KI.GUB (horizon-position marker)

Definition

KI.GUB is the Sumerian logogram (Akkadian manzāzu) used in the BPO 3 Venus-omens as a horizon-position marker: the place on the horizon above which a celestial body rises (or sets) on a given night. Pingree refines the BPO 2 reading: KI.GUB is not the planet's generic position but the horizon-rising-point whose drift north or south traces the body's declination change. Hunger-Pingree document the same horizon-arc with measurable values — 2/3 bēru (20 UŠ) for Venus, and 2 bēru (60 UŠ) for the Sun at latitude 36°.

In Tradition

Reiner-Pingree and Hunger-Pingree treat KI.GUB as a horizon-rising-point marker distinct from the broader manzāzu "standing-place": where manzāzu names the planet's position at observation, KI.GUB names specifically the horizon-place above which the body emerges. This refinement explains why VAT 10218 §8 (omens 109-117) distributes KI.GUB by compass-quadrant and why the K.6021 commentary glosses "changes her position" with "she goes higher / goes lower" — the language of horizon-rising-point drift.

In Practice

For the reader of the Babylonian Venus-omen tradition, KI.GUB is the horizon-rising-point that the Group A and Group F protases turn on. VAT 10218 §8 (omens 109-117) is dedicated entirely to KI.GUB phenomena: "Venus stands in not her position," "Venus stands in the position of the Moon," position to the North, South, East, or West — the four variants pointing to the Path of Anu, Enlil, and Ea geography. K.6021 rev. 11′ glosses "changes her position" as "she goes higher, variant: goes lower" (more-northerly vs more-southerly rising-point). Color qualifications add an axis: steady KI.GUB (GI.NA) is favorable, a changing KI.GUB portends rebellion; green (SIG7), red (SA5), or "complete" KI.GUB each pair to a fixed apodosis. In Hunger-Pingree's late-Neo-Assyrian evidence for dividing the circle into 12 bēru / 360 UŠ, K 3601 reverse records Venus "ascends by 2/3 bēru" with "every day she goes higher by one UŠ" — preserving a pre-zodiacal reference frame tied to horizon observation.

Historical Origin

Attested in the BPO 3 Venus-omen corpus — VAT 10218 §8 (omens 109-117) and Groups A through F (K.35, K.3601, K.3632, ND 4362, K.6021) — on Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian tablets (c. 8th-5th c. BCE); the Hunger-Pingree K 3601 reverse and DT 47:20-26 supply the bēru / UŠ horizon-arc measurements at latitude 36°. Modern critical treatments: Reiner & Pingree, *BPO Part Three* (STYX 1998), Notes §10 pp. 18-19, Groups A-C pp. 51-128; Hunger & Pingree, *Astral Sciences* (Brill 1999), pp. 58-59.

Further Reading

• Erica Reiner & David Pingree, Babylonian Planetary Omens Part Three
• Hermann Hunger & David Pingree, Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia