

图1机翻一下,照顾某些人

引源文章《UNDERSTANDING PLANETS INANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA》
Writing was invented by Sumerians ca 3200 BC. Cuneiform1 tabletsof Sumerian period give us very interesting material but unfortu-nately no astronomical or astrological texts. Though some textshave been thought to originate from former periods, they have beenonly found in later copies, making dating extremely difficult. Theoldest existing texts about stars, one astrological and one astro-nomical, both come from the Old Babylonian period. Analysis ofreligious texts has led some scientists to suppose Semitic or evenWest-Semitic origin for the concept connecting stars and earthlyphenomena, because Akkadians (the term is hereby used to denotelinguistically close Semitic peoples – Babylonians, Assyrians andtheir predecessors) take a much more personal approach to godsthan Sumerians. On the other hand, the Akkadian use of Sumeriannames of constellations, stars, and planets weighs against this theory;however, such names could issue from the period when Semiteshad not yet accustomed enough to using the Sumerian-inventedcuneiform script for their own language, so Sumerian was used forwriting. It is possible that some sumerograms concerning stars havenever been pronounced in Sumerian, but only in Akkadian. Lateron, the symbols remained in use because of their shortness: e.g.the Sumerian name for the Scales is RIN2, which corresponds toAkkadian Zi-ba-nh-tu(m), so it can be written as a Sumerogramwith one sign instead of four signs for Akkadian. As another mat-ter, the interpretation of such different names can be difficult, butin this case it seems that in both languages, in the first place scaleswere meant, as Sumerian GIŠRIN2 and Akkadian girinnu both meanprimarily the most ordinary scales. An epithet of the Scales con-stellation, “Star of justice of Šama” (Reiner 1995: 4) can be consid-ered indirect proof – scales are a symbol of justice. Also in Greece,Virgo – which lies besides Scales – was connected to Dike, goddessof justice.2 In any case, to talk about planet names, we have to startfrom the Babylonians, not Sumerians, though we have to considerthe influence of Sumerian language and writing.The term Akkadian is used as a common name for the relatedSemitic languages Babylonian and Assyrian which can also be con-sidered dialects of the Akkadian language. As most contemporaryscientists consider the cuneiform script to have originally been usedfor Sumerian language, and the Sumerian language has no typo-logical relatives whatsoever (despite several claims by pseudo-sci-












