The Origins Of Astrology

In the course of its almost five thousand-year history within the framework of European cultures, astrology developed just gradually into a comprehensive world view with divinatory intentions. It has its roots in the first known cultic reverence of the heavenly bodies. One preliminary stage of astrology is thus the astral cult. Some scholars of religion see in this reverence the very beginning of all subsequent religions on earth. This generalization may be somewhat exaggerated, but if we look at the first and oldest records of religious reverence of the stars, something seems to speak for this speculation after all: around 3000 BC, the Sumerian cuneiform, which was initially a pictographic script, was developed in the Mesopotamian region—around the area of present-day Iraq. Later, the pictographs were transformed into the so-called "line-form." Here the symbol for "God" is a star-shaped arrangement of lines. One could conclude from this that "God" and "star" have the same linguistic root in the Sumerian cuneiform. Later Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions reveal a connection between "God" and "star" or "constellation" as well. The oldest reliable record in which stars are provided with names is known to us, however, from around 1800 BC.

Certainly, with this Sumerian and ancient Babylonian identification of "God" and "star," we cannot yet speak of astrology, for the latter presupposes a mathematical calculation of the heavenly bodies as well. This astral mythology shows merely that there is a cultic reverence of the stars which shapes the world view of astrology in advance. If we search for a beginning from which time on the heavenly bodies were also observed and calculated, we find as the oldest piece of evidence a record of the Sumerian ruler Gadea of Lagash (ca. 2143-2124 BC), who describes how gods showed him in a dream which planet constellations were most favorable for the planned building of a temple. This presupposes that these planet constellations could also be observed. Thus we know that around 2100 BC the observation of the positions of the planets was already taken for granted. – Other reports refer to revelations that were granted to selected individuals in ancient Egypt. These indicate a time around 2500 BC in which astrology had its beginning.

The origins of astrology are therefore not only to be sought in the Mesopotamian region—the Babylonian-Sumerian culture. Ancient Egypt also lays claim to being astrology’s land of origin. In the Hellenistic era and late antiquity, astrologers were often called "Chaldeans" and "Babylonians," which suggests an origin in Mesopotamia. On the other hand, many Hellenistic authors were convinced that astrology had been transmitted to the Egyptians long before by the god Hermes Trismegistos. It is hardly to be determined today which tradition the original one is, or if the two run parallel to each other.