Babylonian Astrology

Mesopotamian tradition · ~2000–500 BC

The Mesopotamian origin of astrology: watching the sky as a signal of the cycles of the year.

Babylonian scribes recorded eclipses and planets for centuries; from those records came the zodiac that the Greeks later systematized.

Astrology was born as a calendar of the sky: it marked sowing, harvests and river floods. Only centuries later did it extend to individual readings.