In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture
  • Stephanie Dalley (bio)
The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture. By Francesca Rochberg. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xxvi+331. $70.

Francesca Rochberg comes from the Chicago school of Assyriology. She has held prestigious fellowships, edited an important group of cuneiform texts, and written a book on Babylonian horoscopes. The Heavenly Writing includes studies previously published along with new material derived from these studies. In seven chapters packed with a wealth of detail about astronomy, divination, and horoscopy, it aims to show that these three fields were connected in ancient Babylonia and Assyria.

As one expects from a scholar of such maturity, Rochberg engages with many broader aspects of the three fields. A recurrent theme is their relationship to the same fields in Greek texts, and their reception not only in Greece but also in India. The question of whether or not the Babylonians were capable of abstract and rational thought leads to a polemic against the work of Henri Frankfort in 1946 and its unquestioning acceptance by many historians of ancient science. Although this is not the first time that a scholar has pleaded for a paradigm shift, Rochberg shows that it is long overdue. Her categories are to some extent chosen subjectively, a problem at the root of some differences of opinion. In arguing for an essential divide between Babylonian and Greek thought, Rochberg investigates the relationship between deities and stars, and evaluates the purpose of metaphors. She maintains that metaphors in the late cuneiform texts are relics from an ancient literary tradition, an opinion which helps to further her belief that the Babylonians were capable of abstract thought.

In several places Rochberg discusses evidence for the dating of certain types of text, and for determining when stages of progress can be pinpointed. As she admits, this is a difficult task because the evidence appears only periodically. One change seems to be marked—from the palace as sponsor and patron of scholars to the temple—but this reviewer wondered whether this is genuinely a change, or only related to the difference between Assyrian and Babylonian traditions. The instruments used for observation and calculation are not mentioned; technological change is either not known, or not involved. Rochberg only briefly alludes to Old Babylonian and Hittite evidence, and the possibility of interpreting early iconography likewise; she essentially restricts her study to texts of the first millennium BCE.

The scope of activity undertaken by scribes whose names are attached to texts shows that a clear division cannot be made between them, that categories overlap. Linked to this is format and syntax, common to omen texts and certain types of astronomical texts. Rochberg briefly explores the meaning of secret knowledge, found in the colophons of a range of texts, by [End Page 409] balancing the opinions of different scholars. There is a long section on different types of terrestrial omens, some of them apparently derived from observation, others fanciful, perhaps relevant to the division between celestial observations and schematic grouping of phenomena unrelated to reality. This division between the factual and the schematic calls into question the motives for celestial observations, a question that Rochberg finds largely unanswerable. She investigates the degree to which fate was fixed by the result of divination, and how much it could be avoided by ritual action, and she deals briefly with ways in which the shape of the cosmos was envisaged.

Rochberg addresses interesting issues. The problem is that she presents them so incoherently, scattering information on any one issue randomly between different chapters, sometimes repeated and occasionally inconsistent. One wonders what readership is intended. The synodic month is first mentioned without explanation and only much later is there a clear definition. "Normal Stars" are mentioned several pages before the reader is told what the expression means. Rochberg too often makes assertions without supporting evidence. Some sentences are convoluted and unclear. This is a book to be mined for information, but it is not recommended for the reader who wants a coherent presentation.

Stephanie Dalley

Stephanie Dalley is Senior Research Fellow in Assyriology at the Oriental Institute, University of...

pdf

Share