In the astronomical tablets (of the 1st and 2nd cent. B.C.) translated by Epping and Strassmaier, the twelve constellations of the Babylonian Zodiac are constantly referred to. Their names appear under very abbreviated forms in the tablets, and are as follows:[22]—

Also in Epping and Strassmaier’s work, Astronomisches aus Babylon, under the heading Die Zeichen des Thierkreises, pp. 170, 171, and Namen der Sterne, pp. 174, 175, the twelve abbreviations met with in the tablets are discussed at some length.

From a study of the list here given and of the passages referred to, we learn that it has been found possible to suggest for some of the abbreviations suitable terminations, and in the completed words thus obtained, the familiar constellations of the Zodiac, as we know them, are easily to be recognized.

As regards other of the abbreviations, and amongst them that of Gu (Gu) for the eleventh sign (Amphora or Aquarius), no termination has been suggested; and of it Strassmaier thus writes:[23] p. 171:—“Gu ist sonst fast ausschliesslich nur als Silbenzeichen gu bekannt”; and Jensen, discussing Epping and Strassmaier’s constellation list, writes thus of the abbreviation Gu for the eleventh constellation:[24] “Ob Gu einen ‘Wassereimer,’ ‘Schöpfeimer,’ bezeichnen kann, weiss ich nicht. Die bisher veröffentlichten Texte geben keinen Aufschluss darüber.”

As a probable completion for the abbreviation Gu, the following suggestion is here put forward:—

In the ancient astrological tablets translated by Professor Sayce in his Paper, The Astronomy and Astrology of the Babylonians,[25] pp. 189, 190, “the star of Gula” is mentioned. The first syllable of this word is composed of the same cuneiform group as that used in the abbreviation for the eleventh constellation of the Zodiac in the astronomical tablets of the first and second centuries B.C. above referred to. But this fact, if it stood alone, would not be enough to do more than point to a possible identification of Gu in the late tablets with Gula in the ancient astrological works. Amongst the many constellations in the heavens the name of more than one might have begun with the syllable Gu.

We find, however, at a later page (206) of Professor Sayce’s Paper, this sentence translated from W.A.I., III. 57, 1:—

“Jupiter[26] in the star of Gula lingers.” None of the five planets known to the Babylonians could ever with truth have been described as appearing or “lingering” in any part of the heavens outside the band of the Zodiac stars. “The star (or constellation) of Gula,” we must therefore assume, was a Zodiacal star or constellation. This restriction of the position of the “star of Gula” renders it scarcely a rash conclusion to arrive at, that the Zodiacal Gu of the later tablets is an abbreviation for the Zodiacal Gula of the ancient astrological works.

As to a mythological reason for the choice of the goddess Gula to preside over the constellation known to us as Aquarius, we find it in the fact that Gula appears as another name for the goddess Bau[27] and Bau (or Bahu) was a personification of the dark water, or chaos.

If we adopt this identification of the star or constellation Gula with the constellation, or some star in the constellation, Aquarius, it will throw light on many of the inscriptions found on statues and other monuments at Telloh (the modern name of the mound which covers the ruins of the ancient city of Lagash),

We find from these inscriptions that the deities especially worshipped at Lagash were not the same as those who held the foremost places contemporaneously in the Accadian, and at a later time in the Babylonian Pantheon. Ningirsu and “his beloved consort,” the goddess Bau, received in Lagash the highest honours. On one of the statues of Gudea, “the priestly governor of Lagash,” this inscription occurs:[28]—

Ningirsu, the god—so highly exalted in this and in other inscriptions found in the mounds of Telloh—has been identified with the god Ninib[29] of the Babylonians. Much difference of opinion prevails as to what astronomical ideas were connected by the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia with the god Ninib.

Jensen admits that the generally received opinion as to Ninib is that he represents the “southern sun.”[30] He, however, contends, with great eagerness, that this is a mistaken opinion, and that Ninib is really the eastern or rising sun. Many of Jensen’s arguments against the possibility of Ninib representing the southern sun are based on the assumption that the epithet “southern,” applied to the sun, denotes the power of the mid-day sun; whereas, in other descriptions of Ninib, he appears as struggling with, though in the end triumphant over, storm, and cloud, and darkness.

