mulŠUDUN

Definition

mulŠUDUN ("the Yoke"; Akkadian written mulŠU.PA in some manuscripts) is a Babylonian constellation-name listed in the MUL.APIN star-catalogue. Koch-Westenholz identifies it with Boötes (Appendix C), though some Appendix A scholarly contexts gloss the Yoke-star as Mars in astral-geographic readings. In MUL.APIN II Gap B 7 – II iv 6 the Yoke is the subject of a tight cluster of heliacal-rising omens whose protases bind its appearance, brightness, and orientation to predictions about the seasonal flood and the harvest.

In Tradition

Modern Assyriologists treat mulŠUDUN as a paradigmatic Babylonian celestial-meteorological-agricultural omen indicator. Hunger and Steele present its MUL.APIN omen-cluster as a flood-timing apparatus: a dim Yoke at heliacal rising signals a late flood, while a flaring Yoke signals an early flood and a prosperous harvest. Koch-Westenholz preserves the same star as a hermeneutic variable whose identification (Boötes vs Arcturus vs Mars) shifts by manuscript and scholarly tradition.

In Practice

For the student of Babylonian celestial divination, mulŠUDUN illustrates how a single fixed-star name could carry both a stable astral-geographic identification (a northern-sky constellation) and a flexible mantic role (a flood-and-harvest indicator). The MUL.APIN II Gap B 7 – II iv 6 omen-cluster, in Hunger-Steele, opens with paired protases: a dim Yoke at heliacal rising (ina È-šú) yields a late flood; a flaring Yoke yields an early flood; a very-low-and-dim Yoke yields no flood at all. The cluster culminates in II iv 5-6, the omen tied historically to the fall of Ibbi-Sin: "If the Yoke is turned towards Sunset … and no wind blows: there will be famine; dynasty (ending in) catastrophe." Koch-Westenholz Appendix A (p. 184) preserves Rašil-ili senior's Sargonid-court Report identifying the Yoke-star as Mars in an astral-geographic reading whose halo-with-Yoke-star apodosis predicts the death of the king of Elam. The polysemous identification (Boötes / Arcturus / Mars-substitute) is itself a feature of Babylonian stellar nomenclature.

Historical Origin

mulŠUDUN is attested in MUL.APIN (composition ca. 1000 BCE) at II Gap B 7 – II iv 6 (Hunger-Steele 2019, p. 264), in Koch-Westenholz Appendix B line 102 (mul šu.pa) and Appendix C as "The Yoke; Boötis," and in the Sargonid-era Rašil-ili Report (SAA 8 383, Koch-Westenholz Appendix A p. 184). Modern critical treatments: Hunger & Steele, *MUL.APIN* (2019); Koch-Westenholz, *Mesopotamian Astrology* (1995).

Further Reading

• Hermann Hunger & John Steele, The Babylonian Astronomical Compendium MUL.APIN
• Ulla Koch-Westenholz, Mesopotamian Astrology