Introduction

The text known as MUL.APIN was the most widely copied work in the astral sciences written in ancient Mesopotamia. It was composed sometime before the end of the eighth century bc, and copies of it have been found at many sites throughout Assyria and Babylonia, dating from the late Neo-Assyrian down to the Seleucid periods. MUL.APIN contains a concise and generally well-organized collection of astronomical material covering all of the main topics we know to have been the subject of Babylonian astronomical concern in the second and early first millennium bc. A full edition of the whole of MUL.APIN, accompanied by a short astronomical commentary, was finally published by Hunger and Pingree. The preserved copies of MUL.APIN divide the text into sections that are separated from one another by horizontal rulings. The schematic calendar is used extensively throughout MUL.APIN, in contrast to the true luni-solar calendar, which only appears in the context of intercalation rules.