylonian sources by a Greek astronomy among the most ancient constellations are those that marked the four cardinal points of the year in the middle Bronze Age in other words Taurus the ball from Mogu Anna the steer of heaven marking vernal equinox leo the lion from mole or gula the lion marking summer solstice Scorpius the scorpion from mole gear table the scorpion marking autumn equinox Capricornus horned goat from mosul her mas the goat fish marking winter solstice it's a mythological hybrid depicted on boundary stones from before 2000 BC as a symbol of EA there are other constellation names which can be traced to Bronze Age Origins including Gemini the twins from Mamas Tom bought goggle the Great twins Cancer the crab from moola little the crayfish among others to pinpoint Nibiru like constellations is nearly impossible the Mesopotamian sources clearly and repeatedly referred to something called Nibiru the mention of Nibiru several times as an observed astronomical object is fact it's both referred to as a star and as a planet at various times outside astronomical texts Nibiru can mean several things place of crossing in the Gilgamesh epic we read the line straight is the crossing point Nibiru a gateway and narrow is the way that leads to it new Bureau is referring to an astronomical body that can be complicated superscripted d the cuneiform sign for God dingier and so Nibiru may refer to a God recall that Sumerians and Mesopotamians associated heavenly bodies with deities superscripted Mool the cuneiform sign for star and so Nibiru is a star Nibiru is preceded by both D and Mool and so is referred to as a deity and a star in the text that followed Nibiru was regarded as a planet specifically Jupiter but once as mercury a God specifically Marduk and a star distinguished from Jupiter scholars of cuneiform astronomy have not been able to determine with certainty what exactly Nibiru is there are critics skeptics and believers of the Planet X or planet of the crossing theory this planet of the crossing is a fair interpretation of the Mesopotamian data as muddled and confusing as it is it's not proof nor is it disproved that the critics based on Sumerian texts to ignore there are several authors of Nibiru observations and ignore the descent into astrology is misleading the earliest sources of Nibiru are likely the correct ones and like the astrology business for the rulers in later descending cultures there was less focus on astronomical fact and more on omens references to Nibiru as Jupiter are likely deceptive even in ancient times they could pinpoint Jupiter with advanced calculus in the old babylonian period they knew exactly what it was the only thing critics have done is proven that Nibiru is a planet of the crossing is a viable theory there's also the slight problem of the iris data the discovery of an infrared object possibly a brown dwarf in our nearby solar system now swept under the rug in addition the fact that they've discovered Planet X in 2016 but calling it planet 9 as a deliberate misleading trick the Royal science of astronomy was high and became convoluted with a focus on astrology originally the fixing of the zodiac constellations on the equator with the Taurus Scorpio axis never deviating over eons was revolutionary these Sumerians Acadians and Babylonians were are members of the ancient world they observed everything in the heavens most likely asteroids comets and rogue planets amongst the rest of the day to day astronomy our world would have never advanced without them [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]

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Keywords: sumerian, babylonian, astronomy, documentary, 4k

Id: IoqTTIJHMSs

Length: 37min 38sec (2258 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 18 2019