Author Archives: gavin664

ILLUSTRATION REFERENCES BSL-2. A few sources are still missing. All illustrations are redrawn by the author. The picture sources are as follows: Original – Gavin White. Loosely based on the ‘Babylonian Map of the World’ – see Horowitz 1998, pages … Continue reading →

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SOURCES Allen 1963. Star Names. Their Lore and Meaning. Dover. Alster 1976. On the Earliest Sumerian Literary Tradition. Journal for Cuneiform Studies 28. Annus 2002, The God Ninurta. Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. As-Sufi 1954. Uranometry or Suwaru’l-Kawakib. Osmania … Continue reading →

NOTES TO BSL-2 Paragraphs (§) are numbered from the start of each gazette section and where the text continues they are numbered from the top of the page. The boxed sections are referred to as ‘Name-boxes’ and are not included … Continue reading →

Mul-Apin is a composite text that can be thought of as a general compendium dealing with many diverse aspects of celestial divination.The first sections of tablet 1 list all the mainstream Babylonian constellations along with the deities associated with them. … Continue reading →

BABYLONIAN STAR-LORE An Illustrated Guide to the Stars & Constellations of Ancient Babylonia by Gavin White Today our most obvious link to the ancient cultures of Babylonia is through the twelve constellations that make up the zodiac. The zodiac is, … Continue reading →

     The following notes describe the essential meanings of the 50 or so mainstream constellations found in the Babylonian tradition. For more information on these and other less well-known stars and constellations the reader is referred to ‘Babylonian Star-lore, An … Continue reading →

Map 2 draws on a wide range of sources including the Greek Star-map, the Dendera Zodiacs and medieval Arabian traditions, to produce a complete reconstruction of the Babylonian heavens. This is, I believe, the first concerted attempt to reconstruct the … Continue reading →

The following illustration is a provisional reconstruction of the Babylonian star-map that only utilises Babylonian evidence. Most of the remaining gaps can only be filled by resorting to sources found outside of the ancient Near East – this additional material … Continue reading →

The ultimate aim of this site is to make a reconstruction of the Babylonian star-map, as it would have been known in the 1st millennium BCE. This particular time-frame has been chosen for the simple reason that the earliest copies … Continue reading →

Solaria Publications is a small independent publisher based in London, England. Our goal as a publisher is to make available a variety of titles that concentrate on ancient religion and spirituality. Our specific area of interest could be broadly defined … Continue reading →