I.NAM.GIŠ.ḪUR.AN.KI.A

Definition

I.NAM.GIŠ.ḪUR.AN.KI.A (also lowercase i.NAM.giš.ḫur.an.ki.a; literally a Sumerian-Akkadian title elaborating the "design" — giš.ḫur = uṣurtu — of the sky [an] and earth [ki]) is the Mesopotamian mystical-and-explanatory composition preserved on multiple cuneiform tablets and fully edited by Alasdair Livingstone in *Mystical and Mythological Explanatory Works of Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars* (Oxford, 1986), pp. 17-49. The composition is a learned scribal compendium combining Nippur Ekur-temple volume calculations with a lunar-visibility astronomical scheme that closely mirrors MUL.APIN II ii 43 – II iii 15.

In Tradition

Hunger and Pingree treat the text as a cosmological-theological composition whose second part transmits the same lunar-visibility data as MUL.APIN, copied by Nabû-zuqup-kēnu (c. -700). Brown reads the title as evidence of continuity between Old Babylonian "design" ideas (giš.ḫur / uṣurtu) and the latest mathematical-astronomical texts (MAATs). Hunger and Steele cite it as a parallel tradition preserving the MUL.APIN-style udazallû procedure.

In Practice

For the student of late Babylonian scribal scholarship, I.NAM.GIŠ.ḪUR.AN.KI.A is the locus classicus for the explanatory-compendium genre — a composition that comments on the structure of the celestial-and-terrestrial order rather than recording observations or parameters. Hunger and Pingree identify the astronomical second part with EAE Tablet 14 Table A, in which the first day of the month shows 3;45 UŠ of moon-visibility, the same parameter family used in MUL.APIN. The scribe Nabû-zuqup-kēnu transmits both the Nippur Ekur volume tradition and the MUL.APIN lunar-visibility scheme as parts of one mystical-explanatory text. Brown's reading takes the title (literally "the Design of Heaven and Earth") as evidence that late-period mathematical astronomy sits inside a deep Mesopotamian tradition concerned with cosmic design, not as an autonomous discipline. Hunger and Steele record that the composition preserves the MUL.APIN udazallû correction parameters 1,40 day / 50 month / 10 year. Principal modern study: Livingstone 1986.

Historical Origin

Earliest exemplar dates to -683; Livingstone's edition pushes the composition's formation back to the end of the second millennium BCE; the scribe Nabû-zuqup-kēnu is contemporary with Sargon II and Sennacherib (c. -700). Modern critical treatments: Hunger & Pingree, *Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia* (1999), pp. 101-102; Hunger & Steele, *MUL.APIN* (2019), pp. 337, 346; Brown, *Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology* (2000), Appendix 1 §35 p. 270; primary edition: Livingstone, *Mystical and Mythological Explanatory Works* (Oxford 1986), pp. 17-49.

Further Reading

• Hermann Hunger & David Pingree, Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia
• Hermann Hunger & John Steele, The Babylonian Astronomical Compendium MUL.APIN
• David Brown, Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology