In the Path of the Moon: Babylonian Celestial Divination and Its Legacy (Ancient Magic and Divination, 6)

Abstract

An increasing historical interest in the interaction between the ancient Near East and the western Mediterranean, both in the classical and especially the Hellenistic worlds, has taken hold in the fields of both Classics and Assyriology. The current generation of Classicists and Assyriologists has established a dialogue, but there is much more to be done. The purpose of collecting this series of interrelated essays in Babylonian celestial divination, horoscopy and astronomy, is to make available a body of work which will be useful to readers with an interest in the intellectual cultures of Near Eastern and Mediterranean antiquity. These papers have been written over a long period of time, but their consistent involvement in one way or another with the question of Babylonian celestial sciences and their legacy in the Greco-Roman world argues for bringing them together in one place.