Day selection calendar (Mesopotamia)

Tagewählkalender were in the Old Mesopotamia the basis for a qualitative determination of the days of the month and the year ( Tagewählerei or Hemerologie ). The days were rated as favorable or unfavorable and, in some cases, recommendations on behavior and predictions were given for individual days.

background

The oldest evidence of the day voting dates from the third millennium BC. Since around 1500 BC, it became very important. Documented Babylonian Almanac . In the further course of the day, the importance of the day election took off from the eleventh century BC. BC, such as the cuneiform texts from the library of Aššurbanipal in the seventh century BC. Show. It was also used in the Achaemenid and Seleucid empires .

In short treatises mostly only the favorable days ( sumerogram "U ₄ .MEŠ DÙG.GA.MEŠ") were named. The texts of the "seven wise men" from Nippur , Babylon , Eridu , Uruk , Ur , Larsa and Sippar are well known . Detailed versions such as the Babylonian Almanac divided the year into twelve months, each day of the month being assigned a special statement. For example, there were favorable days for court hearings or unfavorable days for audiences with the ruler. In addition, information was given on victim , abstinence and taboo days ( e.g. food). The calendars were also used to make predictions, for example about the course of an illness based on the day on which it occurred. Such weekday disease forecasts can also be found in the European Middle Ages.

See also

• Day Selection Calendar (Ancient Egypt)

literature

• Dietz-Otto Edzard among others: Reallexicon of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archeology . Volume 4: Ha-aa - Hystaspes. De Gruyter, Berlin 1975, ISBN 3-11-006772-2 , pp. 317-323.
• Nils P. Heeßel: Babylonian-Assyrian diagnostics (= Old Orient and Old Testament. Vol. 43). Ugarit-Verlag, Münster 2000, ISBN 3-927120-86-3 (At the same time: Heidelberg, University, dissertation, 1998/1999: The hand of the gods, the importance of diagnostics for Babylonian-Assyrian medicine. ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kocku von Stuckrad : History of Astrology , Munich 2003. P. 47.
2. ↑ Stuckrad, p. 47 f.
3. ↑ Dietz-Otto Edzard and a .: Real Lexicon of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archeology. Volume 4: Ha-aa - Hystaspes. 1975, p. 317.
4. ↑ Stuckrad, p. 48.
5. ↑ Christoph Weißer: Medieval weekday disease prognoses. A genre of lay astrological and mathematical prose. In: “gelêrter der arzeniê, ouch apotêker”. Contributions to the history of science. Festschrift for the 70th birthday of Willem F. Daems. Edited by Gundolf Keil , Horst Wellm Verlag, Pattensen / Hannover 1982 (= Würzburg medical-historical research, 24), ISBN 3-921456-35-5 , pp. 637-653.