Three Paths of Anu, Enlil, and Ea

Definition

The Three Paths are a Babylonian way of dividing the visible sky into three parallel east-west bands, each given to one of the chief gods of Mesopotamia: the Path of Enlil in the north, the Path of Anu running through the centre (where the celestial equator lies), and the Path of Ea in the south. Each band holds a fixed roster of constellations and sky-events — 33 Stars of Enlil, 23 Stars of Anu, 15 Stars of Ea — and the planets are placed in the Path of Anu.

In Tradition

Scholars describe the Three Paths as the foundational scheme for locating stars in the sky in the era before the ecliptic-based zodiac arrived in the mid-first millennium BCE. Hunger-Steele, Hunger-Pingree, and Rochberg agree that the roster of the Three Paths is the main organising framework of MUL.APIN Tablet I, and the groundwork on which the later zodiac-based Path of the Moon, the ziqpu star-tradition, and the Astrolabe tradition were built.

In Practice

A Babylonian scribal-scholar used the Three Paths to sort every named constellation into its band of sky, with a running tally closing out each path. The Path of Anu in particular holds the planets — Venus (Dilibat), Mars (Ṣalbatānu), Saturn (Kajamānu), and Mercury (Šiḫṭu) — each described by the set phrase that it "keeps changing its position and crosses the sky." The water-clock tables for the length of the night are built on the same three-band structure, with the Path of Enlil (outer) values double those of the Path of Anu (middle), which are themselves double those of the Path of Ea (inner). The framework also fixes boundary measurements: the 20° arc from the East-point to the northern or southern edge of the Path of Anu matches the typical horizon-positions (KI.GUB) of Venus and the Sun. When the ecliptic-and-zodiac scheme arrived in the mid-first millennium BCE, it extended and supplemented this system rather than replacing it.

Historical Origin

The Three Paths are set down in MUL.APIN Tablet I, composed around the late 8th century BCE, with surviving copies spanning the 8th-1st centuries BCE. Second-millennium precursors appear in the Astrolabe B / Three Stars Each genre and in the Babylonian Hilprecht Text. The modern critical edition is Hunger and Steele 2019 (Routledge), superseding Hunger and Pingree 1989 (AfO Beiheft 24). The scheme is also discussed in Hunger and Pingree 1999 (*Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia*), Rochberg 2004 (*The Heavenly Writing*), and Koch-Westenholz 1995 (*Mesopotamian Astrology*).

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading