NA / nanmurtu

Definition

NA (Sumerogram), read in Akkadian as nanmurtu ("first visibility, appearance"), is one of the synodic lunar time-intervals of the Lunar Six observational programme. In late Babylonian horoscopes and almanacs, NA designates the interval around full moon — usually on the 14th day of the month — between sunrise and moonset (the moonset-after-sunrise reading of Rochberg's General Glossary). It is one of the three intervals routinely recorded in Almanac and horoscope contexts as part of Sachs's "Lunar Three."

In Tradition

Rochberg's edition of the Babylonian Horoscopes glosses NA / na (for nanmurtu) as the sunrise-to-moonset time-interval around full moon. The interval is one of the data needed to compute the time of the sun-moon opposition — the empirical input for Babylonian conception-time and synodic-cycle computation. In the lunar-six framework, NA is one of two distinct intervals that share the logogram: the first-crescent NA (sunset-to-moonset on the first visibility night) and the full-moon NA (sunrise-to-moonset on the 14th), disambiguated by context.

In Practice

For the student of how Babylonian observational astronomy fed the horoscope tradition, NA / nanmurtu names a specific full-moon-region time-interval the scribe was expected to record. In Rochberg's horoscope edition the data is recorded as part of the lunar information for the year of birth: in Text 26 moonset after sunrise was recorded on the 13th, in Text 27 on the 14th. The interval enters Babylonian mathematical astronomy as part of the System A and System B lunar-theory parameter-set, where it is computed from the columns of the procedure-text (the sunrise-to-moonset NA at full moon being one of the elementary synodic time-intervals). Through nanmurtu the horoscope inherits, in compressed form, the observation discipline of the Astronomical Diaries: the same logogram NA names both the diary-recorded observation and the horoscope-recorded value.

Historical Origin

Attested across the Babylonian Horoscopes corpus (~410 BCE to ~50 BCE), in the Astronomical Diaries (from -652 onward), in the Normal Star Almanacs, and in the System A and System B lunar-theory procedure texts. Modern critical treatments: Rochberg, *Babylonian Horoscopes* (1998), Introduction §3 p. 11 and General Glossary p. 159 s.v. NA; Rochberg, *The Heavenly Writing* (2004), pp. 140-142.

Further Reading

• Francesca Rochberg, The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture
• Hermann Hunger & David Pingree, Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia