VAT 4956 Astronomical Observations (page 5)

AnnOMaly

jonathan, try http://www.caeno.org/_Feat/index.html for an overview. There's all sorts there. Although the author has some reservations about the chronology of the Nabonassar era (8th century BCE onward), many helpful resources have been provided and it's a good place to start, I think.

jonathan dough

Thanks, Ann. I'll do that.

VAT4956

Phizzy

Dear VAT4956, Welcome to the Forum, please try Firefox ro Chrome, I.E 9 does not work here, hence your blank post.

VAT4956

Thanks for the heads up, Phizzy. I'll post it one more time.

VAT4956

I see that it's usually only mensioned six or seven lunar thee measurements here on this forum. But it's actually recorded eight on VAT 4956. Can someone please explain why not all eight are taken into consideration??

mP

Daniel was a fraud, he didnt even spell Nebuchadnezzar's name right amongst other anacharisms.

AnnOMaly

Hi VAT4956 and welcome. On one of the 'lunar threes,' the day is missing and the time interval too damaged to use for dating purposes or analysis of time intervals. Adapted from my notes (sun/moon rise/set times from SkyViewCafé):

Reverse, Line 8'

sunrise to moonset: 17° [text:7]; I did not watch.

It's important to be aware that '17°' is a 'correction' based on Neugebauer's computation. The number sign, the first one on a rather worn edge says '7' as is noted in the transliteration. According to Prof. Hunger (private correspondence), it probably shouldn't have been corrected to '17' here, particularly since the observer says "I did not watch," thereby indicating a calculation.

As no date can be discerned for this 'na' or sunrise to moonset interval, there are two options:

On the morning of day 13 (Feb. 25, 567) before opposition,

Sunrise: 6.46
Moonset: 7.04
Time difference: 18 minutes or 4.5° - agreeing better with the text's '7'.

On the morning of day 14 (Feb. 26, 567) after opposition,

Sunrise: 6.44
Moonset: 7.40
Time difference: 56 minutes or 14° - agreeing better with Neugebauer's restoration of '17'.

Hope this helps :-)

AnnOMaly

Oh, and there were only 6 'lunar threes' in Stephenson and Willis' table because they accidently missed off Month III, Day 15 - "a genuine oversight" (private correspondence).

VAT4956

Thank you very much Ann! That helps alot.

I sent you a PM a couple of days ago. I have some other questions regarding VAT 4956. Can you help?

VAT 4956 Astronomical Observations

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