Great Star List (GSL)

Definition

The Great Star List (GSL; Brown's sigla GSL = K250+) is a composite Babylonian star-catalogue and stellar-lexical compendium reconstructed from multiple manuscript witnesses and edited as Appendix B of Koch-Westenholz, *Mesopotamian Astrology* (1995), pp. 187-206. The List organises Babylonian star-names with orthographic variants, divine identifications, thematic and geographic-twelve-star groupings (Twelve Stars of Elam / Akkad / Amurru), seven-ziḫpu and seven-lumāšu groupings, lunar-side directional-geographic correspondences, and colour-star correspondences. It is distinct from MUL.APIN and represents a separate genre of Babylonian stellar-lexical apparatus.

In Tradition

Koch-Westenholz treats the Great Star List as the principal stellar-lexical compendium of Neo-Assyrian and Late Babylonian celestial scholarship — a thematic-and-philological reference apparatus separate from MUL.APIN's observational catalogue. Brown reads the GSL as supplying "some of the code of the EAE Paradigm," that is, the stellar-name vocabulary on which the canonical celestial-omen tradition depends, with the text functioning as Brown's key cross-reference for Standard-Babylonian (SB) star-name attestations not used in the Neo-Assyrian Sargonid correspondence.

In Practice

For the student of how Babylonian celestial scholarship organised its star-name vocabulary, the Great Star List is the principal philological apparatus. The List does not catalogue stars by heliacal-rising month (the MUL.APIN method) but by thematic and onomastic grouping: Nergal-Mars epithet clusters (red, fiery, evil, hostile, liar, wolf, fox), the twelve-star groupings of the three ancient countries bordering Sumer, the seven-ziḫpu and seven-lumāšu sets, and bidirectional moon-side correspondences (right = Akkad, left = Elam, top = Amurru, bottom = Subartu). Brown documents the GSL's value as a cross-reference layer for Standard-Babylonian planetary attestations: GSL line 168 attests the white-star = Mars / Ṣalbatānu identification, line 219 places Ṣalbatānu under the Amurru sub-grouping, line 284 names the moon "Kidney" on day 7. The List is preserved on the master tablet K250+; the canonical critical edition is Koch-Westenholz Appendix B (sigla A-I), supplementing Weidner's earlier *AfO* 13 and 68 editions. Treating the GSL as a stellar-lexical compendium rather than an observational catalogue permits Brown's synchronic-slice analysis across SB-NA periods.

Historical Origin

The GSL's composition date is uncertain — Brown notes that the text "may have been first composed during the period of interest, but this cannot be established as yet" (i.e. during the eighth-to-fifth-century BCE PCP-Paradigm interval). The master tablet K250+ is Neo-Assyrian; manuscript witnesses extend through the Late Babylonian period. Modern critical treatments: Koch-Westenholz, *Mesopotamian Astrology* (1995), Appendix B pp. 187-206; Brown, *Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology* (2000), Appendix 1 §29 pp. 69-70 n. 170.

Further Reading

• Ulla Koch-Westenholz, Mesopotamian Astrology
• David Brown, Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology