Three Stars Each

Definition

Three Stars Each is the cuneiform-tradition-internal text-genre name for an Old Babylonian / Middle Babylonian apparatus that assigns three stars — one from each of the three celestial Paths of Enlil, Anu, and Ea — to each of the twelve schematic months of the ideal 360-day year. The oldest known exemplar dates to the twelfth century BCE. The genre is also called the "36 stars" system and is preserved on circular tablets earlier scholarship called "astrolabes" and on straightforward lists. Astrolabe B (VAT 9416 = KAV 218) is one specific Three-Stars-Each tablet; the genre is the most direct predecessor of MUL.APIN.

In Tradition

Hunger and Steele treat the Three Stars Each material as the documentary predecessor of MUL.APIN, with the three stars per month most naturally read as denoting the month of the star's heliacal rising. Rogers places the Three Stars Each tablets at the third developmental phase of Babylonian celestial science (after the seal-and-boundary-stone iconography and before MUL.APIN) and notes that the tablets contain the earliest written record of the rustic farming-calendar tradition with explicit calendrical use of heliacal risings.

In Practice

For the student of how Babylonian celestial science assembled its catalogue tradition, Three Stars Each is the named-cuneiform genre that the broader "astrolabe" scholarly umbrella covers as one apparatus. Hunger and Steele distinguish Three Stars Each from MUL.APIN on three technical grounds: (i) fewer stars per path (twelve vs MUL.APIN's larger sets), (ii) a different solstice-equinox convention (months III/VI/IX/XII rather than I/IV/VII/X), (iii) lower numerical precision. EAE Tablet 51 contains omens drawing on the Three Stars Each material (Reiner-Pingree 1981). Some copies add sections listing stars that rise and set simultaneously. Rogers reports that two closely similar Three-Stars-Each-class texts survive listing "12 stars of Elam, 12 stars of Akkad, and 12 stars of Amurru" — the three countries bordering Sumer — and that the canonical zodiacal constellations are poorly represented, suggesting a tradition separate from the later zodiacal pictographs. The principal modern study is Horowitz 2014.

Historical Origin

Earliest dated exemplars from approximately the twelfth century BCE; the genre is recensed and copied through the Neo-Assyrian period (Astrolabe B = VAT 9416 = KAV 218, copied during the reign of Ninurta-apil-Ekur, c. 1190-1178 BCE). Modern critical treatments: Hunger & Steele, *MUL.APIN* (2019), pp. 23-24; J. H. Rogers, "Origins of the ancient constellations: I. The Mesopotamian traditions," *Journal of the British Astronomical Association* 108/1 (1998), pp. 16-17; Horowitz, *Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography* (2014); Reiner & Pingree, *Babylonian Planetary Omens* (1981) on EAE Tablet 51.

Further Reading

• Hermann Hunger & John Steele, The Babylonian Astronomical Compendium MUL.APIN
• J. H. Rogers, Origins of the ancient constellations: I. The Mesopotamian traditions (JBAA 108/1, 1998)