The Astrological Schemes Behind bīt niṣirtu and KI in the Babylonian Horoscopes

Abstract

The Babylonian horoscopes, edited by Rochberg in 1998, contain sets of astronomical and astrological data on dates of, or close to, individuals’ births. Each element of these short and concise texts reflects the astral divinatory practices and astronomical observation developed over the first millennium BC, as well as the latest innovations, including the zodiac as coordinate system and the occurrence of new astrological schemes partly based on it, which had previously remained obscure. In this paper, I present a new interpretation of the astrological terminology and the schemes that underly some of the data in the Babylonian horoscopes.