The sun in his daily course attains the southern meridian at noon, and that may well be described by Jensen as the “alles verzehrenden und versengenden Süd- oder Mittagssonne,” but if we think of the sun in his annual course, the words “southern sun” may more fitly in an astronomical sense mean the struggling and finally triumphant sun of the winter solstice. And if we so understand the expression, the apparently contradictory references to Ninib are easily explained.

At mid-winter the sun rises and sets more to the south than at any other time of the year; at noon on the day of the winter solstice the sun is forty-seven degrees nearer to the south pole of the heavens than it is at the summer solstice.

If, instead of adopting Jensen’s contention, and looking upon Ninib as the eastern rising sun, we revert to the generally held opinion that Ninib was the god of the southern sun, and if we understand the southern sun in its astronomical sense as the winter, or more strictly speaking the mid-winter sun, it will naturally lead us to the conclusion that “the day of the beginning of the year,” the day of the festival of Bau, Ningirsu’s (= Ninib’s) “beloved consort,” was held at the time of the winter solstice.

Speaking in round numbers, from 4,000 to 2,000 B.C., the winter solstice took place when the sun was in conjunction with the constellation Aquarius, which constellation, or some one of its stars, was, as has been suggested, called by the Babylonian astronomers, Gula, Gula being another name for Bau.

It is not therefore surprising to find that those rulers of Lagash, whose dates fell between 4,000 and 2,000 B.C., should have so often associated together Ningirsu and Bau; and further, that Gudea, whose rule is placed at about 2,900 B.C., should on “the day of the beginning of the year” have kept high festival in honour of Bau, as the beneficent deity presiding in conjunction with Ningirsu over the revolving years.

The precession of the equinoxes must necessarily in the course of ages introduce confusion into all Zodiacal calendars, and into all ritual and mythological symbolism founded on such calendars. From 2,000 b.c. down to the beginning of our era, the winter solstice took place when the sun was in conjunction with Capricornus, not with Aquarius. In those later days, if the inhabitants of Lagash still celebrated their new year’s festival at the winter solstice, Bau (= Gula = Aquarius) could only have laid a traditional claim to preside over it.

In accordance with these astronomical facts, we learn from the teachings of the tablets that the especial reverence paid to Bau = Gula, in the Lagash inscriptions was not extended to her in later times.

As to Ninib, we know that even at Gudea’s date in the neighbouring state of Accad, and in later times in Babylon, he did not hold the pre-eminent position accorded to him by the early rulers of Lagash.

This difference in the religious observances of Accad and Lagash regarding Ninib—if we suppose him to be the god of the winter solstice—may also receive an astronomical explanation.

According to the evidence of The Standard Astrological Work, the compilation of which is generally attributed to the date 3,800 B.C., and according to the evidence of many other tablets, the year in Accad and afterwards in Babylon began not at the winter solstice, but on the 1st day of Nisan, and Nisan (Acc. Bar zig-gar), the month of “the sacrifice of righteousness,” was, as its name suggests, the month during which the sun was in conjunction with the constellation Aries.

At Gudea’s date, about 2,900 B.C., the 1st of Nisan, if it was dependent on the sun’s entry into Aries, must have fallen about midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, and as century succeeded century, the 1st of Nisan must slowly but surely have receded further from the solstice and have approached more and more to the equinoctial point.

In Accad, therefore, neither at Gudea’s nor at any later date, did the year begin at the winter solstice, and hence we can understand why in that state, and afterwards in Babylon, Ninib was not as highly honoured as in Lagash, and why he and his consort Bau (= Gula) were not referred to as the deities presiding over the beginning of the year.

In a former number of these Proceedings[31] I drew attention to the Accadian calendar. It was there suggested that the choice of the first degree of Aries as the initial point of the Zodiac was originally made when the winter solstice coincided with the sun’s entry into that constellation, i.e. about 6,000 B.C.

If that suggestion, and the present one concerning the new year’s festival in Lagash are accepted, it will be easy to imagine that the Lagash observance betokened a sort of effort to reform the sidereal calendar in use in Accad, and it may be elsewhere.

In Accad the calendar makers clung to the originally instituted star-mark for the year, and made it begin with the sun’s entry into Aries; therefore by degrees the beginning of their year moved away from the winter solstice, and in the first century B.C. coincided very closely with the spring equinox.

In Lagash, on the contrary, the calendar makers clung to the originally established season of the year, and made it begin at the winter solstice; therefore by degrees the beginning of their year moved away from the constellation Aries, and in Gudea’s time the new year’s festival was held in honour of the goddess Bau = Gula = Aquarius.