Ziqpu Stars

Definition

The ziqpu stars are a standard Mesopotamian list of "culminating" fixed stars — the Akkadian word ziqpu means "peak" or "tip." They were chosen because they cross the meridian (the north-south line overhead) one after another through the night, and Babylonian astronomers, working before mathematical methods, used them to measure how much time passed between events in the sky. The stars are tabulated in MUL.APIN Tablet I iv 1-30, in the tablet TCL 6 14, and in the dedicated ziqpu collections BM 38369+ and AO 6478, together forming a catalogue of 24 or 25 stars around the northern sky.

In Tradition

Scholars treat the ziqpu list as a foundational pre-mathematical timekeeping tool of Babylonian astronomy. Hunger and Pingree describe ziqpu stars as one of the appearance-types used in the nativity omens of TCL 6 14, and trace this culmination-based way of reckoning time across the second and first millennia BCE. Rochberg places the ziqpu apparatus alongside MUL.APIN, the Three Stars Each / Astrolabe B catalogue, and Enūma Anu Enlil within one connected tradition of watching the stars.

In Practice

A Babylonian scholar timed an event in the sky — a lunar eclipse, a planetary configuration, a weather sign — by noting which ziqpu star sat on the meridian at that moment. The gap between two events was then read off as a stretch of the ziqpu sequence and stated in time-degrees (UŠ, where 1 UŠ equals 4 minutes, or 1° of the sky's rotation). This gave observers across Babylonia a shared, standardised time-scale long before mechanical clocks. The ziqpu list also did work in nativity omens (TCL 6 14), where the star culminating at a meaningful moment carried ominous weight. Modern scholars use the ziqpu apparatus to reconstruct the precise intervals recorded in the Astronomical Diaries.

Historical Origin

The ziqpu stars are attested in MUL.APIN I iv 1-30 (Neo-Assyrian canonical edition, c. 1000-700 BCE, with Old Babylonian precursors), in the dedicated ziqpu collections BM 38369+ and AO 6478 (Schaumberger 1952; Horowitz 1994), and in TCL 6 14, a nativity-omen text edited by Sachs in 1952. They are treated in Rochberg, *The Heavenly Writing* (2004); Hunger & Pingree, *Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia* (1999); and Hunger & Steele, *The Babylonian Astronomical Compendium MUL.APIN* (2019).

Further Reading

• Hermann Hunger & David Pingree, Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia
• Hermann Hunger & John Steele, The Babylonian Astronomical Compendium MUL.APIN
• Francesca Rochberg, The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture